Tuesday night the Arlington DTC hosted a candidate event for a number of statewide candidates. Gov. candidates Kayyem, Berwick, and Grossman were there; LG candidates Cheung, Arena-DeRosa Kerrigan, and Lake; AG candidate Tolman; and Treasurer candidates Conroy and Finegold.
I’m happy to report that in general, we’ve got a very strong field of candidates — in some cases, ridiculously strong. Some of these folks have résumés that would be better than 90% of governors and Senators in the US. Be proud, Massachusetts Dems.
First, the strongest impressions and surprises:
- I was surprised that Steve Grossman made such a strong impression on me. For some reason it’s easy for me to imagine him as a dedicated but rather gray apparatchik; maybe that’s the nature of the office of Treasurer. But he speaks with a gravity and sincerity about children and the poor, about inequality; he name-drops Bob Drinan and talks of the “Re-emergence of the Progressives” (read this if you haven’t already). He has a specific program: Universal pre-K. Freeze tuition at public colleges. $11 minimum wage indexed to inflation. Stop building prisons; increase access to mental health services. Sick leave.
Grossman comes across as a humble, passionate, and thoughtful guy. If you’ve written him off, he’s worth a second or third look.
- Don Berwick (MD) makes a strong impression as an absolutely committed progressive in the technocrat vein, and as one of the country’s foremost health care improvement experts, he brings the most formidable policy-wonk chops to the table. He begins by speaking of a teenaged patient whom he cured of leukemia, only to lose years later to curable diabetes — due to poverty and lack of access to care. He is the only candidate for single-payer health care. He fielded a question from our own AmberPaw about how prison is one of the few places you can get a detox bed. “It’s a travesty”, Berwick answered. I asked him about how he’d deal with Partners market power if he were governor; he’s confident that those players will have to adjust to the new set of expectations for quality above quantity of care. “I’ve seen it happen.” (I’ll have audio or a transcript soon.)
- For LG, James Arena-DeRosa has a fascinating bio: Peace Corps administrator; Oxfam; Northeast Regional Administrator for the USDA, administering food stamps. As you’ve seen on these pixels, he recently secured the JP Progressives endorsement. He speaks passionately about hunger issues, supporting universal school breakfast, and a living wage. He comes across as a true economic-justice liberal.
- Treasurer candidates Tom Conroy and Barry Finegold both make a strong impression: Conroy for his resume; and Finegold for his outspoken views against expanded gaming (eg accepting credit cards for scratch tickets) and for fossil fuel divestment. I’m anti-casino but also detest the lottery as rather the same thing — “a tax on the poor”, as Finegold says.
As for the others, no duds. I like Juliette Kayyem a lot and think she’s pushed climate adaptation and Green Banks into the public discussion. She’s got a great resume, but seems to weight her stump speech (rushed as it necessarily was) a bit too much on her experience and less on her vision.
For the rest of the LG field: For a guy with political-operator mojo, Steve Kerrigan projects an easy-to-take, affable manner. He wants to chair a competitiveness council, and as a “Ted Kennedy liberal”, ride herd on wasteful spending so that we can direct money for progressive priorities. Leland Cheung has a focused vision for the rather-undefined role of LG — “making the innovation economy work for everyone” — easier said than done. Mike Lake makes the pitch that he’s a nice hardworking young fella who will talk up Massachusetts.
For AG, Warren Tolman was the only candidate there; Maura Healey couldn’t make it. Tolman talked about campus sexual assault, gun violence, and (I hope you’re sensing a pattern) expanded mental health treatment vs. incarceration. Mental health as a public safety issue, and adequate access to resources for those who desperately need it, should be a point of agreement among Democrats this year. We are well beyond the mindless and often-racist “get tough on crime” attitude of the Bernhard Goetz 1980s. Good riddance. There are a variety of ways to protect the public, and prevention is more humane and more effective. Public health = public safety.
No surprise about Grossman, I’ve always sensed that dedication, and it’s why choosing between him and Berwick is so difficult. On the issues-I think Berwick promises more and if we give the legislature a hard left mix it’ll stay relatively left after it gets through the sausage grinder on Beacon Hill. And his legislative team of Chang-Diaz and Eldridge show he is ready to play hardball on day 1.
I think Grossman’s signature bread and butter issues-and his passion about gun safety as well-show someone committed to a narrow but implementable vision. But a broader vision might be what is needed to ensure we get the change we deserve, and in many cases, have failed to get under Patrick’s tenure due to early missteps in his first term and a complete lack of cooperation from the legislature for his bolder second term.
Happily surprised to see Finegold take that approach, as I’ve been told he is the more centrist candidate of the race. He seems bad on ed reform, but that is an issue that won’t be at play for Treasurer. I am still undecided there and wish both candidates would reach out to BMG more. But glad to get your perspective on that important race.
For LG I committed to Lake early, but I like what I have heard so far about Arena-DeRosa. Hard to see how that diverse background necessarily equates itself well to LG without hearing what specific areas he can focus on though. Clearly a passionate guy with an interesting background and ideas though. I think Cheung and Lake have offered a more specific, but somewhat contrasting view of what the LG office can accomplish. Lake would continue the Murray legacy of reaching out to municipalities, and specifically focusing on Gateway cities and the parts of the state we have left behind. Cheung has more of an technocratic-innovation and techie approach to the state. That worked fine for him as a City Councilor in Cambridge, but might be too narrow a vision and priority for the entire state. Funny enough, people seem to think Kerrigan has this sowed up, but I’ve heard the least about him.
Glad to see you’re open to Tolman’s comprehensive and restorative approach to justice issues, and glad in general to see mainstream candidates like him and Grossman want to end the prison industrial complex and focus on rehabiliation rather than the road to recidivism we have in place now.
Thanks Charley.
the low-expectations perception will help Grossman over the next four months. When you see him you realize he’s more passionate and more liberal than so many people give him credit for.
Everyone’s jumping on the minimum wage and even the sick leave bandwagon now, but Grossman’s been publicly in favor of earned sick leave since at least 2006.
Charley is right about Steve Grossman. Every time I listen to him I get the same feeling of a grounded, committed progressive. I like the guy. Every time I see him speak I am reminded of why I like him.
The Arlington DTC forum was a tough format, because there were so many candidates at the event. Down ballot candidates got five minutes with no opportunity to take questions. The governor candidates had a few more minutes and took a couple of questions. Still, they were allowed to stay in their comfort zone, so no real surprises here.
I liked Berwick, but a little less than when he was all alone at an Arlington DTC meeting where he took extensive questions.
If I didn’t know better, I would have liked Finegold, but he is awful on education. He is the primary legislative sponsor and advocate for the charter school industry. Given the way the charter school industry has found every possible angle for getting to the front of the line for public funding, having the state treasurer in their pocket can’t be good.
I still don’t trust Kayyem, and won’t until she specifically lays out her view of charter school funding and accountability.
Best speaker of the night was Senator Ken Donnelly, who emphasized Arlington’s role as a powerhouse in Massachusetts Democratic politics. I guess that’s why we got such a good crowd of candidates.
Hadn’t realized that about Finegold. I have met him a couple of times & he just doesn’t “do it” for me. Hadn’t been aware of his position on charters. Thank you, Pablo.
So very much appreciate Charley’s coverage of Arlington. Thanks for bringing BMG to A-Town for one night!
But wait … there’s more from YourArlington.com. Yours truly wrote the main story and sidebar for YourArlington.
— Full coverage at this shortened URL: http://bit.ly/1lEtQ8s
— The wonderful notes of state Sen. Ken Donnelley (also referred to above, thank you!): http://bit.ly/1rK7Dpb
— Storify with all the gazillion tweets emanating from Arlington during the forum gathered on one webpage: http://bit.ly/1klvqrD
— Storify with the tweets of candidates from that day who did NOT make it to Arlington, just to see what they were doing instead: http://bit.ly/1iD2IXH
— Photos of the event by Glenn Koenig of Arlington: http://on.fb.me/1rK8zKd