It’s an exceptional example of adroit, aggressive Internet-age politics: a set of “clean elections clocks” on Attorney General candidate Maura Healey’s website are tracking “Time since June 3, 2014, the day Maura Healey released her tax returns and Warren Tolman promised to release his taxes “in a couple weeks.”
and “On February 2, 2014, Warren Tolman was asked to publish his candidate questionnaires (written responses to organizations from which he is seeking an endorsement) on his website. Tolman has yet to do so.”
Healey’s responses to questionnaires are published here.
A third clock — “On May 29, 2014, Maura challenged Warren Tolman to join her in a clean elections pledge to ban outside, special interest spending on direct mail. On July 11th, Warren Tolman signed the agreement. We now have a ban on unlimited, special interest spending in the race for Massachusetts Attorney General” — has been stopped at 42 days since Tolman posted his agreement to Healey’s terms last Friday on BMG.
Transforming a candidate who started the race as one of the state politicians most closely associated with clean elections — and justly so! — into a foot-dragger who takes 42 days to respond to a straightforward People’s Pledge proposal and hasn’t yet followed up on a weeks-old promise to release his tax returns is an impressive piece of politics.
fenway49 says
Rather than address serious issues like those raised recently by Somerville Tom, the Healey campaign keeps going for these gimmicks. It’s unbecoming.
Bob Neer says
From a comment on the Friday thread:
Worthy subjects for discussion, all. I agree. But not mutually exclusive. People’s Pledges, releasing tax returns, and publishing responses to questionnaires, are not gimmicks but substantive. Tax returns, in particular, might be especially relevant for Tolman given this recent Globe article:
Those counters are politically powerful.
SomervilleTom says
I won’t vote for either one until they address at least some of the issues I’ve asked about.
When government authorities have carte blanch to search my computers, record my telephone conversations, track my every movement, and maintain databases of what I read, then I don’t care how “clean” the campaign of the the lap-cat who purrs when they approach is. I also don’t care one iota about the margin of victory or the political chops of the winner or loser.
We’ve had an AG for years who has either done nothing or, worse, has encouraged these things. I want the new AG to do something different.
So far, neither candidate has had anything at all to say about these.
Christopher says
…but the other night I asked about privacy and thought she gave a thorough answer that expressed genuine concern. So nothing gets lost in translation you may want to attend an event and ask her directly. Ditto for Tolman who I have also heard speak about it, but again can’t quote from memory.
SomervilleTom says
Thanks to a comment from gumby, I have updated my original post with answers to my question 2 from the candidates.
Warren Tolman: I would have investigated
Maura Healey: That’s why I’ve called for the creation — first time ever — of a child and youth protection division …
mike_cote says
this is such a pathetic high school like stunt, if I had previously supported her campaign, I would be embarrassed as hell. What is going to happen if and/or when she is in office and someone is polluting a river, a countdown clock to embarrass the polluters? Thanks but no thanks. Next!
annewhitefield says
I want an attorney general who is straight with the public about their assets, their “business dealings” and the issues.
Tolman has said that he would do these things, the Healey campaign didn’t. He has not lived up to those statements. I want an Attorney General who holds people accountable. That’s what Healey did with the clock.
jconway says
From a very sophomoric campaign-but it worked for Bush/Cheney 04′. Let’s hope Tolman starts responding with force and plays offense.
waldox says
Really?!!!? Healey has gone from having no public reputation whatsoever in the Fall to coming toe-to-toe with Tolman 49 to 51 percent at the state convention. This is Tolman, whose brother is the head of the AFL-CIO and has run for many a state-wide office before. I think her campaign has been about the smartest I’ve seen in this state in a while. And her numbers bear that out.
Re the clocks, IMV it’s pretty freaking brilliant. It’s a seemingly easy tactic — post a clock on a website — which is no doubt where the “stunts” conception comes in. But its brilliance lies in its simplicity. She is completely out-foxing him, he who has been running for office since 1991 (with some corporate law breaks in between).
But hey, Tolman, good luck with that force and offense. Maybe you can still pull it off. But she is really running circles around you at this point.
Christopher says
…in who can play the game rather than who can do the job. AG is a serious position and the race should reflect that. Plus I have no doubt she CAN do the job, but this isn’t the way to get there.
waldox says
I think she can do the job better than he can. I agree it’s a really serious position.
Why do I think she can do it better? In large part because she’s already been doing a lot of it right there in that office and doing it excellently. She is proven. I trust that.
jconway says
I don’t disagree with Bob. It is smart politics, and it’s exactly out of the Karl Rove playbook which took Kerry’s greatest strength (military service) and turned it into his greatest liability with the SWIFT boat ads. Similarly, rather than have a substantive debate about what Healey would do differently than Coakley, and what positive things she would contribute to the campaign, she has basically been a cipher benefiting from the animus she has created towards Tolman.
Let me be quite blunt since I am tired of playing nice with Healey supporters who are eager to tare Tolman to pieces at every turn-she hasn’t done s**t for clean elections in her entire career, while he got the bill passed in the State Senate, was willing to lose a governor’s race rather than betray that principle, and has continued to fight for it since he left office. It isn’t his fault Finneran derailed the enforcement of the Clean Elections Law, it may be Coakley’s fault, and to a lesser extent Healey’s, that the AG’s office hasn’t done anything on that front at all since Harshbarger left office.
I want to restore that Harshbarger tradition to the AG’s office, of a strong watch dog going after government corruption, business corruption, and keeping consumers protected. Harshbarger does too-which is why he endorsed Tolman.
And please, how many times do you have to mention his brother is AFL-CIO President? Steve also was a strong progressive Senator in his own right, whose office was always responsive when he was my Senator, and last I checked, our coalition depends on the ground troops of labor and it’s leaders-if you want to bash them you are running for the wrong party’s nomination.
bennett says
Tolman said he would do those things. Tolman didn’t do them. Pointing it out has nothing to do with a Karl Rove tactic. The very first time she runs- she makes a point of releasing everything that is asked of her. Tolman makes the claims and Tolman hasn’t.
Stop blaming her and her supporters for your candidates short comings. Tell them to get their act together. But hyperbole will not win this race for you. It just makes you look shrill.
fenway49 says
There’s a decidedly Connolly-esque vibe from many Healey supporters: “be wary, Tolman’s tight with Big Labor.”
This whole thing is just silly. Healey releases a bunch of documents then says, “your turn,” with an army of people ready to play “gotcha” with every last issue in the documents.
waldox says
I didn’t raise the connection with labor in order to convey a sense to be wary. I raised it in a retort calling her campaign being sophomoric and to suggest she’s been able to take on effectively a candidate who has a lot of connections to labor. I am not wary of labor at all, just acknowledging they can be powerful support.
tedf says
Tolman apparently brought this on himself. According to the Globe:
So Healey didn’t challenge Tolman to release his tax returns. Tolman said he would do it to avoid giving a bad quote to the Globe, and he hasn’t lived up to what he said he would do. This seems a very fair criticism to me.
judy-meredith says
Short basketball players learn how to move fast and dribble circles around the big guys and sometimes the big guys get dizzy and trip on their own long legs.
It will be interesting to see how Tolman gets untangled.
Trickle up says
it’s pretty deft.
Tolman, meanwhile, needs to stop walking into doors. This, like the People’s Pledge spat, was completely avoidable.
jconway says
I think he constantly finds himself in a defensive position and is letting the race get away from him, I do hope he can rebound in time. He may have to really go for the jugular, the irony is this is the same problem that hurt him in 2002. He ran a ‘clean’ race that wasn’t funded by dirty money and didn’t rely on negative attacks. It is long past time to fight fire with fire here.
Christopher says
I just heard Healey speak again last night. She clearly has a firm grasp of the issues and is more than prepared to be AG. Between this and the People’s Pledge spat she is taking the focus away from what could be a solid campaign between two stellar candidates either of whom would make us proud to have as AG. More substance and less process please, especially when you are well positioned to prevail on the substance.
judy-meredith says
Differences between the candidates. All Tolman has to do is make a substantive statement on why he has not revealed his income tax returns to date and why he has not filled out the questionnaires. Simple.
fenway49 says
Substantive is what you’re going to do on issues when you have the job. This strikes me as meant to throw mud against the wall and hope it sticks.
It smacks of a candidate betting on some exploitable molehill being in Tolman’s paperwork than by talking about the issues facing Massachusetts. That, to me, is the opposite of substantive and the opposite of deft. And I consider it particularly inappropriate in a Democratic primary.
bennett says
Talking in sound bites, “the NRA is afraid of me” and “I was the only candidate that ran on a clean elections platform” is not substantive. Showing the world what you are telling those whose endorsements you seek is substance. Not doing it is hiding. Not releasing your taxes, is hiding. Even Scott Brown did for heaven’s sake. I can say I am going to build a bridge to the moon if I am elected. But showing the world what I have done already is real substance. And attacking Healey because she is making being independent and honest and open an issue only proves the other guy isn’t.
fenway49 says
talks about what he’s done, as a legislator, and what he’s going to do on Day One as attorney general. Maura Healey talks plenty about how long it took Warren Tolman to sign her exact version of a campaign finance pledge and invents an position – totally irrelevant to the AG’s office in 2015 – on the casino ballot question out of whole cloth for political gain.
bennett says
Look at her detailed plans based on EXPERIENCE in the ATTORNEY GENERAL’s Office. Tolman doesn’t even know that some of his big issues aren’t even matters in the portfolio of the AG.
What Tolman does not do is talk about what he has been doing while Healey was in the AG’s office. He talks all about being a leader on Smart Guns, but I didn’t see him lift a finger to help with the current Gun legislation in the Legislature where all his buddies still sit. He just uses that issue to try to puff himself up. But he’s full of hot air. He didn’t do squat once he left office to lead on anything. Not smart guns, not women’s rights, not anything but how to line his own pockets based on his connections. Show me something he has led on? Show me something within the last 10 years… I am waiting.
Christopher says
…and yes I said the same for Romney as well. I really could not care less about Tolman’s tax returns or anyone else’s.
SomervilleTom says
When the SWAT team breaks down the door of some hapless immigrant — or one of us here — we’ll learn just how “substantive” these clocks are.
The NSA is harvesting and keeping every character typed on every post and comment here. Aaron MacFarlane is ready for his next assignment. There is every indication that the Probation Department defendants will walk, and the entire episode will have the effect of demonstrating that flagrant in-your-face patronage is perfectly ok. None of those clocks will do a blessed thing about any of that.
These stunts may well be effective political tricks, they’ve certainly been used successfully in the past. In my view, that is an indictment of ourselves and our Commonwealth.
If you want to know why so many of our young people are so disillusioned that they don’t even register, never mind vote, take another look at the thread-starter.
fenway49 says
that I’m particularly unimpressed by the tasteless move of leaving the outside spending clock up after Tolman signed the stupid pledge. He offered to sign a pledge, with some variations, immediately. He also gave perfectly valid reasons for not wanting to include direct mail in the pledge and finally decided not to waste any more time on her publicity stunt. It’s quite one-sided and, frankly, petty to keep a now-stopped “clock” up on her website. If Tolman were not above such nonsense he could just as easily post a “clock” relating to Healey’s failure to match his exact position on any number of actual issues facing the next Attorney General.
The entire Healey campaign, from where I sit, has been a series of cynical, opportunistic gimmicks and unjustified attacks on Warren Tolman’s character.
annewhitefield says
Seriously. His was all gimmick. Hers was real people who she really helped in the AG’s office speaking about her record there.
Tolman said he would do these things, release taxes and questionnaires. Then didn’t do it. He’s the one who is cynical. Doing that you say and not doing it is all on Tolman. And holding him to it is not “unjustified”. Don’t tell the public you will “after I talk to my wife” and then ignore the thing, hoping no one will notice. These are things people should notice. And I want an Attorney General who keeps people accountable.
fenway49 says
It was a three-minute convention video. They chose to have some fun with it.
SomervilleTom says
Seems like those are familiar attributes of the AG’s office — just ask Tim Murray.
It’s deja-vu all over again.
striker57 says
I went to both Tolman and Healey’s websites to see what they had to say about one of the key roles of the Attorney General’s office – wage and labor law enforcement.
Tolman’s site has an issues page that includes “Advocating for Working Families” and offers some specific ideas along with the general support on things like the minimum wage increase and earned sick time.
.
http://warrentolman.com/on-the-issues/
Healey’s website uses “Income Inequality” as its Issues heading:
http://www.maurahealey.com/issues/Economic-Inequality
While I can appreciate Healey’s overall statement it strikes me that the specifics she notes at the beginning (minimum wage increase -already done by the Legislature and the Gov; achieve a progressive tax structure – really? That’s within the scope of the AG’s constitutional duties to achieve?; support for unionization and collective bargaining – more than pleased to read that and having worked with Ms. Healey in the past, I know that to be a priority for her . . . .but I’m not sure how the AG weighs in on a union representation election in the private sector – that’s covered by federal law (NLRA). And when it comes to the public sector isn’t the AG’s job to represent the state in disputes?)
Outside of the Governor, the Attorney General can have the largest impact on Massachusetts working women and men’s lives. For me, Tolman provides more specific ideas for wage and labor law enforcement and that earns him my vote.
It’s not a cute clock or trendy sound bite. It’s nuts and bolts, on-the-ground work the AG should be doing everyday for workers. Let’s have the candidates debate how they will stand up for Massachusetts workers.
The disclaimer – My union and I both support Warren Tolman.