Here’s the situation. We live in a state where, for better or worse, the agenda is controlled largely by the Speaker and the Senate President. In almost every case, legislation that actually makes it through both chambers is supported by both of those individuals, and passes by veto-proof margins. The Governor plays a role too, of course, but he cannot force the legislature to do something it doesn’t want to do (as Governor Patrick learned several times), and his options without legislative buy-in are limited.
The current Speaker, Bob DeLeo, would never be mistaken for a progressive. The incoming Senate President, Stan Rosenberg, is a different story. Rosenberg, with a couple of unfortunate blind spots (*cough*casinos*cough*), has taken a number of positions over the years that should look pretty good to a lot of people in these parts. Here’s one example:
Currently, Stan is the prime sponsor of legislation to change the Massachusetts Constitution to eliminate its prohibition against graduated tax rates and he is supporting An Act to Invest in Our Communities, which seeks to restore the income tax rate from 5.3 percent to 5.95 percent, while raising the personal exemption enough to hold down increases for middle-class families. The bill also seeks to raise the tax rate on wealthy investors, while providing a targeted exemption for middle-class seniors.
That’s the guy who, come January, will be running one of the chambers. Of course, nothing like that will get through Bob DeLeo’s House. But under House rules, DeLeo can only remain Speaker through 2016. What happens after that?
There are at least three possibilities. First, the House could change the rules so that DeLeo can remain Speaker. Second, the House could elect a DeLeo clone in 2017 to be the next Speaker. Third, the House could move in a more progressive direction.
Obviously, the third option is the most desirable. And so, it seems to me that the strategy for the next two years should be to make the other two options politically untenable.
Have at it.
that voters just repealed the indexing of the gas tax, one would have to be delusional to think that an income tax hike would not suffer the same fate.
Not if it was an income tax hike accompanied by a significant hike in the personal exemptions, so that individuals and families with incomes up to, say, $250K/$500K are not affected.
There aren’t that many voters left in this state with incomes above that.
That was Campaign for our Communities two years ago. A majority of the Legislature went a long with, then ran away when the muckymucks declared it was not to be permitted.
especially with the knee jerk, anti tax in every case crowd so politically active. I didn’t have a problem with an increase in the gas tax, it was due. What I did have a problem with was the automatic indexing feature. I want legislators, if they become convinced of the need for a tax increase, take the step to debate it and vote on it. Automating the increase just shields them from taking responsibility for an increase and making certain that the receipts are properly and efficiently being spent. Without the responsibility for voting on and owning a tax, where is the incentive to watch costs?
elect a more progressive house.
I’m not sure I follow David, but he seems to be saying we could stampede the House to the left by making a “DeLeo clone” untenable somehow.
But if a majority wants a DeLeo, it will elect one. If DeLeo himself becomes too hot to handle for some reason, and his lieutenants, then it will be someone else.
Electing progressive reps is a surer way to shift the leadership, and one that pays other dividends whoever the speaker is.
Easier said than done, but how do we do that?
Since under current rules there has to be a new Speaker after the 2016 election make THAT the defining issue of the next cycle. Even better would be if there is a current progressive in the House who doesn’t mind being in DeLeo’s doghouse for the next couple of years and is safe in his/her own seat who would be the progressive candidate for Speaker. Recruit a bunch of progressives to primary conservadems and basically run a statewide popular campaign for Speaker. This would be like in parliamentary systems where everyone knows that a vote for a certain local representative is essentially a proxy vote for Prime Minister, only it would be within the party.
We have to be boldly progressive and intelligently pragmatic.
1) Go to war with the army we have
This means a few things. As Bob Neer pointed out during the revenue fight, we have the numbers in the House already. 43 House members is nothing to sneeze at, that could make or break the Speakership. Being boldly progressive means holding those 43 representatives accountable and forcing them to die on the hill for our priorities. Being intelligently pragmatic means recognizing that the DeLeo speakership is not that hill. There is not enough time, not enough will power as of yet, and not enough public pressure to force DeLeo out before January 2015.
What we can do, is hold the line on Speaker term limits, and make damn well sure the next Speaker is someone more amenable to progressive causes. We have to find a way to talk to legislators now, and see who would be a strong progressive standard bearer that could gain the support of the majority of the caucus. We have to find out which cronies are lining up to be the next DeLeo in advance, and make sure the reps know who they are, why they are bad, and how to stop them.
Putting visible public pressure on those 43 reps, having all of us make phone calls and bombard their offices to make it damn well clear that we want those two priorities honored-will be the first step in ensuring the next Speaker is a better partner. With two legislative leaders that are boldly progressive, we can make sure that the last two years of the Baker administration prevent excessively conservative economic agendas from being implemented and bloc any retrenchment on our truly progressive advances in gay rights, women’s rights, and civil rights.
2) Go to war with the army we want
After holding the line and demanding accountability this session between 2014-2016, we will then know who our real friends are and who the enemies are. This means using 2016, a great presidential year that should have massive progressive base turnout in this state, to have a golden opportunity to dump the DINOs. Particularly by focusing on House races, which are cheaper, easier to win using grassroots foot soldiers, and frankly, where most of the DINOs currently are. We saw Carl Sciortino do this way back in 2004. We already saw Steve Ultrino do this in Malden. In a presidential year, we can see Chris Finn do this in Wakefield/Saugus. Identify the most vulnerable DINOs, recruit great progressive candidates to run against them, and use our feet to help them win.
Frankly, this is far more important to the future of progressive politics than helping Hillary in New Hampshire. If we can’t have single payer, public elections, progressive taxation, and progressive education in Massachusetts-we can forget about seeing them in America in our lifetimes.
3) Go to war for the Corner Office
Only after holding the line on the Speakership, and only after transforming our legislature should we begin the conversation about 2018. I think the progressive movement is great at coalescing around a single charismatic candidate, catching lightning in a bottle, and going to work to see them win. We saw it locally for Deval and Liz, and nationally for Obama. But, we then saw Deval and Obama fail to be the progressive champions they could’ve been due to their own lousy legislative skills and our failure to see the forest for the trees and give them legislatures they could work with.
After this Tuesday, the Democratic Party controls just seven statehouses in the entire country. We lost our supermajority in California and Connecticut and nearly lost it in IL.
This is a big fucking deal, if we do not turn it around by 2018 we will continue to see a gerrymandered House for the 2020 census, continue to see bluish and purple states eviscerate collective bargaining, and continue to see ALEC and the religious right use states as their policy playgrounds. Kansas could happen in blue states.
I want one of the many talented, young, boldly progressive people on our bench to be our next Governor. But they will be next to useless, if we do not have a statehouse willing to implement their policies. Give them the tools first, and then any candidate we nominate will have the means to becoming a great Governor.
Remember the deal between Tom Finneran?
The GOP caucus in now at (I think) 36 which may be a bigger factor as s bloc if what you say about PINO’s is accurate.
Teague did a good job for us and Brad may as well.
I find your idea of a progressive-moderate Republican alliance quite intriguing porcupine, and may have to steal it.
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I am near enough to Fattman to have been favorably impressed. What I do not know I whether the others are similar or are more like the RMG folks who want to recreate the national GOP right here in New England.
It sure would help the Commonwealth if the local GOP can right the ship a little.
Own values were not as inline with progressives as was assumed.
Why was this disapproved? I think it obvious that Obama and Patrick were not as progressive as many supporters assumed they were. It’s not just a matter of uncooperative legislators. Hardly worthy of disapproval.
Wanted to approve but trying to post from a Galaxy while RIDING in a car on 95 north. Hit pothole, hit wrong part of tiny screen, cannot undo.
In Maine now where LePage takes care of roads. Should be better.
Thanks.
Setting Obama aside, Gov. Patrick is far, far more liberal than the legislature. When he tried to take liberal positions, they humiliated him, and suffered exactly zero repercussions from the left.
We panic and scatter when we lose, the GOP regroups and organizes. They would rather lose an election than surrender their principles, so they are always ready to govern as conservatives when they win. There are lessons to be learned from studying what the opposition gets right.
Maybe I missed it. Lots of people here are much more involved in local politics than I am. I was hoping Patrick would push for a more progressive tax code and I never heard him really argue for that at all, but maybe he did and as you say was humiliated.
I don’t think anyone could argue Obama is not as progressive as his most ardent supporters claimed he was.
He didn’t differ all that much from Hillary. They’re centrist or moderate Dems. I never understood how anyone thought otherwise– he never concealed what he is.
And that’s the difference, in my view. Our legislature conceals what they are, with the cooperation of the liberals. And then they screw the liberals, every time. And the GOP, which is where they should be, is a marginal rump of cranks who can’t even call attention to shady dealings by the majority, must less stop them.
Patrick’s bill is here. The automatically-rising gas hike was the Leg alternative after they torpedoed the governor. Naturally, those legislators were out there fighting tooth and nail against Question 1, right? Oh, that got left entirely for the liberals? Funny, that.
Frankly I would include those making up to $246k in the exemption. But, thanks for the information.
…was and is ACT TO INVEST IN OUR COMMUNITIES. Same end result (more revenue, more progressive tax code) but without the confusion of eliminating certain exemptions.
Strategically/tactically, it could be argued that the Gov’s introduction of a whole new proposal, vs. going with ATI, muddled the whole effort.
Whatever the case, we had little coordination between the Legislature and the Executive, and the grassroots did what it could, but the negotiations played inside the building, the deals were struck, everyone agreed to save face with themselves and each other and no one was called out and “Hooray we raised money for transportation with the tech tax and gas tax” … It’s kinda all falling apart now, isn’t it?
blurg.
To give you a -1. Meant to give you +1. Sorry!
I went looking for something at the Progressive Mass blog, and found my testimony during the Act to Invest hearings. I forgot I did that! 🙂 There’s also a great Letter to Ed by my friend Stacie, talking about “political risk” in the context of revenue/taxes/investment.
For people’s reference: you can find the Progressive Mass scorecards for the last two sessions, here:
http://progressivemass.com/scorecard
Information about the “Our Communities”/Act to Invest campaign, which eventually included “The Governor’s Proposal” and the “Joint Ways and Means” and “Transportation Revenue” bill, can be found here:
http://progressivemass.com/ourcommunities
I am somewhat skeptical of the progressive tax code, not because I am in disagreement with the principle, but because it practice it lends itself to: here’s a new benefit for the many of us, to be paid for by the few of you.
The interesting thing about both of those proposals is that they increased the “progressiveness” of the tax system, without necessarily making it so easy to decide: well, we will just raise the tax on those brackets but not these brackets.
I would certainly be more amenable to a more traditional progressive tax code if the present dynamic on Beacon Hill, which I believe to foster corruption and patronage, changed.
It is a shame that both of these proposals were so quickly jettisoned.
A more progressive tax scheme leads itself to a new benefit to be paid by the few. At this point, low income earners in this state pay a significantly larger percentage of income than the highest one percent. Perhaps a more straight forward strategy of intimating equity in the system would be to tax capital gains as regular income or apply a small asset tax on asset holdings over a million.
That last would be an excise tax, and would be a tax on wealth rather than income, and I would be very much in support of that.
The fundamental problem is that it seems to me that all citizens should have a stake in making sure that their government is run effectively. That doesn’t just mean “We think Program X is fantastic.” It means “We think Program X is worth what we pay for it.” All government, even a libertarian utopia, has costs, and costs should be borne by everyone. I am not particularly comfortable with advocating that government should do XYZ, but you all, and not me, should pay for it.
I my view, the entire discussion of the “Bush Tax Cut” and its subsequent partial expiration, illustrates the problem. The cut was structured to alter the slope, so the proportionate burden was shifted. The expiration was handled just as cynically by the Democrats: the cuts on “the rich” (which didn’t cost much) were expired for “fiscal responsibility” reasons, while the cuts on the middle (which cost a huge amount) were maintained, fiscal responsibility notwithstanding. It is necessarily inherently divisive, even among those that accept the abstract principle.
Another issue is that, for a great many people my age, income and wealth do not correspond. We got to go to college and professional school AFTER the price of college went crazy, but BEFORE people thought low interest rates on student loans were a good idea, and bought our houses AFTER the real estate boom made them crazy expensive. Before long, I will be paying kid’s college tuition, before my own is even paid off. An awful lot of my cohort is “rich” for progressive income tax purposes, but will still be thrown for a loop by the coming giant utility price hikes.
At the same time, I do not disagree with the abstract principle, as phrased by RFK and posted here the other day. The practical implementation of the principle seems to be flawed in my view, though I do not have a notion of how to fix it.
Rather than a “confused noise” as Eeyore would say. A disciplined group of 43 legislators can work with Rosenberg to influence the House Speaker (they could have done the same with Governor Patrick if (a) he had been better at working with them, and (b) they had been more organized).
Is a really soft number. It’s the number of Reps who like to call themselves progressives when it suits them. The real number is a lot closer to 20 or below.
Outside groups need to start holding PINOs accountable.
We do not have a disciplined group of 43. How many of them voted against the Speaker’s revenue bill? Or any of the other bills on the scorecard? 5 or 10? We couldn’t even get an amendment to index the minimum wage on the floor for a vote; it would have failed.
If they didn’t buck him on those votes, I don’t see them bucking him on his speakership. Or that of, say, Rep. Dempsey. Even if they did, 43 is good but not great when the caucus is about 125. One could win a bare majority of the House without any votes from those 43.
I have some hope that Stan Rosenberg running the Senate will pull in one direction, but Charlie Baker in the Corner Office will pull in the other. If they meet in the middle, they meet at DeLeo, no?
So, yes, we need a stronger caucus. In numbers and in spine. And we can start by identifying the Chris Fallons – conservative Democrats in districts that would support a more liberal candidate – and tossing them out. As much as I don’t like to see Republicans win things, I wasn’t sorry to see Sen. Moore not become the number 2 guy in the Senate or whatever.
the week after the election.
But never in the months before the election. Then it is always “loyal Democrat” (as if that meant something) and “better to deal with Sen. Moore than to elect an icky Republican.” Of course, dealing with the Sen. Moores is a decades-long history of Lucy swiping the football.
You can’t mount a challenge of these guys from the left? Fine. Support a challenge from the right. Make the guy from the district that votes Republican BE a Republican. So what– your Democratic majority will have to contend with an actual challenge. You don’t think that this is a challenge that liberals can win, in Massachusetts?
If liberals don’t think that they can challenge conservative Republicans in Massachusetts and win, what makes you think there is any hope of challenging conservative Republicans that you allow to portray themselves as liberal Democrats every election cycle?
…of my pitch for David d’Arcangelo here on BMG.
Over the years I have come to think that we agree on many problems and just disagree on how to solve them. But propping up the Democratic supermajority is not one of them
I suspect that Fattman will give you a fairer hearing than Moore ever did.
You have helped build this problem by linking MA GOP’s to the national party in ways that are nonsensical at best and hypocritical at worst.
If they prove as bad as you say they will be one term wonders that a progressive can beat easily.
Let a thousand flowers bloom.
…of my pitch for David d’Arcangelo here on BMG..
.. lying to yourself. That way we can be spared being lied to also.
The crux of your pitch for David d’Arcangelo was that people on the left are as feckless as you are and similarly without either ethical or psychological rudder enough to be steered by anything other than naked self interest. Your pitch was nothing other than, “hey, let’s do some skullduggery — here’s how you can profit by it…”
So, yeah, no sale. duh.
In part because I have good representation. In part because my rep was exiled to Siberia when she bucked Finneran. In part because I think a strong Democratic majority still does more for Democratic principles than a weak Democratic majority.
There was talk at one of my local political MTA meetings about a ballot initiative that would force or encourage the legislature to change the way they elect their leadership. I can’t remember if it they wanted it by roll call vote or secret ballot or what. But it’s the leadership structure that’s the problem. The leadership has too much power. And I don’t think a progressive caucus or primaries is going to change that much. The risks of being shut out by the leadership are much worse than the costs of supporting them.
That is indeed the hammer.
Ballot initiatives don’t do it. Remember Clean Elections?
But simply recognize that this means that you pretty much support making a public-sector union busting, charter school promoting, anti-choice, anti-LGBT tax-cutter the most powerful political figure in the Commonwealth.
Not the Republicans. Not Ted Cruz. Not Charlie Baker or Howie Carr. Not the Koch brothers.
False dichotomy, I think. I couldn’t do anything about George W. Bush. Didn’t mean I supported him.
Ellen Story is my rep who was shut out of the process. She was unable to do anything for our district during Finneran’s time. Was that her fault? No. It was Finneran’s. As a backbencher, what could she do? Sentence her career to irrelevance? It wouldn’t have helped my town.
I’m not opposed to people trying. Just don’t believe it’s going to work. I’ve been wrong before.
Ballot initiatives don’t do it? Like to see a better argument for it. Clean elections cost money. An initiative is free.
We can do both, Primary the moderate dems who don’t support reform, but at the same time work within the current system to make change.
I do worry that when we focus on our individual towns, we lose sight of the big picture of the state as a whole. I agree that is is wrong that reps town’s can be penalized because they oppose leadership. That needs to change.
There also needs to be a balance between opposing leadership when it comes to reform, but still finding common ground and working together. We should attack the policies, not the people, and keep things civil. We should burn bridges for the sake of burning bridges.
Leadership can dangle carrots–and take them away– and it can wield sticks.
Committee chairmanships, and the perks of salary and staff they provide (or so it sounds), are the carrots.
Punishing municipalities in the district are the real sticks. I’m not going to boo hoo over Rep. X losing her/his chairmanship, because it’s not evident to me at all that having nominal progressives on powerful committees has yielded anything other than what the Speaker would have wanted.
We had good progressives on the relevant revenue committees, but we ended up without a vote on Act to Invest and the shit sandwich of the Transportation bill. What good did it do us? Not much.
We had good progressives on the labor committee, but the House min wage bill was low and didn’t have indexing. What good did it do us? We raised the minimum wage –in an election year — after SEVEN years of inaction? Dude, that’s the LEAST we could do.
So I have no tears for the argument about access to the levers of power in chairmanships/committees. And obviously, no sympathy for the pay loss, tho I understand how it’s a disincentive.
But when the Speaker can gum up the little things that municipalities need to function properly, there’s the teeth. Max is right; we need to talk about how to take those little big punishments off the table.
Chairmanships should also be elected directly by the members rather than appointed by the Speaker. The chairmen will of course get good office space, but the rest should be either lottery or seniority. All legislation, not just the Speaker’s favorites, should be acted upon by committee, and if reported favorably, by the whole House.
The two are not the same.
I think that instead committees should elect there own chairman. In additon Committee Assignments should be determined by a committee on committees determined by secret ballot, or ideally (but unlikely) STV voting. Lottery would make a mess, and seniority causes it’s own problems. Nebraska uses has a committee on committees by secret ballot, and it seems to work well.
in the Massachusetts Legislature: the House and Senate Ways and Means committees. And the chairs of those committees take their orders from the speaker and Senate president respectively. So, it doesn’t really seem to matter who the chairs are of all the other committees. Every bill of any import has to pass muster with four people: Dempsey, Brewer, DeLeo, and Murray.
ANY bill submitted needs to go through the whole process and ultimately subject to votes in committee, and if reported out favorably, the whole chamber. The chairs and presiding officers should absolutely NOT be empowered to decide which bills do and do not get heard.
Why not Bill Weld to the Senate instead of Kerry? It was a GOP majority, and he would have been a healthy dose of moderation to a party that sorely needed a moderate voice.
Answer: because he is a vote for Majority Leader Trent Lott.
I was resistant to that logic, but it is essentially correct.
But why is Beacon Hill different than Capitol Hill? I wasn’t talking about Finneran, I was describing DeLeo! A vote for a Democrat to the House, for the unfortunate reasons described here, a vote for that guy. And that is the guy that calls all of the shots. Why is that one different than Weld ’96, or Brown ’10?
That’s the general election argument anyway, but also why I am suggesting we make the next round of PRIMARIES a referendum on the Speakership.
How can THIS possibly be “better than Republicans in most cases”?
That was a House dominated by Democrats, and they did, in the dark of night, something that in other states required a Republican “tea party” majority, nearly provoked riots in Wisconsin, provoked a recall initiative, and has been at the core of three consecutive hard-fought elections. But here, the same thing provokes a mildly disappointed blog post on http://www.progressivemass.com, earns an endorsement by the AFL-CIO, and is not mentioned in the campaign at all.
In Wisconsin, they fought tea party Republicans valiantly, and lost so far, but will doubtless fight again. Here, it seems like there was an abject surrender to tea party Republicans, even though there are no Tea Party Republicans here to surrender to. Most of the Republicans that actually manage to get elected anything in Massachusetts wouldn’t dare even advocate such a thing themselves, even if they wanted to, for fear of being trounced as tea party extremists, never mind actually forcing it through by midnight vote.
My entire day of hours not billed has been an effort to get an answer to how THAT is still “better than Republicans in most cases.” And the answer I have that is most convincing comes from fenway, and is based on the personal relationships that develop over years of service and activism.
But, from the outside, the dog’s breakfast of a governor’s race we just had, and the issue-free legislative races just run, even though you have a legislative majority that (i) whacked the public sector unions; (ii) brought corporate casinos to the Commonwealth; and (iii) uses taxpayer money for patronage, while letting essential government services and infrastructure investment rot, rather strongly suggest that the status quo ain’t working much at all.
I shudder to think of the legislative agenda of an actual GOP-driven legislature, especially given how state GOPers have behaved elsewhere.
To me, that sounds a bit like thanking the guy who stole your wallet, and inviting him back to steal it again, and considering him your friend and benefactor, because the other guy might steal your wallet and beat you up as well. Better to run a right-wing “lite” agenda, and pretend it is something else, than to risk the real thing.
What seems odd to me is, having lived in places where there are strong right-wing constituencies, that the fear is so strong that Massachusetts isn’t really culturally different from Texas at all. So it is really just a pre-emptive surrender, even though no one is there demanding surrender.
Maybe it comes back to what jconway said the other day. My whole point here is that I would very much prefer that the Mass Democratic Party would be smaller and more liberal, and that the MA GOP would be larger and less crazy– even if that means that control of the legislature switches from time to time. My thought was, and is, that actual political debate, at the legislative level, would be far better than the pure BS and secret Republicanism we have now. But it doesn’t seem that any other Democrats are willing to do that, even in places where Republicans actually exist and have their own anti-Democratic agenda.
Gore pretended that the most popular Democrat in the country, and the only Democrat to be re-elected since FDR, was either actually a Republican, or didn’t exist. Democrats in the Congress just ran away from their own achievements and accomplishments, and gave the GOP their largest majority in 60 years. You guys posted a Daily Show clip and everything.
Just visit Mississippi…..
Is that there if there should be a lefty legislature that is as lefty as Mississippi’s is crazy-it should be ours. For every red statehouse pushing personhood there should be a blue statehouse pushing single payer and basic income. Ours ain’t it-and we can’t exclusively blame the 36 Republicans in the General Court for that, time to look in the mirror and see the DINOs lurking in the shadows.
Why we can not lead the nation in health care reform with a Democratic leader is baffling, especially when we did so with a Republican.
But how do progressives benefit from having Dan Winslow in the senate? He’s an honorable guy. Relatively moderate. How does having him help the progressive cause? I don’t think it does.
Maybe I’m wrong in saying so, but CMD, you’re a moderate. I don’t mean that as a slur, but are you indirectly arguing for a more moderate legislature?
The only way it helps is on the reform front. It does not help much when it comes to the issues.
I think some are arguing that by trimming down the “DINOs” from the democratic caucus, you push it to the left. As long as the Caucus has 51% of the house, it will increase the likelihood more progressive leadership.
This runs into a problem if Republicans have enough members to uphold a veto by a Republican Governor. Democrats likely will be more united against a Republican veto, regardless of whether they are conservative or progressive-.
Lack of reform is a reason why voters are reluctant to entrust government with greater power to do good things.
But more moderate because the two sides are represented by two sides rather than one side!
I actually think that this would produce a far more liberal legislature than what you have now.
I don’t see how a Dan Winslow could be worse for “progressives” than dropping liberal values like a hot rock and letting a Democrat screw over a union, and then having the union thank him for the privilege of having been so screwed.
In fact, I think the union might object to being screwed by Dan Winslow, and we might actually have important political issues decided publicly in view of the electorate rather than in secret and out of view.
I do support a challenge before the election. I wasn’t about to lift a finger for Sen. Moore and my first comment after the election was that I’m not particularly sorry he’s gone.
But to me the biggest issue isn’t the Senator Moores of the world, although they’re an issue. The bigger issue is the people in the Progressive Caucus with the exact same voting record as Chris Fallon or Bob DeLeo. These people say there’s no point in voting against the Speaker if they don’t have the votes to accomplish anything. They don’t want their desks moved to the hall like Ed Markey or the poor guy in Office Space.
And they’re doing good work in committees and with amendments, etc. And they’re very popular in their home communities, and friends with all the local activists. They would be hard to dislodge even if we wanted to. We need to create the environment where they can vote for things and not feel left out to dry. I do think that means changing the caucus, and perhaps with it the Speaker.
Conservadem in liberal district? Primary like Steve Ultrino was going to do with Chris Fallon. It worked. Conservadem in conservative district? Let the damn Republican win. I’m not going to campaign for a Republican out in Worcester County, but I don’t much mind if they win. We can still afford to lose seats. My ideal Dem caucus is smaller than 80%, but still sizeable and more to the left. Then maybe we’ll find out what the people in the Progressive Caucus who vote with DeLeo on these big bills are all about. Then maybe we’ll get a different Speaker.
I think we have to have a real four year plan for turning our blue lefiskature actually bright blue. I think that is a far more valuable use of time, money, and resources than keeping Landreiu in charge or helping Hillary in NH. We have to live and die locally. If we want Beacon Hill to be a shining city of progressive purpose that can show the nation how to govern we have to go all out. It’s been done before. Tip flipped control in the 48′ election after decades of Republican rule and Barney and Eddie cut their teeth by joining liberal Republicans to do end runs around the very conservative 70s leadership. Let’s make that a priority.
That’s just the point– liberals won’t lift a finger to support a Moore, but you surely give them the cover they need to stay entrenched.
Moore’s campaign was: In Washington, the party controlling the Congress has made an industry of being the “party of no.” Senator Moore could never be described as “do nothing.” Why would we entrust our district to another “tea party” candidate bent on wrecking the government?
The entire Democratic campaign, from start to finish, is to link every single Republican to Ted Cruz and the crazies. This is patent bullshit– something untrue, known to be untrue, and said anyway with the intention of deceiving. Worse, it is heroin– it harms the Democrats more than it helps.
The liberals won’t lift a finger to help Moore, but would never, not ever, lift a finger to pull the bullshit cover away: Umm, first of all Fattman isn’t a crazy extremist. And, um, Moore is.
Liberals will always, always give political cover to these guys, because at crunch time, it is always more important to be “on the team,” without regard to anything else.
The best thing in the world for any number of reasons, would be for as many of these districts to turn Republican as possible. Even if that means–gasp!– a few years of Republican majority. In short order you would have a small, moderate-liberal majority in the leg, with a vibrant GOP opposition keeping them honest and on their toes.
And so, absent an exceptional challenger like Fattman, these guys sail comfortably along, and are then able to move your favorites’ office directly to the leaky basement if they do not do what they are told, when they are told to do it.
I have been hearing people talk about increasing the power of the liberal caucus within the existing Democratic majority since Dukakis was governor. I guess wait till next year.
It was really dumb to link Baker to Bachman. It was even dumber to focus on social issues when he is a reliable social progressive. He is absolutely terrible on many economic questions, but we can’t link him to a national party that would never nominate him in almost any other state. It’s intellectually lazy and treats the voters like idiots. They aren’t.
They pegged him as a Weld guy and a check on the Moores and the DeLeos of the world. CMD from the center, Meerimack from the right, and SomervilleTom from the left-all demonstrate that intelligent and sensible adults are sick and tired of the way business is done on Beacon Hill. These voters may be outliers on BMG but they are not out in the real world. And the way to cut the GOP narrative that the Democrats are corrupt, waste money, and run the government poorly is to stop electing Democrats that are corrupt, waste money, and run the government poorly. Starting at the top with Bobby DeLeo and working our way down to every corner of the state house and every school board and city council. This was the progressive revolution Deval promised and never delivered. It’s time we recognize the failure, look in the mirror and realize we enabled it, and start building a new Democratic party that will actually serve the people and not the insiders.
But it is really the leg elections that count. The governor of Massachusetts is no big deal, and can’t so much as have a pee break without a by-your-leave from the Speaker and Senate President.
That why, honestly, it ain’t no thang that Baker won. Baker does nothing without the approval of the Speaker and Sen. Pres. That’s why these third party candidates are so useless: even if they won, it wouldn’t do a damn thing.
To hell with the governor; he is barely relevant. The problems in Massachusetts are entirely contained within the structure of the Great and General Court.
I would accept almost any change to tax policy, social policy, any policy, if I could trade it for serious structural reform of the legislature, which is at present fundamentally corrupt.
And, for that problem, the “liberal” Democratic majority isn’t so much an avenue to reform as it is an obstacle to reform. And I don’t see a way to reform except by breaking its power, at least as presently constituted.
For many years I have been an independent who tends to lean Democratic, and voted Democratic in most instances, especially for the last 20 years. At one point here, I was furiously denounced as a “process liberal” and I think that is an apt description of me as any. I believe that if the process can be structured so that it is not rigged, and is not corrupt, and so that it allows the representation of the polity, that things will work themselves out.
In local politics, I am now no longer so sure of how I lean: any party that can (i) push corporate casinos as an answer to anything; (ii) run the legislative election just run; and (iii) push AG Coakley for governor as a “liberal” is just a party that I do not see as holding any promise at all for any kind of reform, ever. Instead, it seems to be entirely reactionary, dedicated to patronage, and, thanks to the casino gambling, soon to be heavily influenced by Gaming money and the organized crime that will inevitably follow in its wake.
I don’t think that I have ever been as thoroughly disillusioned by local politics as I am after this campaign. 10 minutes at RMG shows that our local GOP can barely manage to grunt rhythmically without self-destructing, and offers no hope of reform in the foreseeable future. Democrats as presently structured have zero interest in reform, and indeed often don’t even acknowledge a problem. Both of these parties just nominated candidates for whom I could not vote because they were too far to the right, and I am a frigging moderate. I had better candidates to vote for when I lived in Texas, for goodness sake. And so I am left voting for some shmuck who has lovely ideas and seems like a nice enough fellow but considered his 3 frigging percent of the vote as a great victory, and am left with little but the forlorn hope that maybe that his 3% might actually accomplish something.
That’s really damn depressing, because I know it isn’t going to happen. And I know that Speaker DeLeo will be re-elected, and will be extended beyond 2016. And I know that within a few years, the Commonwealth will be giving tax breaks to the casinos to “save” all of those $9 per hour jobs, and that whatever taxes are collected will be underpaid, thanks to some generous gifts spread around the statehouse and DOR by a new crowd of “legitimate businessmen.” And I know that all of this sleaze and graft will be unmentioned in our local politics, which will be far more interested in preserving its hard-earned reputation of being a “blue” state.
Painful truths, well articulated.
doesn’t he?
It has seemed to me that Fattman is pretty ideologically extreme, as in:
voting against the minimum wage increase, when 6 GOP reps did vote for it, including Torch-and-Pitchfork Caucus head Shaunna O’Connell, and
sponsoring a bill to eliminate the estate tax (aka, death tax), which affects only the richest 1000 or so estates a year and would cost the state $200 million in revenue.
Sounds like his Senate campaign was not about highlighting those parts of his record – is that right?
Like I said in the other comment, in the big picture I think liberals are better off without Moore. But it’s easy to see why people would rally to a Moore when:
(a) you’re looking at Moore vs. Fattman as candidates and Moore, for all his flaws from the liberal perspective, is in fact closer to you; and
(b) you’re a member and officer of the Democratic Party with at least some sense that your party is important. Democratic activists can be kicked off their committees for actively campaigning for a Republican against a Democratic nominee.
Looks like Lowell and Quincy will need entirely new Democratic committees then.
it’s possible. State party bylaws say a member of the state committee can be tossed for:
Virtually all DTC bylaws have the same provision.
But you need a written complaint, a chance to reply, yada yada yada.
I call this the “Mark Fairchild 1986” provision.
I call this the “Ray Flynn” provision.
…but you have to be voted out I believe by a supermajority of said committee for such transgressions, so if a lot of people are forgiving then nothing will happen. They CAN technically be ousted by popular election as they appear every four years on the Presidential primary ballot, so if a bunch of progressives in the community want to challenge the establishment they can do it. It only takes ten signatures I think to get on the ballot as a candidate for your ward or town committee. For the record Lowell wouldn’t need an ENTIRELY new committee – yours truly is on it and there are others who are loyal.:)
I am utterly serious. No reason this Democrat shouldn’t have a challenger.
You have an MA in Political Management from GWU, you seem like an amiable sort with progressive ideas on most important issues, where we do disagree it’s not on anything I’d consider a litmus test (the papacy and weed and maybe NAFTA? What else really?) . You got elected on your city committee, you go to the convention every year, and you know a lot of activists on and off this site.
I am utterly serious about this. I have experience writing speeches, doing debate prep, and writing political articles, not just here, and will do it for free. I got a few friends in the DGA who will be out of work soon and looking for a campaign. Another friend was on staff at the Lowell Sun until recently, and knows press people there.
Get the signatures and do it!
There is however the slight problem of not living in that particular district and I’m not sure moving by next November is in the cards. I agree he should be challenged though.
I am fucking serious. I want Nangle gone. I want any other rep who backed Baker gone, and I want DeLeo gone. It is high time we got started.
It occurs to me that I think my brother lives in his district, but he’s not politically active. When Nangle endorsed Brown in 2012 I know some Dems who voted for his actually-GOP challenger, who was more liberal on at least some things, out of protest.
Nangle’s district as a good district for a primary from the left because it is a much more blue district. That said, it would be good to reach out the Lowell Democratic City Committee to see if there are people there who might be interested. You might want to be covert about it though 😛 (as I post this on a public blog)
Thanks To the Nate Silver of MA, Brett Benson for this tool
http://massnumbers.blogspot.com/2014/05/an-updated-partisan-ranking-of.html
Colleen Garry, for example, defies partisan rankings because she’s pretty conservative, albeit a good fit for district I have to admit. Also a state party mantra should be, “Let no ballot line go unfilled.”
Once the best interests of the party trump the best interests of the Commonwealth, I’m pretty sure any potential for reform comes to an instant and screeching halt.
At that point, you aren’t really supporting candidates for any reason other than because We Have Always Been At War With Eurasia.
You may only have made that point in order to watch my head assplode.
You’re not enrolled. You’re not an officer. But some of us are active Democrats on town committees, or even the state committee. We are because we believe the Democratic Party is the best vehicle to advance our values in Massachusetts.
As we have been discussing – and I am in agreement with you on many points – there is a way in which certain nominal Democrats winning certain elections actually can set back those values. That is a complex situation. So we each decide how to handle it. Coakley was neither my pick nor my favorite, but I believed strongly she’d be better for us than Baker. So I worked for her. State Rep. Harvey J. Conservadem from a district 50 miles from me, not my fucking problem.
Pruning the bush of its dead leaves may be good for the bush as a whole, but it’s pretty bad for the leaf being pruned. When that “leaf” is a state Rep. of 20 years’ acquaintance in a tough race, it is much harder for a liberal person who actually lives in that reddish district and is, say, chair of the DTC in its largest town to tell the state Rep. to go pound sand. There’s a certain institutional responsibility that comes with holding that DTC position.
You seem to think that’s inherently dirty, corrupt, whatever. I think it’s an inherent part of party politics. And we should have figured out since Martin Van Buren’s time that party politics are not going away.
I want them not to be pure BS.
It isn’t so much that I view your position as dirty or corrupt. It is that I think it is enormously ineffective, and likely to stay that way.
I do respect that you believe that being on the team is a better way to influence the team long term, and are willing to push that boulder up the hill, again, to do that. I would not have the patience to do it. I also get the concept behind your position–I am a Catholic after all.
But I am certainly trying to challenge the assumption in this statement.
Because, honestly, I am not sure that I see the value of the local Democratic Party. Parties are supposed to be a shorthand way determining where a candidate is coming from and what their values are. They aren’t things that determine anyone’s positions on any specific issue, but it should at least convey a worldview.
In national politics, this works, even for our Massachusetts officials. They all share a certain worldview, even if this one is more New Deal and that one is more New Left– that they do not share with, say, Michelle Bachmann. And they challenge that other worldview. Senator Warren has been fantastic in this regard. I probably disagree with her on more issue than I agree, but I will happily vote for her again because she is so very effective at challenging the worldview of the majority party in Congress.
But that just ain’t so in state elections. Party label doesn’t convey anything at all about the candidate, other than that the candidate is smart enough not to be relegated to the crazy side of the room. And worse, the label doesn’t so much convey something about a candidate’s values, it conceals that information.
And so no advocacy happens, except in secret, and no world view or values are ever challenged.
This is probably the fifth time around I have watched a similar conversation on this site– it is better to work with X because she is marginally closer to our values and worldview than Y. And I just don’t see it in practice.
There has been an endless stream of liberals who broke against the machine like waves against a rock. This is why I am always sympathetic to the third-party types. I once considered supporting the Greens, and would have done so, if they weren’t such raging anti-Semites (or completely insufferable). I wish this guy Falchuck luck. Hell, had it not been for Falchuck I would have voted Baker, because the Dems with their nominee took such a sharp turn to the right, and hell, no.
But I really don’t see anything changing. I ain’t no true-blue liberal, and I just opposed a Democratic nominee for governor from the left, and I wasn’t the only one in my purple neck of the woods to do that.
Maybe this is after all more of a Democratic Party site than it is a liberal site. But if you read down the post-mortem thread, all you find is: it was outside money. The media gave Baker a pass, She wasn’t a good campaigner. It was sexism. It just wast’t fair. It was the progressive’s fault for not supporting the candidate.
Why is the progressive response to this not: Guess what? Attorney General Coakley was no liberal, and may indeed have been the most right-wing Democratic nominee for governor since Ed King. That is why there was no enthusiastic liberal support. If the next nominee is similar, there will again be no liberal support. And guess what else? Without enthusiastic liberal support, you lose. Talk to you next cycle.
Many of us are in your corner. I certainly am. I think Fenway is mostly there himself, since he is under no delusion that Fattman was the second coming of Pat Robertson. I was disappointed more people weren’t willing to take a chance on David D’Arcangelo, on this site and in the real world. My own brother voted for Galvin “its bad enough I have to vote for one Republican this cycle (Baker)”, Galvin does the job and doesn’t bother me”. That latter sentiment was very powerful, and seemed to wash over whatever good ideas and fresh perspectives D’Arcangelo brought to the table. Not to mention the fact that, with him in, he would be very vulnerable to a Jamie Eldridge in four years, since primaries never actually happen around here.
So that part is disappointing. And already the chatter is focused on the horse race for the Corner Office. As I posted up thread-a substantial amount of work can and should be done to reform the Massachusetts House of Representatives. And it will not happen if we are all watching the play ‘Waiting for Warren/Deval/Obama *insert progressive champion here*’ instead of leaving the theater behind and taking to the streets.
I have tremendous amounts of respect for hard core conservative like Scott Walker who built their extremist agenda from the ground up. He turned Milwaukee County from a stark blue hackish hue to a bright red conservative madhouse. We look at a two bit hack like De Leo, a second rate Madigan wannabe, and fold our fucking cards before we even play the first hand. And there is a Scott Walker out there in Massachusetts doing the work we won’t, so don’t think that it won’t happen in Massachusetts. If we don’t turn the hackish hue of our local blue to something far more progressive, ethical, and worthy of our people we risk seeing not only the Bakers but the Walkers of tomorrow run circles around us.
As much as I waste precious time furiously typing things here because you and tom are wrong on the internet, I sympathize with both of you more than not.
My question was directed at folks like fenway, who do obviously dedicate a lot of time, energy, and effort to local party mechanics.
I guess you are right that what I am suggesting is similar to the “tea party” strategy. They took exactly that position, and were willing to tip established Republicans in a primary, and to lose Republican seats to Democrats. Now, Republican candidates must court them in order to survice, and having courted them, just ousted a large number of those Democrats who took advantage of the first phase of their insurgency. The result is that they call the shots now, and have moved the republican party and the Congress very far in their own direction, very quickly.
And maybe that supplies the answer: the tea party were insurgents, and not the local party committee types, and so had little compunction about torching a long-party veteran if that veteran did not support their agenda.
As far as I am concerned. I have been saying for the past six years that we need insurgent Democrats locally and nationally to move the party to the left. I think boomers still feel that the days of the bourbon soaked Senate Chamber where grand compromises occurred are gonna come back.
My generation saw it’s Kennedy completely eviscerated by raw partisan warfare from the right, abetted by chicken shit Democrats and his naivete and incompetence. I would much rather a Senate and House full of Warren’s with a Rubio or Cruz as President. Since maybe then progressives set the agenda, since clearly it is conservatives that are setting it now with Obama in the White House.
Speaker DeLeo– shall I list his positions again?
actively, enthusiastically supported and elected by Massachusetts liberals.
Massachusetts liberals who will–write it down– actively, enthusiastically change the term limit rule to keep him on, because they support him so unconditionally.
I’ve been clear as day that I think DeLeo should go. I’m just talking about the mental state of a Democrat in the district who sticks with Moore rather than going for a Ryan Fattman. I’m not saying I agree with it. I’m just trying to offer a thought on why it is.
If Progressive MA, BMG, and other groups are truly serious let’s make term limits a litmus test. Vote to keep them, or you are not a progressive and you won’t get our money, time, or support. And identify the next Bobby DeLeo in the wings and state very clearly, you vote for that person and you are not a progressive and you won’t get our money, time, or support. This is how the conservative movement took over the Republican Party. By willing to lose a majority with the likes of Lincoln Chaffee for a more conservative majority six years down the road.
It’s time we start thinking like that. I would much rather lift a finger, spend money, and canvass for a progressive speaker than a progressive Governor. We had eight years of a progressive Governor, and lo and behold, his major initiatives failed to materialize and we were rewarded with at least four years of Baker, and probably four more if De Leo or is protege is still in the Speaker office.
The conservative movement was willing to lose a Republican presidency in 1992. Baby Bush did not make the same mistake as Papa Bush, he never raised taxes. We need to use fear to extract the same kind of fealty De Leo gets from his members. The same kind of fear Grover Norquist uses on a national basis. Pledges, litmus tests, and primary challenges may be anathema to some progressives-but I am tired of fighting on Reagan’s terms. Particularly within my own damn party.
that DeLeo, like the rest of his colleagues in the Legislature, was elected by his friends and neighbors with whom he has had a lifelong relationship. These are hard things to buck. It’s not like a candidate running for one of the statewide constitutional offices where the majority of the voters only know them through a campaign. It’s a very close knit relationship with a wide, deep network of friends and associates driving it.
The irony is while we tear down leadership in the Dem Caucus, we might need some sort of whip system in the Progressive Caucus. If you vote against the caucus a roll call, your suspended from the caucus for a month.
… It’s difficult to argue for a system with such a fundamental flaw: if we’re not included then you’re excluded isn’t much of a strategy.
But I do think that you are correct that, besides tearing down the present leadership, what is needed is not a vacuum, but progressive leadership.
But of course the devil is in the details. It would have to be a pretty liberal application of middle class.
Only 9 members of the “Progressive Caucus,” two of whom are gone from the House, voted against the Speaker’s lousy bill:
Rep. Andrews (lost Tuesday)
Rep. Farley-Bouvier
Rep. Garballey
Rep. Hecht
Rep. Keefe
Rep. Provost
Rep. David Rogers
Rep. Sciotino (no longer in office)
Rep. Sullivan
“Progressive Caucus” members voting with the speaker were:
Reps. Atkins, Balser, Benson, Brodeur, Cabral, Cariddi, Conroy, Decker, Dykema, Ehrlich, Fox, Garlick, Gordon, Henriquez, Hogan, Kaufman, Khan, Kulik, (Sen. Jason) Lewis, Linsky, Mahoney, Malia, Mark, Michlewitz, O’Day, Peake, Peisch, Rushing, Sanchez, Sannicandro, Schmid, Scibak, Smizik, Story, Turner, Vega, (Mayor Marty) Walsh.
That’s 37.
I’m again proud to say that my rep, Denise Provost, is number six on that list.
Jon Hecht-good man and a grassroots campaigner. Introduced himself door to door in North Cambridge when we got redistricted and we didn’t have to. Dave Rogers is always very visible as well.
Unfortunately, a lot of other respectable names and rising stars are on the wrong side of that list. Among them, my parents newly minted State Senator and the Mayor of Boston. I respect them both, and wonder if it was carrots or sticks that were employed on this one. I think it is critical that we learn to carry better carrots and bigger sticks than the Speaker. Figuring out what they were and how we can surpass them is priority number 1.
Progressive Mass. scored 20 roll call votes from the current session. The number of House Democrats with a score more than one vote to DeLeo’s left this session (he was 12-8) is 18:
Andrews (15-3, 2 NV) (and now gone), Atkins (14-5-1), Decker (17-3), Farley-Bouvier (17-3), Fox (16-4), Garballey (15-4-1), Gordon (14-6), Hecht (17-3), Kaufman (14-5-1), Keefe (18-2), Malia (14-4-2), Provost (18-2), David Rogers (16-4), Rushing (15-5), Sciortino (now gone but 12-3, Speaker 10-5 on those votes), and Turner (15-5). I’ll throw in Reps. Henriquez (11-2, Speaker 9-4 on those votes), and Livingstone (8-2, Speaker 5-5 on those votes), who came in later in the session.
18 House Dems have been willing to vote to the Speaker’s left more than once a session. Plenty of the others are doing good work, committee stuff, whatever, but on a big bill like revenue they fall in line.
I think answering that question, possibly by getting some of our more consistent allies to speak candidly off the record, is a key to figuring this out.
In Illinois, Michael Madigan is also State Party Chair and directly controls a massive warchest for legislative races. Those that obey, get the money, those that defy, get a well funded primary opponent who will get the money, win, and toe the Madigan line. He also has over 30 years of direct experience controlling his caucus and fighting these drag out campaigns. He allowed SSM and the death penalty to go through to cover his left flank, enabled concealed carry to cover his downstate flank.
I just don’t see DeLeo having that kind of power or dexterity to operate. What incentives did he provide to toe that line, what leverage did he exert, and how can we create an grassroots alternative equivalent to cover our allies and prevent potential foes from defecting?
The folks over at Progressive Mass have done a great job keeping score and creating the kind of transparency we need to identify DINOs. But what do we do with a problem like Majorie? Decker voted reliably on nearly every bill with Progressive MA, but then toed the speakers line without any sign of remorse or regret. Why was that an automatic move for her, and so many others? This is information someone on the inside needs to provide us with, so we can outmanuever DeLeo in his own chamber. Barney Frank and Ed Markey orchestrated a similar progressive end around leadership in the 70s, Frank is out of work and bored and may be willing to give us advice and assistance.
He’s a nice enough guy and mouths the right platitudes, but his voting record is spotty. What’s really frustrating is his tepid support of the T when his entire district relies on it.
Just a theory on why the current crop falls in line rather than staging a coup: too many progressives and not enough liberals.
that comes with leadership positions. Defy him, lose the extra cash.
DeLeo also determines how much your aide gets paid
and your office and parking spot.
Cash, office, and parking.
I hope that our “progressive” leaders have other values that they place at a higher priority than any of those.
One small flip of the bird to the old boys and he was golden.
Joe DeNucci’s star rose after standing up in favor of gay adoption, asking “Why should I hate these people?” Amazing what an ounce of political courage can get you.
The campaign ad here; so great
It’s a great ad.
In the next election cycle (2016), it will be FORTY YEARS since Ed Markey ran that ad. Guess what we Democrats will be talking about then:
– Fairer taxes
– More jobs
– Better health care
Democrats have DOMINATED the state legislature since that great ad.
Have we made measurable progress towards any of those goals since 1976? I grant you that we now have the ACA — I’m not sure my family’s health care is, all in all, any better than it was in 1976. It CERTAINLY eats up a great deal more of my family’s budget today. In 1976, when I was sick, I went to the doctor, I showed my insurance card, and I was DONE. No “co-pay”. No “deductible”. No “co-insurance”. I worked for Digital, I had a blue John Hancock card, and I got whatever care I needed.
Yes, we need to take stand. I’m proud that Ed Markey is now our Senator.
How many decades will it take us to figure out that if we want more jobs, fairer taxes, and better health care, then we have to do MORE than elect whoever claims to be a Democrat?
I think it’s long past time to REWARD Massachusetts Democrats who help our agenda, and PUNISH Massachusetts Democrats who do not.
I still can’t believe that NO DEMOCRAT spanked, publicly criticized, or even threatened to punish Mr. DeLeo for his public humiliation of our Democratic governor and for his shit-canning of a classic Democratic budget proposal that would have accomplished “More jobs, fairer taxes, and better health care”. Instead, we handed Bob DeLeo casino gambling — the self-serving and self-benefiting plum he’s been pursuing for most of his DINO career.
You bet we need to take a stand.
by which i mean it Markey was gutsy, not calculating.
Being gutsy is good. It takes you places. What does following along get you? Lots of stuff. Does it take Massachusetts as far along in policy as we should be?
…so we may want to add to the idea I mentioned above of running someone for Speaker the idea of reducing the power of that office, which our own candidate would have to be willing to do as well.
Someone needs to wipe the smug off her face.
would be a press corps whose values go beyond sensationalism, conflict and laziness (h/t Jon Stewart).
Coverage of State House business has largely been left to the Herald and to FoxNews (with offices conveniently located just across Beacon Street), with the result that attention is rarely paid unless the Tea Partiers feel like having a tantrum. There’s next-to-no interest in other issues, including those on which a meeting of the minds between Progressives and Porcupines might occur. Compromise does not sell.
Their job is to sell newspapers or advertising spots, and nothing more. Their quality will ebb and flow, as it always has.
But if a political party means actually having a governing agenda, then it is the party’s job to sell that.
Your party can’t do that because it has no governing agenda, other than some apple-pie bromides, because if you are going to advocate an agenda that can be supported by the Messrs. DeLeo, Moore, and Mr. Eldridge and Chang-Diaz, you have beige, and vague beige at that.
But a democracy also needs a free press. Less than a third of the 801 daily newspapers in the U.S. send a reporter — either full time or part time — to state capital buildings these days.
What if a governing agenda fell in a forest and nobody was there to hear it?
But its a good thing that a lot of what those reporters could learn on site could be made more readily-available (and thus cheaper to cover) through the use of technology, such as the internet.
Someone should ask the Secretary of State about that.
😛
The best way to sell a product is to have a quality product. If they were selling fish wrapping material they’d label it as fish-wrapping material. To get people to pay money for news you have to sell good news. And if people want to buy your newspaper –for the news– your advertising rates rise accordingly.
They idea of selling a newspaper just to sell a newspaper is predicated on the notion that one journalist is interchangeably good as another and if one gets uppity you can fire him/her and hire someone cheaper but just as good. That’s the Rupert Murdoch model and as methodology of journalism it sucks. That seems to be the model you believe in with your notion that ‘quality ebbs and flows’ just because.
To circle back to hesterprynne excellent point: the notion of a sensationalist journalism being allowed to flourish — because capitalism– is seriously damaging. Why? Because Republicanism: we vote for representatives and they decide on our behalf. A journalism based upon which rep is least or most reprehensible isn’t one focused on what actually gets done at the State House on our behalf.
Vague beige derives from opacity: and opacity is a function of journalism.
I would like to see both gone.
Let’s build on this. You find an honest to goodness centrist GOPer to run in the general, we will field someone from the left in the primary. May the best challenge win. Rinse and repeat for every DINO in every district in the Commonwealth.
The long comment above had me thinking about the third Democrat to be elected governor over the last 40 years– Ed King.
The election of Ed King was precisely the kind of moment I was talking about above. Dukakis got primaried from the way, way, right, and lost the nomination. Then Right Wing King ran against a liberal Republican, Hatch. There was the golden opportunity to shatter the Democratic Party: liberal Democrats should have broken for Hatch. But if you look at the map, liberal Democrats turned out for King.
A perfect opportunity for a “without us, you lose” moment, squandered. This was the perfect opportunity to trade short term loss for long term gain. Why didn’t this happen? Was it because “it will be easier to advance our agenda with King than with Hatch, and we just have to argue and put pressure, etc.” Because King (unlike Coakley) was actually a Republican!
Dukakis managed his comeback, but in order to do it he had to kowtow to the non-Democratic wing of the Democratic Party, and the Bulger-Finneran-DeLeo era was upon us.
As did Grampa Conway, who went to BC with Ed King and knew how much of an idiot he was in the 40s, let alone the 80s. But I suspect they were in the minority there.
Mr. Hutch was my English teacher at the Longfellow School around the time Gore lost. He said voting for Nader felt like voting for Hatch, he talked about how myopic us Cantabridgians were parroting our parents support for Democrats that only gave us half of what we wanted. The kids were stunned, and accused him of being a Republican (he was a long haired hippie who rode his bike to work from West Cambridge). He was mostly wrong on Nader, but I would’ve voted for Hatch had I been alive at the time. And I strongly feel the GOP can and should run centrists against the likes of Miceli and the Timilty’s. They would have my vote.
This sort of thing happens all the time. Deval Patrick and Martha Coakley did it a bit ago with DCF . What did they get for their trouble? They only got attacked with lies and calumny. Obama tried a version of it with the Affordable Care act and the opposition to the act BEARS absolutely no resemblance to reality –either in the short or the long term– whatsoever. When, in the last twenty years has good long term policy reaped anything but lies and distortion from your side.
You, yourself, and merrimackguy do it all the time: as soon somebody mentions something useful you shit all over it. So spare me the lectures.
You support the party that puts the anti-choice, anti-union, anti-LGBT, tax-cutting DeLeo into its most powerful position, and nominates Governor Patriot Act to be governor, because fuck you, that’s why.
I do believe that this is a faithful paraphrase of your position, as rendered here, over the last several months.
Not entirely clear what the GOP’s opposition to Obamacare, BS as it might have been, has to do with your support of local Democrats with right-wing views in 2014.
You asked: when do progressives accept short term loss for long term gain?
I answered: often.
You reply: well shit on you.
QED.
The Dems, for reasons that still escape me, picked misogynist, xenophobe, autocrat and all-around bad guy John Silber (side story: once bumped into him in an elevator at the Venetian on his way up to see Shelly Adelson). Whatever faults Bill Weld may have, he was definitely the more liberal candidate that November, particularly on social issues.
I’ve run into a lot liberals over the years who proudly boast they cast a vote for Weld in that election. And it should be noted Massachusetts went for Weld despite a decidedly anti-Republican national mood in 1990.
I certainly was here for that time. There are, sadly, great resonances between my party’s stance towards Martha Coakley and its stance during the King and Silber campaigns.
We should remember, though, WHY Ed King won.
Mike Dukakis made the terrible mistake of giving a “lead pipe guarantee” that, if he were elected governor, there would be “no new taxes”. VERY early in his term, he asked for and got the largest increase in the personal income tax rate in history.
That horrific blunder is what got Ed King elected. Mike Dukakis betrayed his values and his knowledge in order to win an election. He learned the lesson, and to my knowledge never repeated that mistake. He is a man who lives by his values.
My recollection is that Massachusetts Democrats have been religiously opposed to taxes for the forty years I’ve lived here. Massachusetts voters were just as susceptible to flagrant lies about taxes and the economy in 1978 as they are today.
Massachusetts voters apparently, even after forty years of government decline, STILL believe that we can cut taxes, increase services, and balance the budget. That’s why Republicans and candidates like Martha Coakley, who are perfectly willing to bend the truth, tell Massachusetts voters that that’s what they’ll do if elected.
I didn’t know about the “lead pipe guaranty.” That certainly would create the conditions to be bounced. It certainly cost President Bush the Elder.
But, still, — and again, I was in grammar school in a different state (but still got to see Dukakis on TV during the blizzard)– but why would the liberal wing of the Democratic Party not buck King? It sounds like Hatch was a liberal Republican of the kind that is now extinct. And it seems like King ran from the right. He was Mr. Prop 2 1/2, adored by Reagan, etc.
But liberals supported King. And even Dukakis, to make his comeback, had to submit to the King Wing. And shortly thereafter, I arrived on scene, and since then, it has seemed like the liberal wing of the party is the vassal of the King Wing, and will still submit whenever it is required to do so.
It is simply baffling to me how this might be so in 2014, even after the last 15 years of developments at the national parties. Is it simply that liberals are convinced that the Trent Lott/Ted Cruz GOP is really a potential majority party in New England, and that the only way to prevent this is prophylactic surrender?
At it’s core, I really don’t think it has very much to do with “liberal” versus “conservative”. Sadly, my take is that the prevailing Massachusetts view towards government is “Do whatever you want, and lower my taxes”.
That was why Mike Dukakis made his infamous “lead pipe” blunder — even in 1974, Republicans were claiming that “big spending Democrats” would make taxes “skyrocket”. Since the GOP had been holding office prior to that, perhaps the GOP already knew just how precarious the state’s financial position was (and it was a disaster). The also knew that they would do the same, because they had mismanaged the state into fiscal disaster.
One difference between the GOP and the Democrats is that GOP candidates shamelessly lie about the present, lie about the past, and lie about the future. Democratic Party candidates are generally, like Mike Dukakis, too principled to knowingly defraud the electorate (except when it comes to patronage).
My view is that the political dynamic of Massachusetts is a dynamic of a handful of extraordinarily wealthy blue-bloods at the top of food chain, a large and shrinking number of working stiffs in the middle (of both parties) who sincerely and incorrectly believe that if it weren’t for the sluggards beneath them taking away their gains, they’d be rich as well, and a large and growing number of penniless and powerless pawns at the bottom who have no money and no power (forty years ago, those were mostly minorities. Today, it’s pretty much anybody under 25).
We pursue economic policy in this state that funnels increases in income and wealth up this chain, and essentially ALL of those increases flow to the few at the very top. As the disparity continues, it increases the fervor of those in the middle, and thus perpetuates and enhances the process.
It IS class warfare, it is being waged by the blue-bloods against the rest of us, and it will continue until we stop it. The larger question that faces us, that I have asked before, is how much blood will be shed in the stopping.
The party affiliation of the candidates in this process is virtually irrelevant to the underlying dynamic.
…we are still branded as “Taxachusetts”, and people assume its the Democrats’ fault, thus making Dems here at least as scared to promote such needs as they are at the national level.
1990: In response to someone’s question, it was the lovely Billy Bulger who gave us John Silber. Bulger twisted arms at the convention and the autocratic Silber, who voted twice for Reagan, barely got the 15% to make the ballot. But that cranky guy appealed to cranky conservative Dems and conservative-leaning unenrolleds willing to vote for anyone who wasn’t “politics as usual.” Two years later Ross Perot would get 23% in Massachusetts. Every time Silber opened his mouth to say something offensive he got another 10,000 votes. People were in a pissy mood. And Evelyn Murphy’s place on the ballot prevented Bellotti from making much impression on voters, being neither the brash outsider nor the “liberal alternative,” even though she eventually dropped out and got under 5%.
In the end Silber (ahead in the polls most of the fall) lost by only a few points to Weld, and almost certainly BECAUSE so many liberals jumped ship. For the record, Weld wasn’t all that liberal. He was liberal on abortion but he wanted the death penalty, to make prisoners “break rocks,” and of course his signature tax cut.
1978: I don’t remember this election personally although I do recall Bucky ******* Dent from the same year. But to be honest, I’m not sure what CMD means when he says liberal Democrats fell in line for King. As far as I understand it there was plenty of crossover in that election two, going both ways. So who fell in line? Labor? I don’t think that was because King was a Democrat. I think it was precisely because he was a conservative. A lot of those labor people were delighted to sit down and drink with Reagan himself a couple of years later, PATCO be damned. And a lot of that, in the era of busing, was motivated by racism and hatred of welfare and affirmative action (Baake was in 1978). Dukakis got crushed in Boston neighborhoods and taking his own kids on foot to the neighborhood school while arguing for busing in the city had plenty to do with it.
Per my dad my grandfather sat this one out, the only gubernatorial election he ever missed. He knew King from dealings with Massport and couldn’t stand him. But my grandfather just could not vote for a country club Brahmin Republican from the North Shore. Some of the antipathy for Republicans in those days was historical. When the depression hit my grandfather’s dreams of college were put on hold. Instead he swept floors at the country club in Brookline. He retained a lifelong animosity toward the kind of people who treated him like crap in those days and were living large while everyone else was starving. He couldn’t stand the condescension and never forgot that after he served in the war and got straight A’s at Suffolk Law he couldn’t even get an interview from the downtown white shoe firms.
Not to mention Hatch’s father wrote poems mocking Curley. To suburbanites in 2014 Curley’s the worst. Well, my grandfather’s father grew up with Curley. They lived two blocks apart as kids, born the same year, died the same year, broke in with the same ward committee (my immigrant great-great-grandfather was a member), attended the same mass at Blessed Sacrament for 40 years. When my grandfather’s mother and grandfather died the same week, Curley came to both wakes. He got my great-grandfather a city job in the depression. You might call it evil patronage. My grandfather called it food on the table. Today I feel liberated from most of those animosities but in those days memories were still raw.
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Grampa Conway and his union buddies were having a clam bake on a beach that they found out belonged to Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge. He came out to talk to them in his dinner jacket, holding a martini, and politely told them ‘this is my property, and I would like you to vacate it as soon as your supper is over. I apologize for disturbing you and I am sure you stumbled here by mistake’. Grampa apologized, offered him a beer, he politely declined and went back to his gathering at his house.
My point is-he must have really hated Ed King from his BC days to vote for a Brahmin like Hatch.
And to bring it back to the wider thread-we gotta stop being the party, nationally and locally, for the modern Brahmin’s and start being the party of the working man again.
About the historical basis of 1978 and Curley. My widowed grandmother was a servant in the homes of people similar to the north shore types you are describing and my father grew up in their homes (although he was shown the door when he graduated from high school and went to work in a local Swedish factory). As Scandinavians, we weren’t Papists and were thought more desirable than Irish during that era. We tended to disguise ethnicity, taking ‘American’ names (one relative went from being called Andersdottir to Wilson at Ellis Island because he was President). We buried the Old Country attitudes, copying our ‘betters’ as a way of getting ahead instead of harboring grudges against them.
This was a big thing in central Mass where the Irish were imbibing Democrats and the Scandinavians were tee-totalling Republicans. Andy Holmstrom was the Michael Curley of my people. Still, we stayed mostly in the private sector and didn’t try to get city/government jobs – because Mr. Rockefeller and Mr. Coolidge wouldn’t have done that kind of thing!
We desperately wanted to be good Yankee Capitalists. It’s interesting how these political attitudes and inherited along with party at some level.
My great grandfather, grampa’s dad, owned his own insurance company in downtown Salem and was a lifelong Coolidge Republican. He voted for every Republican from Harding to Reagan, with the exception of backing clan and church over party and voting for Al Smith in 28′ and Jack in 60′. He emulated the Yankee Republican in many ways, and while my grandmother and her family were bootlegging over on Gallows Hill, his was the first Catholic family to move into the Willows and he owned two new cars at the height of the Depression. Suffice to say, serving in WWII and joining the IBEW when he worked for GE made my grampa a lifelong Democrat. But I might be where you are today porcupine if he hadn’t broke the pattern 😉
My ma’s side never voted Republican with the exception of John Volpe. Like great grampa voting for Jack-they put their clan and church ahead of a WASP like Chub Peabody. I always wonder how much ethnicity still plays a role even to this day. One wonders how far Kerry would’ve gone if his dad kept their Jewish name and faith.
..in the Ford F-150 thread.
Most people are NOT descended from ethnic Irish Yankee haters, and many working class people were raised with very different attitudes towards advancement. Progressives can have a hard time acknowledging this.
And my other grandmother went to her grave convinced that JFK had a secret phone to the Vatican.
I thought Vatican II was his idea
And he used it to call girls 😉
I’ve been peaking at this thread off and on today. The debate has gone in some weird directions.
But you know who should get primaried? The reps who endorsed Baker.
Feel free to join my draft of Christopher on this other thread. So what if he doesn’t live in the district? He’s one of us!
This thread has gone on some ‘weird directions’ because two posters who are NOT progressives (merrimackguy and centralmassdad) are profusely arguing progressive strategy.
I’m not saying they shouldn’t be here… just that they shouldn’t be taken seriously on progressive strategy because well, as you point out, that tends to lead into weird directions…
What are yours?
neither of them are progressives and so why should they inform progressive strategy…??
I see. So the “ideas” put forth by Martha Coakley are “progressive” (because she has been officially blessed as “Progressive” by her party), and the ideas of CMD (and even MG) are not, because they are “not” progressive?
That, my friend, is the canonical ad hominem fallacy.
… in a brief count just concluded, merrimackguy, centralmassdad and porcupine have 24 of the 72 posts on a thread asking “what is the progressive strategy for the next four years?”
Jconway, he who is assiduous in his belief that progressives should not be pulled right, or concede ground to rightist argumentation is arguing, just as assiduously, with them and, irony of ironies, ceding some territory. But that’s fine with me: being progressive is about movement and movement, by definition, means ceding the old ground for the new. I just wish he wouldn’t be so flip about how hard for other progressives to do…
Because I am actually advocating that you actually STOP ceding ground, in an effort to actually make your own party advocate liberalism, rather than ceding it, in order to maintain a majority under the control of Speaker DeLeo.
I don’t give a rolling donut fuck what YOU are advocating. You are not a progressive. You’re just mean.
Jconway IS a progressive and I both care what he says and how he says it. If he’s going to demand that other progressives not cede ground, while at the same time ceding ground, I’d at least like him to recognize the difficulty in it so that he can cut others slack…
As far as I’m concerned you can go take a flying leap at that donut…
nt
…’not rude’ then I shall endeavor to ‘keep a civil tongue.’
If, however, by ‘civil’ you mean pertaining to a population within a defined ‘geography’ then it is centralmassdad and others –who are not progressives –who are making rude encroachments.
If the question is ‘what is the progressive strategy’ then, while they may feel free to comment, they shouldn’t have the wherewithal to hijack the question and provide answers solely from within their decidedly non-progressive POV. Just sayin.
Non-rudeness is of course required by our rules. And we have always encouraged constructive contributions from those whose views on some issues differ from the majority on the site. It’s a big part of what makes this place better than, say, RMG.
… non-progressives cannot contribute constructively to a discussion of progressive strategy. If they did, the strategy would cease to be progressive.
Centralmassdad, in particular, answers every point raised with a shifting array of ‘what-ifs’ and ‘yeah-buts’ that are contradictory, contentious and predicated upon his view of the world and serve only to blunt the affect of the talk of progressives… and right before our eyes the ‘progressive’ strategy becomes less and less strategy and more empty talk… on his terms.
His view of the world is a view that is not progressive. Maybe it’s a good view. Maybe it’s an evil view. What it is, it is not progressive.
If you’re going to enforce civility while simultaneously encouraging a discussion of progressive strategy you should be prepared to be as aggressive against spoilers and pot stirs as you are against actual words you may not like: else you’ll end up with strategy that is less than progressive.
If you are willing to allow those spoilers and stirs, don’t complain the next time a progressive politician does exactly the same thing, ’cause your “encouragement of differing views here on BMG” is no different than Obama trying to get along with Mitch McConnell…
…by hearing from the view outside the bubble. They keep us honest.
… It’s not like Joe Guarardi saying the Red Sox are this that or the other to a reporter and John Farrell hears it… it’s more like Joe Guarardi sidling up to John Farrell and saying “Gee, Dustin Pedroia sure looks tired. Maybe you should rest him for this series of games…”
You, I and John Farrell would invite Guarardi to leave at that point.
We just have users. This isn’t a political party, with members and non-members. You should feel free to listen to whoever you like, but as a matter of site policy CMD, you, and everyone else are equally progressive.
… but it’s right there in the title. And that draws people. Some are drawn here in support and some come here in defiance. Suggesting there’s no distinctions in users motivations and attitudes and good will is to decided to mix your shit with your shinola. Good luck with that.
Particularly CMD and porcupine, who offer valuable insights and advice in a regular basis and on this particular thread. They disagree agreeably, do not resort to trolling or name calling, and have been posting here as long as I have-maybe 9 years now. I like Dan Winslow who is one of the few politicians in either party willing to actually post comments and engage with opponents in the give and take on a thread and not view this platform as a mere dumping ground for interns to post press release under his username. And merrimackguy can be a bit more fiesty but brought good points to the table-I had no idea there were republicans willing to vote for a progressive challenger against Miceli but apparently he is one of them.
Go to RMG and see how the politburo model of blogging works-it’s a far less interesting place.
I remain eager to hear good ideas from every source about how to get our state and nation back on track. I, frankly, don’t give a damn rather that source describes itself as “Republican”, “Democrat”, “Tea Party”, “Communist”, or anything else.
I’ve been hearing the same thin gruel proposed by generations of officially-blessed “Progressive” (although that’s a relatively new label) or “Liberal” (the classic term) Democrats here in Massachusetts for FOUR DECADES — four decades during which we have totally dominated both houses of the state legislature — and WE HAVEN’T DONE SHIT.
I apologize for getting hot under the collar from time to time, but I really am sick and tired of this shit. We need new ideas — our nominee’s “proposals” in this campaign were just as stale as Mr. Baker’s. We’re not going to get those new ideas if restrict ourselves to listening to only those who breathe the hallowed air of our own definition of “progressive”.
I want to hear EVERY hare-brained speculation of pretty much everybody. I want us to stir things up, get people riled up, have a long series of candid and frank exchanges of views, and PERHAPS come out the other side with some genuinely effective ways to realize the vision that most of us share.
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I am an advocate of good government. To that end I would support a significant decline in the existing Democratic majority of the legislature, in which the present Democrats who are actually Republicans ARE ACTUALLY REPUBLICANS.
Under such a system, there would likely be a Democratic majority that reflected actual Democratic values (rather than the rank corruption that is extant), which could be checked by a meaningful Republican opposition. or their wouldn’t; in any event, parties would have to have some sort of program and adhere to it (even if the program is “oppose everything”), and to advocate for their own.
I would also anticipate that under such a system, a Democrat controlled House would not be able to eliminate the collective bargaining rights of public sector unions, IN SECRET, without stimulating some sort of vigorous public debate, rather than having the whole thing swept under the rug and conveniently forgotten, so that some poor liberal rep’s office isn’t moved to the mens’ room.
I get that you like this guy, and AG Coakley, and think that preventing people from publicizing video of the police engaged in an illegal search is fine, so long as you’re pro-choice and say “working families” a lot, and that anyone who doesn’t think they are just the bestest Democrats ever are really crypto-Republicans.
As my kids say, whatever.
In the end, it would be most beneficial if that portion of the Massachusetts Democratic Party that tends to most reflect what I understand the value of that party to be, would be something other than timid, ineffectual, and subordinate.
I was discussing ways in which that might happen. I have never claimed to be a “progressive,” mostly because I have no idea what that even means, and I doubt anyone here thinks otherwise.
I suppose yelling at people like jconway and calling them crypto-Republicans might be one strategy to shake things up in the Commonwealth, but honestly I think I will find other proposals more interesting.
reported by Michael Norton in State House News Nov 7, 2014:
I think first,we should mobilize now against eliminating the Term limit for Speaker. The rules will be up for debate at the start of this session, meaning we might have to act fast. We need to go on the offensive right now!
As long as that holds, then we can talk about strategy for the next speaker. I think the Progressives should push a speaker that pledges to decentralize power, and do it in a way that things can still get done with a steering committee of sorts.
I think a Progressive-Right Alliance would do us well in the long term if no other progressive reformers can get in on their own. By focusing on reform now, there will be more debate on Progressive Bills in the future, and a better chance for them to get out of committee, regardless of who future leadership is. We need to think long term, because even if we have a progressive, once they are out, we are back where we started.
My money’s on Dempsey (Chair, Ways/Means). We all understandably pay attention to DeLeo, but Dempsey plays as significant a role in terms of that back-room bidding we’re all talking about. From what I can tell, he and DeLeo are in lockstep. Dempsey (from my hometown of Haverhill) ran unopposed and was re-elected again for the up-teenth time.
That’s the first step. Now, who can we put up as an alternative so the Speakership election is not a coronation?
To find an alternative, one needs to identify a legislator whose track record shows that deference to power for its own sake (regardless of thin excuses about ‘power because chairmanship’ etc) isn’t his/her primary modus operandi, and that rather, instead, pushing, making noise, being strategically disruptive FOR good policy/legislation is their motivation.
I think that’s a pretty short list in the current class…
…has the highest ranking (90%) among House members by Progressive Massachusetts, though DeLeo and Dempsey each have 60%, which is higher than I thought it would be and they have identical records on the votes PM scored.
I’ve already told her, in person, that I’d love to see her in Bob DeLeo’s role.
He vetoed 7 parts of the bill (what a cold man to try to take dental care away from working people!) but the legislature passed healthcare reform then.
Legislatures respond to pressure. Lyndon Johnson was not a liberal as Senate Majority leader, but he increased the minimum wage from 75 cents to 1 dollar, and drastically increased housing–because the public pressure made him see it in his political interest. DeLeo is a very smart person who acts in his own interest. You could try to outsmart him… or you could show him value in aligning with progressive stances.
Maybe we need to focus on how to persuade other people that the state ought to do more progressive reforms, like better mental health care, universal pre-K, all the way up to using eminent domain to turn country clubs into housing for homeless people.
let them have it.
There’s going to be a lot of people on Beacon Hill more than willing to go along with what Charlie Baker is cooking. Charters, charters and more charters, cuts to services, “welfare reform” and so on and so forth.
Be loud, be vocal. Go visit your legislators. In person. Call them regularly. Be friendly, but be firm. You’re a voter and you have high expectations. This is what democracy is all about.
Also, it’s critically clear we pay very close attention to what Charlie Baker is doing in his executive capacity. The legislature can and should weigh in there, up to and including legislating changes if needed.
…would also be on Democratic governors.
They already look silly enough for the votes when they tried to help with Pres. Kerry’s successor.
is further empowerment of the legislature.
I hadn’t been following this thread (because it’s not really my business, as pointed out) and I was surprised to see this:
So petr these are my two comments
I will help any of your candidates take on Miceli and Garry(3+ / 0-) View voters I would like to see both gone.
DeLeo controls the extra money(4+ / 0-) View voters
that comes with leadership positions. Defy him, lose the extra cash.
DeLeo also determines how much your aide gets paid
and your office and parking spot.
Both of which were just made in the spirit of friendly conversation.
Is there anything that you can say that where I could conclude 1. You know how to count 2. Your reading comprehension is satisfactory 3. You are not a rude person