Charlie Baker deserved every bit of mockery he got in the final days of the governor’s race for making up his fish tale either in part or in whole. But whether it’s true or not, Baker’s attempt to position himself as one of the harvesters of the sea shows how Democrats have blown an opportunity to connect with fishing communities using their core message.
Martha Coakley’s campaign pounced on Baker’s fishy story, but all she could do was point out this one apparent untruth – using the story to show Baker didn’t care about fishing communities would be nearly impossible, because there’s virtually no daylight between Massachusetts Democrats and Republicans on fishing policy.
From pro-business centrists like Coakley to pro-worker progressives like Elizabeth Warren, Democrats have gone along with the “fishermen getting squeezed by big gubmint” story. Both Democrats and Republicans blast federal regulators and attack catch limits, perpetuating the myth that the fish are out there but those JACKBOOTED GOVERNMENT THUGS would let us catch them. If you believe government is the fishing community’s biggest problem, are you really going to vote for the Democrat?
Last month, Baker was out claiming to have stumped fishery scientists, only to have Globe reporter Laura Crimaldi immediately give the easy scientific rebuttal:
“I’ve been struck by the dynamic in which the federal government says there are no fish and then fishermen go out and fish for a few hours and catch 10,000 pounds or 5,000 pounds,” Baker said.
Scientists say cod often congregate around their spawning areas as their numbers decline, making it easier for fishermen to catch them.
Baker’s attack ignores just how easy modern technology makes it to catch 10,000 pounds of fish even when there are very few fish in the sea. Industrial fishing in 2014 isn’t about a few intrepid fishermen tossing out lines and hoping to get lucky. It’s about GPS technology, cutting edge radar, and huge nets that can sweep up every available fish in a matter of minutes. God help cod if they try to get together to spawn – they’ll be found out & captured faster than Agent Smith hunting down Neo in The Matrix.
But in Massachusetts, it’s a bipartisan cause to embrace classic Bush/Cheney scientific analysis: Any study that shows fewer fish is junk science; any study that shows more fish is sound science. Some folks may say fishing communities will only support politicians who oppose catch limits, but that’s self-fulfilling logic: When do they ever hear anything else?
There are three main problems with this strategy: The fish really are gone, overfishing really is to blame, and it ignores the inequality at the root of the problem.
The myth that fish are simply poorly counted persists because it’s easier for the fishing industry to blame others than to look in the mirror. New England cod stocks and catches have continued to plummet, hitting a new all-time low this year. I agree with the fishing industry that catch limits “aren’t working” – due to political concessions, they’re wildly insufficient, and global warming is already making things worse:
Scientists have documented fish moving to cooler waters. Troubling discoveries show disruptions to the marine food web, with some predators unable to find the small prey fish they need. Other research has linked the warming trend to reduced abundance of the microscopic plankton that feed many juvenile fish.
Fishing industry claims that somehow scientists are just mis-counting the fish might make sense if fish populations were healthy elsewhere, but they’re not – in every ocean on Earth, fish that were once plentiful are increasingly rare thanks to technological advances have made overfishing easier than ever. If not for advances in fish farming, staples like shrimp and salmon might be pricey luxuries.
Despite those challenges, most other regions in the country are successfully rebuilding fish populations and enjoying the economic benefits – it’s really only New England that stands out as the poster child of overfishing and dependence on government disaster relief. In one telling contrast, both New England and the Pacific regions had ground fish disaster declarations due to overfishing in the 1990s. New England has persisted in denial of science and weak plans to rebuild depleted stocks, while the Pacific took the necessary steps to end overfishing. Fast forward to present and the Pacific just had most of their ground fish stocks declared rebuilt, and even got a seal of approval from Monterrey Bay Aquarium’s sustainable fish list. New England, meanwhile, is still mired in crisis and seeking yet another round of disaster assistance.
The real story of fishing community struggles in Massachusetts today is one of inequality. Reduced catches mean fewer deck hand jobs, but they also mean higher prices and exorbitant profits for boat owners. Just last week, New Bedford was named the top US fishing port in revenue for the 14th year in a row thanks to tightly-managed scallops selling for $20+ per pound. The money pours in, but it doesn’t trickle down. The groundfish industry isn’t doing nearly as well, but those boat captains are cashing huge disaster relief checks while their employees struggle.
Gov. Deval Patrick and other supporters of the offshore wind industry get it – as much as offshore wind is critically needed to cut climate-disrupting carbon pollution, the jobs it brings targeted to port cities like New Bedford are just as important. To hear Charlie Baker tell it, New Bedford’s history goes from whaling to cod to hope the cod are still there. That’s a story of decline and decay. Deval Patrick’s timeline of whaling to cod to Cape Wind is much more compelling, and it’s one Democrats like Martha Coakley have failed to articulate. Other targeted, progressive projects like South Coast Rail are just as important.
But we can’t revitalize fishing ports one project at a time any more than we can revitalize idustrial cities job by job. Progressives need to identify and unite around more ambitious solutions to distinguish themselves from Republicans in cities from Gloucester to Springfield to Fall River, where Baker scraped together just enough votes to win.
The existing Democratic platform has failed to address chronic poverty and persistently high unemployment. We need to think big and as TPM’s Josh Marshall recently pointed out, Democrats don’t yet have an inequality answer. Is it a basic income that would help boat workers, notoriously bad at stretching paychecks, make ends meet during lean times? Maybe social security for all? For a small step forward, how about postal banking?
For now, progressives should stand up for science by supporting fish habitat protections and catch limits that allow as much take as possible while also preserving fish stocks for future generations. You can email NOAA right now via Pew’s action alert, or if you’re feeling more ambitious, you can speak up at a public hearing.
Any talk about shifting away from environmentally destructive practices has to have a plan for those whose jobs would be left behind in the shuffle. Thank you for articulating a compelling vision , one far more compelling than the status quo which isn’t working for our fishery or it’s fishermen.
…that certain species of fish can’t just be put on the endangered species list and be done with it? Is it a matter of being impossible to avoid catching endangered fish in the same nets dropped to catch those it would still be OK to catch?
In general Coakley ran a timid boring campaign and thus couldn’t galvanize a big base of support and thus couldn’t raise as much money as Baker and thus lost. If she had followed your advice she could have used the wedge issue of science — Democrats yes, Republucans no — to good effect on this issue. Your later question about economic inequality is a good one too.
How many votes are tied to fishermen? That is, how many voters (or potential voters) statewide will weigh political party, state, and federal fishing regulations and grandstanding when casting their votes?
My point isn’t that fishing isn’t important, or that we shouldn’t get it right. My point is simply that I’m not so sure it’s a particular winner at the gubernatorial level.
said a dozen times to Ed Markey in debates last year, “I sided with the fishermen, you sided with the fish.” And lost by 15 points.
It’s a tough one because fishing has been such an important industry to Massachusetts for four centuries and such an integral part of our history. For fishing families and fishing communities, the pain is very real. Finding jobs for them will be hard enough. Having them work at some new factory or store or whatever will be a very different way of life from the one they’ve passed down through generations.
But if relaxing the regs will lead to near-complete disappearance of the fish, what can we do? They’re screwed either way and the ecosystem gets hurt in the process.
…of the word ‘whatever’ illustrates why people distrust progressives on the issue.
It betrays a lack of empathy for the quaint and outdated fisherfolk; perhaps we can give them shoes for the first time, or send them to a community college to learn the alphabet, or…whatever. People who work in the crafts, trades, etc. seem to bore theorists; in an unguarded moment, Obama called them bitter clingers who just aren’t quite able to get with the 21st century program, the poor things.
It isn’t what you say so much as the dismissive tone that the working class reacts to like a silent dog whistle – an uncomfortable realization they they could be next in the Outdated Class.
“Fisherman” is not a job. It is an identity. For those fishermen I’ve met, everything else — anything else– is, indeed, ‘whatever’. So I think your “progressives-are-snobs” can take a back seat to reality on this one…
I was trying to express in my earlier comment.
…Obama’s comment about clinging to guns and religion was about people who held fast to what they had and felt secure about because nobody was speaking to their real issues to help them get ahead.
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In spite of right-wing hysteria to the contrary, nobody is taking away guns and nobody is taking away religion. There is no indication that anybody who wants either is in any danger of losing either.
The fishery is DEAD. The fishing industry is DEAD. The “fisherfolk” killed it. We can attempt to coat this harsh reality with as much vaseline as we like, it’s still going to hurt.
The fishing industry is DEAD. “Sympathy” is perhaps an even better word than “empathy”, because the emotions that we all must handle are things like grief, loss, suffering, betrayal, and all those other impacts when something or someone beloved is taken from us.
When a politician implies that “evil government regulators” somehow brought this about (and both major candidates implied that), that politician does an enormous disservice to the grief-stricken victims. Such lies only prolong the suffering and delay the healing that comes after the grieving.
I agree with you, at least on respecting the fishing community and realizing what the shrinking of the industry means for them. My cousin was a commercial fisherman. His grandfather, my great-grandfather, captained a tugboat many years ago, but his family were fishermen on the west coast of Ireland going back centuries.
My point was quite the opposite of what you were suggesting, which should be clear to all not trying to score political points. My point was that fishing is a way of life, not just a job. No replacement job can replicate that way of life. So I wasn’t being dismissive of the fishermen. I was being dismissive of the suggestion (yes, by many progressive people) that they can just slide over into some other kind of work with no hitch. It might pay the bills but they will lose a way of life that’s been passed down through generations.
Much like in coal country, even with sharply declining job numbers, many people remain very sympathetic to the industry & its workers. That’s why I think the direct pander doesn’t make nearly as much sense as a message about helping all working families.
was that sticking up for NOAA regs wouldn’t necessarily win over many voters. My point was that it won’t lose many either. Lynch went after Markey on fishing, then Markey beat Lynch 62-38 in Gloucester and 58-42 in New Bedford.
The fishing industry is gigantic. I’m sure the would open their pocket books wide against any candidate who isn’t sufficiently pro unlimited fishing.
It’s a can of worms I’m sure state wide candidates would rather avoid.
I also question how aware many politicians are about how dire the situation really is. The pro science community on this issue isn’t the one that can afford to send out an army of talented lobbyists to explain it.
It’s an issue where Baker looked compassionate about working people-the antithesis of the Romney clone who bragged about firing people in his 2010 platform and stump speech. Nobody wants to vote for their boss.
I disagree with “pro-science”, since we got that vote locked down. I doubt too many green focused voters went for Baker or Falchuk, or stayed home out of spite on fishing regulations. Where we so have a deficit locally and nationally is working class white makes.
Instead of calling them racist ,sexist, homophobic, religious, ignorant or a disposable demographic-let’s build a plan that keeps them working,
puts food on their families table, and improves the planet.
Wage insurance and green jobs are great plans for this specific subset, but the class needs to be addressed directly. We honestly need to look at basic income as a way to go on offense against the tax cutters-what better way to put money in people’s pockets than putting money in people’s pockets? It’s a product that sold itself in the 70s-after a generation bereft of viable liberalism it will have to be rebranded in a patriotic package-but let’s find a way to advance it. It would help the fishermen more than anything else, it would help construction workers between jobs far more than casinos or Olympian white elephants.