3. Mike Festa is not a “divorce attorney”. He is a general practioner specializing in criminal law and probate matters, including divorce. Since his two years as a prosecutor under John Kerry, he has practiced law in every court Middlesex County. Sorry Senator Barrios. Those of us who know Mike Festa in Melrose know better.
4. No field organization? Festa has the support of all three Lowell rep’s, multiple chairs of town and city committees from Malden to Acton, ALL of the past presidents of the Mass. Bar Association, and I could go on.
This kind of cruel personal attack is the reason that Jarrett Barrios, who was in the House for four years, is so intensely hated by his colleagues. Not one has endorsed him. They know him. They also know Mike Festa. 24 have endorsed Festa – so far.
Barrios people: Good luck with the smears and disinformation. The people are smarter than you think. It is sad to see Jarrett Barrios destroying his career like this, with a run based on nothing less than hubris. He could have done so much good.
A PREDICTION: you will see merciless personal attacks on those supporting Mike Festa – especially those from the gay community.
Sad. But in the end the right side will prevail. It is great to see that the shift is already happening.
Dermot emerges the voice of reason in an uncertain world. Barrios will not win this race by sending his staff onto blogs to make baseless attacks…
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Melrose Mike is a good man… and – when you consider his longstanding legislative career representing the good people of Melrose and Stoneham – is the most progressive Democrat in this race. I predict a spirited debate between two former prosecutors with the senator from Cambridge hurling mud from the sidelines.
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But then again, Festa didn’t go to Harvard like Leone or Georgetown like Barrios, so I guess the popular opinion is he’s out of the game, and that’s ridiculous.
this post is mean. I understand Festa’s campaign may want to react to previous posts — that’s fine — but dermot should really live by his own word. as i’ve posted before I still have to learn about this race (the flurry of posts has certainly piqued my interest) but it seems to me it all just feeds into people’s distrust of politics — and yes dermot you fell into that trap too. Instead of personal potshots I want to start hearing from everyone about what they’re going to do as DA. How about a bit of decorum. I read the posts about Festa and the truth is they weren’t “cruel personal attack”…maybe a bit off base but probably didn’t warrant a full blown attack on barrios.
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will progressives just end up arguing about this race and spilt the vote like they have in the past. let’s all look at the candidates with an unbiased point of view and take them for what they are, go with the one with the best chance and best vision (whoever that may be) and stop these mean-spirited attacks.
I should begin by saying that I am a Barrios supporter.
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I’d like to make three points: (i) prosecutorial experience, although nice for a DA candidate, is not one of the most important qualities we should look for in a DA, (ii) both Mike Festa and Jarrett Barrios have been progressives throughout their legislative careers, and (iii) if progressives want to beat Gerry Leone, they should support Barrios, not Festa.
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Not only do DAs not prosecute cases, but they have been roundly criticized in the past as being overly-political when they have attempted to prosecute cases. Assistant DAs prosecute cases. DAs manage large offices of prosecutors, set policy, and often take the lead on crime-fighting initiatives. I grant that having some prosecutorial experience might help a DA do this job, but I also assert that other qualities are more important: clear policy goals, leadership ability, and familiarity with addressing crime in a policy environment. Certainly Leone (and to some extent, Festa) have more prosecutorial experience than Barrios. However, I would say that Barrios more than makes up for it in the other (more important) areas. If other people think otherwise, that’s fine, but let’s not pretend as though we’re electing a prosecutor in this race, because we’re not. Is prosecutorial experience helpful? Yes, but only in the way that it’s nice for a Chief of Police to have “walked the beat” before. Helpful, but not necessary. I would claim it’s less important than the other qualities I mentioned.
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I won’t stress my second my point because I haven’t seen any disagreement on this issue. Please consider, though, that both Barrios and Festa are good progressives. I happen to think that Barrios is a progressive “leader”, but I see why people might think that of Festa too.
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Finally, Gerry Leone is more conservative (some would say far more conservative) than Barrios and Festa. Since I have seen no disagreement on this either, I won’t go in to details. Leone also has a significant amount of money- $300k-$400k, I believe. Barrios has around $600k, I believe. I think Festa has $30k. All three candidates have a significant grassroots presence, but certainly Barrios and Festa more so than Leone. Taking this in to consideration, even if you are a progressive who leans toward Festa because of his slight, ever so slight, edge in prosecutorial experience, shouldn’t you consider backing Barrios because he can win?
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Middlesex County is the 15th largest county in the country. It is the largest county in New England. Money will be very important, with TV advertisements, significant GOTV efforts, and lit drops to hundreds of thousands of voters being absolutely necessary. As much as I like Rep. Festa as a person, he has almost no chance of winning this race. The best Festa can do is be a progressive spoiler, handing the race to Leone.
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There is some time to go before progressives will need to pick their horse in this race, but please consider who can win.
Did I miss the memo about the new shift in progressive politics? I must have. I don’t remember the memo that instructed all progressives to automatically support the candidate with most money in the race… am I the only one who missed this memo or are there others?
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Since the focus of this blog is reality-based politics, lets consider reality based politics.
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Part of the job of “Chief of Police” is being respected by his fellow officers. These people must put their life on the line every day, and they would have zero respect if a white collar mid-manager came in as their police chief without any experience being a police officer. The District Attorney has the same exact situation – without respect from his team, all his policies would be a joke. And you can’t buy respect with a few months as chair of a committee … you do it by working hard in the trenches with your fellow officers (or prosecutors).
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Part of this respect is the knowledge that the person is willing to stick around. Barrios is in this so that he can run for some other office, whether it’s one of 2008’s congressional seats or some other higher office. Let’s not pretend that he’s in this BECAUSE he’s been involved in criminal justice his entire life and this is something he’s ready for – in sharp contrast to both Leone AND Festa, who’ve spent decades working for criminal justice. Barrios wants “District Attorney” on his resume so that he can say he’s “tough”.
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If Barrios has such clear leadership ability, why isn’t he endorsed by a SINGLE member of the House? NOT A SINGLE ONE??? He served in the House for four years…
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Is Jarrett’s managerial ability best shown by his needing to hire a 3rd campaign manager in 6 months? That shows me all I need to know about his leadership skills.
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Festa’s “slight” edge in prosecutorial experience? Barrios has NONE, as in ZERO. Festa has 27 years trying cases in court! Barrios has tried ZERO cases. If that’s a “slight” difference, then Kerry and Bush have a “slight” difference in their military record.
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Middlesex County is huge. That’s absolutely true. However, eight years ago, Martha Coakley won with a little over 100 thousand dollars while being outspent in a big way by her two opponents. Lets not pretend it’s all about money, shall we?
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Cause if we’re going to do that, we might as well become Republicans.
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FYI, the reason for the departure of the most recent Barrios campaign manager, Stuart Rosenberg, was not because of any weakness of the campaign. Rosenberg was hired by the HRC to manage their midwestern field operation. Actually, it probably bodes well for Barrios that he had someone of that caliber running his campaign. I just wanted to make clear that that piece of turnover is not a sign of weakness for the campaign.
Yeah, right, and we were all born yesterday. It’s good for both Stuart and Barrios to pretend the parting was amicable.
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And every lawsuit ever is settled with a statement that states that neither side admits to any wrongdoing … and this happens as millions of dollars change hands.
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We’re all adults here, so lets stop pretending.
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It bodes well for Barrios that a capable campaign manager quit his campaign? Oh yes, now there’s a sensible statement.
I think it makes sense that there is more passion in the postings of supporters of Mike Festa. They are behind, they believe in their candidate, and they see a real danger of a bully winning this race. I now count myself among their number. I’ve met some of them now over the past two days, so I’ll say, “we”.
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Yes, reasonable people can disagree about the importance of having criminal justice trial experience before seeking to be District Attorney. And the tone of the postings – while of secondary importance – should always be within reason. So thank you to SomeDem for that reminder.
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But I do not think we do the voting public any favors in a democracy when we fail to use the competitive election process to inform it of things that it should know. If being “nice” is a requirement in this discourse, I guess the British are correct about the American educational system.
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I am not happy to see people bamboozled like this. And I am not going to hide it to please the ‘nice police’.
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These offices are public trusts, and if one believes it matters who receives that sacred trust, one should advocate based on facts, and with seriousness and passion where appopriate.
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These are serious matters, so only the unvarnished facts will do.
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**********************DIGRESSION
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[Was Senator Kennedy wrong to be passionate in the Alito hearing about using the trust we in Massachusetts gave him to play a role beyond that of a talking potted plant (like Biden) and instead pursue his constitutional perogative? I don’t think so. But then again, my view is sadly rare on that these days. Just look at the inane and constitutionally nescient press coverage. Just ask Senator “Slave to Conventional Wisdom.” Feinstein. But I digress…]
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*******************END OF DIGRESSION
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Here is a question: Why exactly is it that there may be so many people so willing to elect someone for District Attorney with absolutely no interest in the criminal law prior to his decision in 2003 to use the D.A.’s office as a stepping stone?
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Another one: Why did Mr. Barrios have no interest in criminal law whatsoever prior to that time?
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For those of you who think that I am kidding, particularly that blogger who derisively tried to dismiss this good man, Mike Festa, as a “divorce attorney” (not that there is anything wrong with being a divorce attorney by the way), my next paragraph holds something that I think you might find amusing.
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If you want to see what Senator Barrios himself sees as his skill that is worthy of remuneration in the marketplace, just check out his own words on his law firm site at http://www.dlapiper.com/jarrett_barrios/.
I don’t think Kennedy was wrong to be passionate in the Alito hearings. I think he was wrong to be ineffective. And he surely was that.
It says:
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“Jarrett Barrios concentrates his legal practice in the area of real estate.”
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Nothing wrong with that. I trust he has an honorable legal practice. But is this who should be chosen as the District Attorney of the largest county in New England?
And to build on Dermot’s astute point, how much of a real estate attorney can Mr. Barrios really be when he’s galavanting around the county campaigning to Democratic activists and pushing his new image as a crime-fighter to town governments?
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Interesting to see him pushing the anti-gang bill to Arlington…
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http://www.townonline.com/arlington/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=411590
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Good to see someone finally turning their attention to the rampant gang violence problem in Arlington…