OK, it’s the Herald – not exactly the Dems’ best friend. So take it with as much salt as you’d like. But they’re still right:
Youâd think a party that has been closed out of the Corner Office for the past 16 years would do a little soul searching about its internal workings. But noooooooo!
The 15 percent rule (any candidate seeking to run for statewide office in the September primary must get 15 percent of the convention vote), which ought to have been lowered or abandoned long ago is back in play this year. And made even more onerous by requiring that candidates get over that bar on the first ballot.
Gubernatorial hopeful Chris Gabrieli, who entered after most delegates were selected at local caucuses, has worked hard to reach that mark. But how embarrassing would it be to the party if a man with the solid credentials of Gabrieli were denied a place on the September ballot by a delegate or two?
They also don’t like the “you can’t be a delegate if you endorsed a Republican” rule, which is a much smaller deal since it only affects a few delegates. But the 15% rule affects every Democratic voter in the state.
And speaking of shenanigans, here’s some free advice to convention-goers, based on some curious rumors I’ve been hearing today: Don’t miss Friday night!
Basically by cutting this in to a three way race I feel Gab has brought this upon us. Does anyone doubt if there were simply TR and DP running on Saturday that either of them would miss the 15% cut off? I really hope he and his supporters understand that by promoting themselves they have hurt the party’s public image, the last thing we need these days. I will not be voting for him this weekend or in the primary in part because I feel this is his responsibility.
Not right at all.
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Are you telling me that Gabrieli was caught unawares? That he had no idea of this 15% percent rule? We are endorsing changing that rule to accommodate a single candidate. To me that is unfair and highly prejudicial.
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There are two facts to bear in mind:
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This is an opportunistic candidacy. Gabrieli didn’t get into the race until he saw that Reilly was considerably weaker than he – or anyone else – thought.
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If he didn’t have a billion dollars in the bank, this 15% rule would be a non issue. He has worked hard? hardly. He hired a small army and blitzed the public with a media campaign. He certainly has not worked as hard as either Patrick or Reilly.
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I have no idea why everyone is so gunho about internecine primary battles that drain Democratic resources long before we get to the general election. I would remind you that Healey has 13 million dollars to this race – all of which will be spent in the general election.
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I’m not endorsing changing the rule for this convention – I generally agree that that would be a bad idea. I’m just saying, as I’ve been saying for months, that the rule stinks, it has the potential to really hurt the party, and we should get rid of it ASAP after Saturday.
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And as for “internecine primary battles,” whether you or I want one is not the point. It’s pretty obvious that Gabrieli is not a Larouche-like nutjob that this rule is supposedly designed to prevent. He’s a serious candidate (late entrant or not) who got the required signatures, and keeping him off the ballot for whatever reason would disserve the voters and the party.
The very fact that he is late entry makes him not a serious candidate. The fact that he needs a rule change to get him on the ballot makes him not a serious candidate.
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The fact that he is calling all committed delegates and begging them to change votes, and surrepticiously getting delegates’ email addresses, makes him not a serious candidate.
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He sat back while everyone else worked their tails off and then used his considerable fortune and influence to try to steal delegates;he ignored the grassroots Democrats who followed the rules in the caucuses. Then he sought to truncate the convention’s decision making power by playing insider baseball with the party hacks. (by the way, I want my 75.00 refunded.)
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Those things make him a run-of-the-mill but a pretty lousy Democrat.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that LaRouchies ruin everything.
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I’d love for there to be a more open process. Tell me, though, how we can stop some nutjob with enough money to pay for signatures or enough brainwashed cultists to collect them from turning the primary into a circus?
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I realize that’s not what’s happening today. What’s going on now is the unintended consequence of party big-wigs trying to close the process off. Now they’re scrambling. Still, my question stands.
I ran in to a pack of them lastnight. I was able to get them to tell me they have 5 delegates at the convention… so expect some “theatrics”.
sco‘s on point.
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Without a delegate threshold, extremist candidates who don’t represent the party well can get themselves on the ballot either with (a) hired sig gatherers or (b) a cult like following. In either case, then you’ve got some loon running as a Democrat — and is therefore sending the message to all citizens in the state (and nationwide) that the Dems support loonie candidates. LaRouche is a fine example.
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The signature requirement establishes broad support. The percentage threshold establishes deep support. Both are important.
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Maybe the 15% threshold should be 5% or 10%. That’s cool. But, it shouldn’t be changed for this election — you can’t change the rules halfway through an election and call it fair.
I think you meant to refer to levels of motivation & commitment.
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But in another sense, it’s the 15% rule that requires broad support. If you start early enough, you can collect all your signatures in a single highly populated city. There are many more than 10,000 registered Democrats in Somerville, for example, and if you had people collecting in Union Square, Davis Square, and the supermarket on Winter hill every day for a year, you’d get most of them. You only need a small number of dedicated volunteers or paid staff to do it.
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The caucuses force you to organize broadly around the state, because you can’t more delegates in any town or precinct than are allotted to that town or precinct.
but so many of these arguments on why the 15% rule serves a useful purpose don’t really hold up. If you want statewide candidates to demonstrate “broad” support, how ’bout this: let them try to win the primary. They can’t do it by just getting votes in Somerville.
You’re also off topic and off target. This comment you’re responding to was a direct response to another comment, not to the top level post. It neither constitutes, nor was intended to constitute, an argument for why the 15% rule is a good thing. It was intended as an addition to the previous comment.
Love that. If you’re not a lawyer, you should be.
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Anyway, the previous comment (emphasis mine): “The signature requirement establishes broad support. The percentage threshold establishes deep support. Both are important.”
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Your “addition” to it: “it’s the 15% rule that requires broad support…. The caucuses force you to organize broadly around the state, because you can’t more delegates in any town or precinct [sic] than are allotted to that town or precinct.”
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A fair reading of the two together, IMHO: the 15% rule is “important” because it “establishes deep support.” It also establishes “broad support” by requiring organizing around the state – and is therefore even more important because it serves lots of useful functions.
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Sounds like a defense of the 15% rule to me.
This rule has been in effect for … I dunno, let’s just say about a year. Where was the outrage then? People seemed to be onboard for this rule when it looked like it would help candidates like Tom Reilly.
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Then Deval smoked him at the caucuses and now we should rethink the rules? Bullocks. Gabrieli wants to buy his way in to the race because of some delusion that he’s the “only democrat who can win?” Double-bullocks.
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I don’t like the 15% rule at all, but what I don’t like worse is the idea that there should be some effort to change the rules in the middle of the game to help candidates that either did a half-assed job at the caucuses and didn’t organize, or got in late because they were pissed off at being passed over.
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Let’s have this discussion, but let’s have it on Monday morning.
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I have heard from some old-time, suburban Democrats that Deval Patrick cannot win because he is black. It’s always, “I don’t feel that way myself but . . .” and then some anecdote about people from Boston (read insider Democrats) who won’t vote for anyone who is not one of them, i.e. Irish (and/or Italian) and white.
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These same people have been hand-picking losing candidates for how long!!! Why does anyone listen to them when they tell us who is electable? Change is hard, sure. But, after over 20 years of losing, these people have got to pick up the clue phone and try something besides listening to the little racist, self-serving voices in their heads.
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Reilly has proved inept beyond even their limited imaginations. Gabrieli is their second-chance, their lifeboat, their Plan B. (Reminder: The 15% rule was passed over the objections of progressives, including me.)
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They all thought Tom Reilly was unbeatable, electable, whatever. When that proved to be untrue, even within his own party, even given the rule change from last year’s convention that party insiders thought would help them control the selection process, the ONES WHO KNOW POLITICS now want to go back to the old rules so the outsider guy, the black guy, the guy who worked hard to overcome the insiders’ new rules, won’t get past the primary without a bloody fight.
They have already ‘splained the rules to get Gabrieli into the convention (remember – “elected” means “all” delegates clarification) and now they want to change the rules in the middle of the game. And if anyone thinks that these rule changes would even be discussed for the benefit of someone who was not rich, not white, not male and not an insider, think again and think hard about what this party may do. Clue – it’s not about “opening up” the process to deserving candidates. It’s about twisting rules so the insiders get another candidate when their first “electable” choice turns out to be a washout.
I don’t buy any of the insider conspiracy theories, although I understand how people who don’t have much experience with the process can feel that way. There are insiders of all kinds of stripes and persuasions, and I have often been accused of being an insider, probably correctly so, although I am a fervent Patrick supporter.
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But your comment about race – the comment that Patrick cannot win because he is black – is a concern that is out there. In my view, there seems to be a double standard for Patrick because he is an African-American. We all heard how many rooms there are in the house Patrick is building in Western Massachusetts, but have we ever heard how many rooms there are in Kerry Healy’s palace in Vermont? And we now know that Patrick’s income was $3.8 million last year, but what do we know about Gabrielli’s income? – given that he was able to spend over $2 million on his campaign in one month, I am sure it dwarfs whatever Patrick received.
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I can’t help but believe that there is some sense out there there is something wrong about an African-American with this kind of wealth, something that we never hear about caucasian candidates.
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And the fact that we Democrats in Massachusetts have never promoted an African-American to a high political office, if that continues this year, is going to give alot of ammunition to Republicans when they claim that Democrats take the African-American vote for granted. Maybe the Republicans are right for once.
He filed his disclosure at the same time Patrick did. His income was “only” a couple hundred thou last year – which means, obviously, that he has buttloads of money stashed in various mattresses on Louisburg Square. (Kerry Healey, for that matter, reported almost no income, since she doesn’t take her LG salary and the forms don’t require reporting income of spouses.) Income doesn’t tell you everything.
Correct me if I an Wrong..But Chris only disclosed the minimum required by the rules by stating ” Over a Hundred Thousand” on Most of the replies..That Could Be A Billion!
Just being technical.
At some point today the Reilly people are going to start to fear they too are close to not having the 15% they need becuase they are unable to get an accurate count of delgates they have remaining after the poaching.
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They may then realize by TODAY the only way to save face is to get their delegates to join Gabrieli’s 12% to vote to drop the 15% requirement.
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Let’s see/hear what comes out of Reilly’s camp today and tonight (and newspapers tomorrow). Will Lehigh opine with another column about the unfairness of it all? This should give us all an idea if chicannery is ‘a-brewin
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And if someone proposes this rule be abandoned at the opening gavel Friday night – does it open up to all kinds of rules changes? Can we change the rules and get rid of Phil at this convention? Can we require free lunch boxes for all delegates? 🙂 Spell check at BMG post-land?
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Deval’s people need to be there and in there seats at 5:30 Friday night when the fun/shennanigans/attempted-wool-pulling-over-the-eyes begins….
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My guess? A big chunk of Reilly people jump ship and get on board with Gabrieli and Tom Reilly goes back home to Spfld to spend $4 million in PAC money…
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(PS – Deval Supporter here….)
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