Thanks to BrightonGuy, who noted Scot Lehigh’s op-ed today warning that it would be bad for the Democratic party if Chris Gabrieli gets shut out of the primary ballot by not getting 15% of the convention delegates to vote for him.
Lehigh’s column has a bunch of peripheral stuff that I don’t really buy (viz.: “the signs are clear that Patrick, who holds the lion’s share of delegates, hopes to keep Gabrieli off the primary ballot”), and it is utterly hilarious that Lehigh asked John Silber, the man almost single-handedly responsible for the Democratic party’s loss of the corner office for the last 16 years, what he thinks the party should do. But Lehigh arrives at more or less the same bottom line that I did over a month ago. I wrote back in April that “to keep credible candidates like Reilly and Gabrieli off the ballot would be bad for the party, bad for the voters, and bad for democracy.” Lehigh today argues that Gabrieli’s being kept off the ballot would be “an undemocratic debacle.” And about that, I think he’s right.
All of which again demonstrates (to me, at least) that this whole 15% rule business is stupid. There have got to be ways of keeping fringe candidates off the ballot (which to me is the only plausible justification for this rule) that wouldn’t be perpetually threatening to shut out viable candidates. Whatever happens in June, it seems to me that the party ought to do some serious thinking about a major top-to-bottom rules overhaul so that we don’t get into this same annoying situation every four years.
…and he might make a decent – or even a much more than decent – governor.
But so would a very large number of other people in Massachusetts who aren’t going to be on the ballot.
Democracy doesn’t offer to bring us the best candidates possible. Sometimes the best candidates would rather stay home and play cards with the family. Democracy simply offers the opportunity to put onto our ballots a finite and manageable number of candidates, all of whom have gone through the same open and transparent process to get onto that ballot.
What would be really Democratic, I think, would be for Chris Gabrielli to try his darndest to present his campaign to the delegates and make his case. (And in my opinion that absolutely includes committed delegates – though whether they then choose to switch is another story.) Then come convention time, if Chris gets his 15%, great. If he doesn’t, he can give everyone a big smile and say, “Thanks anyway. Sorry I didn’t make up my mind and get my campaign together fast enough to get on the train this time. I’ll do some thinking now and if I decide I want to run for Governor again, I’ll be sure next time to get an early start on it.”
I think that would be really good Democracy.
But hey, I’m easy to please. Barring any strange conspiracies or markedly inappropriate back-room deals, I think any outcome where all the candidates who get their 15% get on the ballot would be really good Democracy.
If he decided to enter the race a bit sooner. He would have easily gotten the 15% between the normal delegates and add-ons. Now he has to fight to get them and show that he’s really, really worth being on the ticket. People shouldn’t feel obligated to change their decision to keep him on the ticket, especially if it could mean they’d no longer be able to do their best in getting the candidate they support the nomination.
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From my understanding, a basic premise that Lehigh has was wrong: people can’t vote Gabrieli on the first round. There may not be a second round.
that if Gabrieli had entered the race earlier, he would’ve had an easier time lining up the 15%. So what? Does that mean that it would be OK if he were denied a spot on the ballot? The guy was the Democratic candidate for LtGov four years ago, he is polling well, he has money he’s willing to spend, and he appears to have his 10,000 signatures. Looks like a credible candidate to me. I think it’s probably a bad idea for delegates who ran at the caucuses as part of a Patrick slate to now vote for Gabrieli – that brings up its own set of problems – but Lehigh might be right that the ex officios should try to get Gabrieli on the ballot.
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I don’t really understand your second point – I don’t see anything in Lehigh’s column about 1st ballot/2nd ballot. But you’re right that if one of the candidates gets 50%+1 on the first ballot, that’s it.
It has more to do with suggestions by various people, suggestions that can’t work if people can only count on voting once, than what Lehigh said. Sorry for projecting a similar, yet unrelated, topic on the thread. I guess it was careless rambling.
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As far as getting Gabrieli on the ticket, I’m all for it. I don’t mind a third candidate competing for the ticket, especially one who would be my second pick out of the three. I just don’t think that delegates should feel obliged to go against their better judgements if they’d prefer Reilly or Patrick.
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One of my central messages in all of my blogging on the ’06 race has been that people should vote for who they support. I suppose that should go for delegates at the convention too.
OK has got nothing to do with it.
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If Gabrieli doesn’t come up with 15% of the delegates, there’s something wrong with his candidacy, because he should have prepared to get himself over that hurdle. Apparently he went to the trouble to get 10,000 signatures. It’s nice that he was the Lt. Gov. candidate last time, but that doesn’t get him any free passes this time–and implying so reminds me of the people I met on the street who were surprised that even Ted Kennedy needed to gather 10,000 signatures.
This 15% rule is not a high hurdle. The rule simply means that a candidate should have some sort of cheering section in the party he’s competing in.
“OK” has everything to do with it. I’m using “OK” as a shorthand for “consistent with small-d democratic values,” and that to me remains an unanswered question.
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Look, no one’s giving the guy a free pass. He’s got his 10,000 signatures (which he needs), and he’s busting his hump (and pissing off some Patrick supporters in the process) to get his 15% as well (which he also needs). My point about his having run on the party’s banner in the past is simply that this is not a fringe candidate of the sort that these rules are allegedly supposed to keep out.
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But this notion that to get on the ballot you need 15% of a relatively tiny group of elected officials and party activists to vote for you at a convention in June that 95% of the electorate doesn’t even know is happening, much less what the rules are or what actually goes on there, continues to strike me as peculiar (to say the least). Hundreds of thousands of people vote in the state Democratic primary. There had better be a damned good reason why a couple hundred of those people get to decide which candidates appear on the ballot. So far, I haven’t heard one.
David, you have to draw the line somewhere. I don’t know if the 15% rule is the best way to make sure that all candidates on the primary ballot represent the big-D Democratic Party, but there has to be something.
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10,000 signatures is no obstacle to anyone with $40,000. Heck, I could get 10,000 signatures if that’s all it takes, and frankly I’d be a crappy governor and a worse candidate.
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Well, I wouldn’t win the primary, you would argue, so the system works — the eventual nominee is the one the most Democrats pick. Of course, that’s not necessarily true because Massachusetts primaries are open. One could win the Democratic primary without getting a single vote from a registered Democrat.
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Maybe we don’t need to restrict ballot access at all. But, then what happens when 10 people decide they want to run for governor? Do we end up with a nominee that won a primary with 11% of the vote? That doesn’t seem right either.
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Do we measure candidates’ viability by poll numbers? Two problems with that: first, what poll? Who administers it? Who decides on the methodology? Second, if you think campaign season is too long now, wait until candidates have to get 15% of the disinterested public to pick them in a phone survey in May.
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The fact of the matter is that any standard is going to either let someone on the ballot who “shouldn’t” be there or exclude someone who “should”.
we need some degree of control over the ballot. Signature requirements are, in my view, a pretty good control. Combine that with instant runoff voting, and it seems to me you’ve got a pretty good system that fully addresses your 11% scenario.
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Want more? I think we should start looking into what other parties do. I will try to do that over the next few days. Our system stinks, and we need a better one. Maybe there’s one out there.
I have the same reservations as sco about eliminating the 15% rule and relying solely on 10,000 signatures; anyone with money can do it. (If we wanted to talk about eliminating paid signature-gathering… that could be another matter and make the 10,000 signature limit a great equalizer and barrier.)
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The 15% rule seems to have a twofold purpose:
1 – To force a candidate to prove viability
2 – To regulate the number of candidates in a statewide primary.
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I don’t have a problem limiting the number of candidates in a primary (6 seems like a decent max), nor do I have a problem with some hurdles to get on the ballot. Whether 10,000 sigs or the 15% rule is the right way to go about that is worth a discussion.
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BUT… As far as Gabrieli is concerned, he knew the rules and should have been playing the game accordingly from the start. Now he has to play catch-up. I’d be happy to see him on the ballot, but I won’t shed any tears if he can’t muster his 15%.
Or spending money? I am sure he is working hard, but no harder than Patrick or Reilly. What he does have is the means to buy his way into the game at this point, regardless of how hard he was working or not. He has the means to buy signatures, he has the means to get on TV, he has the means to carpet bomb with mailings and phone calls. Hard work would also include the type of work the Patrick and Reilly campaigns had done leading into the caucuses, to identify support and slates among activists. Whether one approves or disapproves of the value of personal wealth is not the issue, but you cannot argue that Gabrieli has done anything other than bought himself into the game.
If it weren’t a 15% rule, it would be something else.
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I’m a delegate who strongly supports Deval Patrick. In recent years I decided that one way for me to ensure that the Democratic party nominated progressives was for me to get involved early and try to influence primaries. Back in 2005, I talked to other Democrats and Progressives in my town (Cambridge) and the only candidates we heard about were Reilly and Patrick. So I read up, and made my decision. I went to the caucus–and made the effort to get neighbors to go–to support Deval.
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I was a little surprised NOBODY showed up to speak for Reilly, who had a long history of public service. He knew the rules about caucuses, he knew enough people to ask somebody to show up to the caucus at least.
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If Reilly can’t muster 15% of the delegates in his own party, how much political capital does he really have to run this state? His poor preparation for the St. Fleur decision may not have been a fluke.
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And if Gabrieli’s millions o’ dollars can’t muster 15%, well, he’ll just have to comfort himself with his millions o’ dollars. Somehow. If I needed to take my troubles off my mind, I think I coud find a way with millions o’ dollars.
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These are grown men asking for the chance to lead the state. They knew what the rules were, so they should have laid the groundwork to make their runs possible. And now that it seems that Reilly and Gabrieli may not have done their homework, I am more convinced that Deval Patrick is the man who would show up every day to the Corner Office prepared to deliver Progress to the citizens of Massachusetts.
You’re suggesting that Reilly and Gabrieli will have a hard time getting 15%, and that is their own faults. Calling off the primary and handing the nomination to Deval would be just fine, then?
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The sum of the Patrick folks’ argument — caucus-ers should “honor their commitments,” the 15% rule should be hard and fast — seems to be that everything should be decided at the caucuses: the level of the process that is farthest removed from the vast majority of the voters. This is rich, coming from people who often purport not to like “insiders.”
I’m very confident that Reilly will get on the ballot. But in the not-gonna-happen hypothetical case that he didn’t, that would indeed be a scandal. The 15% rule is supposed to keep candidates off the ballot if there are too many, but when there are only two, and both are serious and credible, they’re both supposed to get on. If Reilly is denied, it would show up the current rules as highly flawed, because they’d have kept a credible, legitimate candidate off the ballot. If that happened, we’d have to reconsider the rules seriously, figure out what they’re trying to accomplish, and find a better way to accomplish it without having this awful side effect.
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But it’s not going to happen. Whether the current process is great or not, it’s not that horribly flawed.
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Reilly and Gabrieli are very different for a very simple reason: Reilly tried, Gabrieli didn’t. If Gabrieli doesn’t get on the ballot, it won’t be because of a flaw in the rules, and it won’t mean we have a bad process that keeps good candidates off. It’ll simply be because Gabrieli didn’t try. If you run for Governor in Massachusetts, you’re supposed to get your supporters to the caucuses to run for delegate. Gabrieli knew this, and he knew when it was happening, and he didn’t bother. If he fails, it’s his fault, not the process’ fault.
Calling off the primary and handing the nomination to Deval would be just fine, then?
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Of course not, and he didn’t suggest that it would be fine.
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The process has rules. The rules are not ambiguous, and have been known by all participants. You may not think the rules are appropriate — and that’s fine. If that’s the case, you argue to change the rules, but you can not change rules during the game. You change the rules before the beginning of the next game.
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The suggestion that the rules should be changed for Gabrieli in this campaign is ludicris. An argument that the rules should be changed for all candidates for the 2010 campaign is perfectly reasonable.
suggest the rules should be changed. Just responded to Joel’s claim that Reilly didn’t show up at the caucuses either, which implied he could be legitimately kept off the ballot too. Seems like the rules-are-rules argument had led to an absurd result — which calls into question the absolutist application some have been advancing. But Cos makes a good case for the rules pretty much ensuring two strong candidates. I would hate for them to not be able to provide three strong candidates – which we clearly have – but Patrick’s sweep of the caucuses makes that a possibility.
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In any case, I’m pretty confident Gabrieli can get 15%.
If candidate A is on the ballot, and no other candidate is on the ballot, you still must run a primary, because writein votes are legal.
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Not that many years ago, the ‘Massachusetts High-Tech Party” won major party status (3% of vote for a statewide office), and one of their people got on the ballot for state rep. She ran in their primary. One of the other candidates of another party ran a writein (sticker) campaign against her, got more votes than she did, declined her party’s nomination (he was already on the ballot for his party), and therefore her party had no candidate for state rep.
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This seems a peculiar way to structure election laws.
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You can also find an example of the same happening many many years ago in a Congressional race, but the winner accepted the nomination of every party whose primary he won.
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At the same time, in one recent election roughly 2/3 of legislative races had only one candidate, a record broken that year iirc by Mississippi, and in those districts voters had the same alternatives as voters in the former Soviet Union. One might reasonably propose easing ballot access until voters most of the time have at least some alternative in most races.
And, as George Phillies points out, there will always be a primary.
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But IF a candidate with Gabrieli’s resources can’t muster 15%, it’s his/her failure of responsibility.
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Who knows whether Gabrieli will get 15%–maybe the MTS polling company that called me tonight knows. I don’t, and Lehigh doesn’t know either. But such an event would not be an “undemocratic debacle.” It would be a political debacle to be laid at the feet of the politician who didn’t do his homework. I suspect Lehigh pumped up the drama of the possibility because, like many political journalists, he’s more interested in a horse-race of personas than a comparison of visions for Mass.
I think Lehigh is wrong and you’re wrong.
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We have a signature requirement. What if Gabrieli decided he wanted to run after the signature deadline had passed. Well, he could run as a write in. Whining about how he was “kept off the ballot” and calling it undemocratic would be rightly seen as pathetic in that case.
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If you don’t like the 15% rule, make the case against it, and try to change it. But not in the middle of the election cycle. Just like colleges that change their graduation requirements make the new requirements apply only to new incoming students, not the ones who are already there, any changes to the 15% rule should be discussed in the context of future elections.
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For this election, we have the 15% rule, and everybody knew it. There was a deadline of sorts to “turn in your papers” – the caucuses. Gabrieli wasn’t running, so his supporters didn’t run for delegate slots, and his campaign didn’t put together slates, and as a result, he elected no delegates of his own. He missed the deadline.
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If he can get himself on the ballot despite that, fine. If he can’t, that’s as it should be too.
I have mixed feelings about the 15% rule and am not trying to defend it here. I just think that’s a different argument. This year, Gabrieli missed the deadline to run.
you don’t really think I’m wrong. 🙂
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Obviously, I don’t like the 15% rule, and have been arguing against it for quite some time now. I think it’s a bad rule. And if Gabrieli doesn’t get on the ballot because of it, that (to me, anyway) will be proof positive that it is, indeed, a bad rule. The party simply should not have rules that keep candidates like Gabrieli off the ballot. Did he get in late? Yes. But the fact is that he can win. Yes, because he has money and he’s willing to spend it (in addition to the fact that he really does have statewide cred because of being the LtGov nominee last time). Guess what, that’s how our system works. Don’t like it? Change it.
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However, I am not saying – and have never said – that if Gabrieli fails to get his 15%, he should be on the ballot anyway. I agree that this year, the rules are the rules, and they shouldn’t be altered midstream (and I’ve never argued otherwise). So if that’s what you’re objecting to – and it seems to me that, by raising the possibility of Gabrieli not getting 10,000 sigs and then whining about it, that is what you’re objecting to – you’re objecting to an argument that I’ve never made.
And if Gabrieli doesn’t get on the ballot because of it, that (to me, anyway) will be proof positive that it is, indeed, a bad rule.
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Absolutely not.
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If Gabrieli had run in the caucuses, and then didn’t get 15%, that would be proof that it’s a bad rule. With only three candidates running, and all of them credible, they really should all get on the ballot.
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But he didn’t run – you can’t blame the rule for that.
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That’s like saying that if a candidate doesn’t bother to try to collect signatures because he doesn’t declare his candidacy until after the signature deadline, and he’s a credible candidate, that’s proof that the signature requirement is a bad rule – because it kept a credible candidate off the ballot. No, it’s not, it’s just proof that if you don’t try, you can’t succeed.
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I have a lot of sympathy for the case made when bad process keeps out those who should’ve been been able to compete, if they try to play by the rules. If they try and they don’t succeed and you think they should succeed, that’s evidence that the process is bad. If they don’t try at all, it says nothing about the process.
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Gabrieli knew that to run for Governor in Massachusetts, you need to run in the caucuses to elect your supporters to the convention. He didn’t do it. Don’t blame the process, and don’t pretend that if he fails to get on the ballot, it’s the fault of the process.
It’s not just the 15% rule I object to. It’s the whole delegate/caucus/convention process – as I’ve been saying for months, it strikes me as basically anti-democratic and designed to maintain the power of party insiders, elected officials, and a small cadre of activists. The 15% rule just increases the stakes, and therefore makes the process worse.
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I maintain that if Gabrieli fails to qualify for the ballot because of the 15% rule (especially its new “improved” one-ballot-only version), that will say a lot more about the process than about Gabrieli. You know as well as I do that 98% of the electorate has no idea what the caucuses are, how they work, or what the stakes are. Do the candidates know? Sure. But this isn’t (or shouldn’t be) all about the candidates – it’s supposed to be about the voters too, and about not abandoning small-d democratic values while we try to elect capital-D Democratic candidates.
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Moreover: If Gabrieli had run in the caucuses, and then didn’t get 15%, that would be proof that it’s a bad rule. With only three candidates running, and all of them credible, they really should all get on the ballot.
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I don’t think you really mean that. Let’s say both Gabrieli and Reilly ran in the caucuses in basically the way that Reilly did – i.e., not very hard, basically ceding the process to Patrick. Then we’d find ourselves exactly where we are now – with Gabrieli and Reilly struggling to make the ballot. The only difference would be that, instead of blaming Gabrieli for not running at all, you’d be blaming him for not running hard enough (as, in fact, you’ve already done vis-a-vis Reilly).
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So let’s keep two distinct questions distinct. (1) Should Gabrieli get on the ballot even if he doesn’t get his 15%? Answer: no, and I’ve never said otherwise – the rules are the rules. (2) Would Gabrieli’s failing to get on the ballot because of the 15% rule be bad for the party and bad for democracy? Absolutely.
Yes, let’s keep the two questions separate.
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Nobody says Gabrieli should be on the ballot if he doesn’t get 15%. Not you, not me, not Scott Lehigh, nobody. So that’s not one of the questions.
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We started out discussing whether it would be undemocratic, or a debacle, if Gabrieli didn’t get on the ballot this year. We added in a discussion of whether the 15% rule (and the whole caucus & convention process, which I’m using “15% rule” as shorthand for) is good or bad. I think the latter issue is completely separate.
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You claim that if Gabrieli fails to make 15% this year, that’ll somehow show us that this process is bad. I find that completely ridiculous, because Gabrieli didn’t go through the process, he bypassed it. All it will show is that this process can keep out those candidates who don’t try to compete in it.
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Imagine this: A candidate jumps in the race today. She quickly collects 5,000 signatures and hands them in to the state. The state says sorry, you needed to get these in to city and town clerks for certification by May 9th. We can’t certify these. So the candidate doesn’t get on the ballot. Then someone comes along on a blog, someone who thinks the entire signature process is a bad idea and undemocratic, and says “see!”. No, sorry. You’re conflating two different issues.
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If you don’t like the caucus/convention/15% process, fine. Argue that on its merits. Try to get it changed for next year. Don’t pretend that it has anything to do with Gabrieli, because he skipped a critical part of this process this year, and if he doesn’t make it on the ballot, it will be because of that and nothing else. Your guesses about what might have happened if he had run in the caucuses, are properly part of a debate about whether the process is good or bad, but have nothing to do with what we’ll learn about it if Gabrieli doesn’t get on the ballot, because he didn’t run caucuses.
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Gabrieli’s failure to get on the ballot this year, if it happens, will tell us nothing whatsoever about the value of the caucus/convention/15% process. NOTHING.
You think what you describe as the two issues are completely separate. I don’t. We disagree there, but it doesn’t make my position “ridiculous.” So don’t call it that. Even if you use ALL CAPS, I still don’t agree with you.
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I’ve argued my position ad nauseam here and elsewhere, and I don’t intend to do so again (so don’t go telling me to “argue it on its merits” – I’ve been doing that for months, and I still have not received any “on the merits” responses that I consider particularly satisfactory). I understand that, as things have turned out, the rule favors your candidate, and the one that many others on these threads back. That doesn’t make it a good rule. And I do intend to try to change it, not that anyone really cares what I think about it.
your analogy to the signature process is flawed for too many reasons to list them all. I’ll list just the most obvious: signatures are required by state law, not by bogus internal party rules, and handing in your signatures late is inconsistent with state law. To the extent that the 15% rule can be analogized at all to the signature process, the scenario you pose would be like Gabrieli writing to Phil Johnston after he failed to get 15% at the convention to tell him that he had persuaded enough delegates to switch their votes that now he had what he needed, and wouldn’t that be good enough.
…(‘viz.: “the signs are clear that Patrick, who holds the lion’s share of delegates, hopes to keep Gabrieli off the primary ballot'” —
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Of course Patrick “hopes to keep Gabrieli off the primary ballot” — he CANNOT WIN THE PRIMARY with Gabrieli on the ballot. I don’t say that to provoke, but because I think it’s beyond dispute. Regardless of whether Chris beats Deval or not, he takes more votes from Deval than he does from Reilly. And, importantly, he puts two candidates on TV all summer — making them the two candidates in the race. With only Reilly on TV, Patrick is the gritty underdog; with both Chris and Tom on the tube, he is lefty longshot.
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Lehigh is probably hearing what I’m hearing, which is that the Patrick campaign is, fairly and understandably, turning up the heat on their delegates not to defect for any reason.
A lot of what we’re hearing here — for what it’s worth, allegedly allegedly allegedly — is that Patrick’s delegates have no intention of switching to Gabrieli. We’ll see if the voices we hear here are representative of Patrick’s delegates as a whole, but I would guess that Patrick has a pretty high loyalty factor, both for personality reasons and for all of the strategic reasons folks have mentioned.
there’s no such thing as “beyond dispute.” The next four months will turn some of us into miraculous soothsayers and others into babbling idiots (not because of who we support but because we all “know” something that’s “beyond dispute”).
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The one rule that never changes. No one knows anything.
Anything can happen, you’re right. But I do think for Patrick, right now, it has to be a no brainer to defend as vigorously as possible against Gabrieli’s delegate hunt. And I think, for him, keeping Gabrieli off the ballot is a more important reason for this than getting the convention endorsement.
The article by Lehigh is sloppy, since it doesn’t state some obvious points. It is great for discussion here, but he does not address 4 major and obvious points.
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1) The 15% rule was changed by the state committee in order to keep the primary small.
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The party did it for a reason, and it was not to keep people like Gabrieli off the ballot, it was to keep people like Patrick off. A year ago, no one would have ever thought that Patrick would be where he is. More likely he would be the Tolman campaignin 2006. The 2002 campaign likely would have been different if Tolman wasn’t around as it might have allowed Reich to win over O’Brien.
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2) During the Feb. caucus, I believe a town in central MA voted for delegate that were planning on supporting Joe Kennedy.
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This made people think that some delegates wanted someone else besides Patrick and Reilly. But only a famous name ( Joe Kennedy ) or a self financed candidate could find out if support is there. If Gabrieli does not get on the ballot, it is because he was wrong in believing delegates were available that wanted someone else.
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3) If Generic Democratic candidate X jumps into the race TODAY, that does not mean Candidate X should be on the ballot.
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There is a process for a reason. This point is to counter Lehigh’s main argument that Gabrieli is a credible candidate and therefore should be on the ballot. Others BMG members are disproving this point sufficiently in other points.
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4) No one is running ads, besides Gabrieli
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Since no one is running ads to express their own message, it is really hard to argue that these are genuine signs of support for the G-Man. I am sorry, but anyone can spend $2M and get some support when you are the only game in town for the casul voter watching TV.
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PS: I am not a delegate and I like Gabrieli. I don’t care if he gets on the ballot or not. I see both sides.
Scot would dismiss his candidacy as evidence of the weakness of the progressive wing of the Party. Don’t think he’d be calling on ex-officios to bail him out.
But it doesn’t mean he hasn’t got a point.
Lehigh wrote this same column four years ago about Robert Reich. He didn’t take the opportunity to bash Reich, but instead wrote about how the 15% rule is worthless. You can find the link to the column from my blog.
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Not sure if that means he wouldn’t bash Patrick for having the same problem, but he does have a history of being against the 15% rule.
Thanks sco!
noted!
Gabrieli IS from the progressive wing of the party – hypothetical responses like “If it was Deval struggling to get the 15%…” is usually an indication of sour grapes.
I like Chris, he just came late to the party (small “p”), that’s all.
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Too nice a day (finally!) for arguing …
I have to disagree with your point 4 – or at least agree with it in a totally reverse way.
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Gabrieli is the only one airing TV ads right now, so he is getting a bump you say.
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Well, the response is: Reilly and Deval were the only announced candidates at the time of the caucus, so they got all the committed delegates.
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Duh, you say? Not really.
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I’ve lost count of the number of delegates I’ve spoken with who have said, “I committed to Deval/Tom at the caucus and I’m gonna honor that commitment, but if Gabrieli was in pre-caucus, I would have been with him.”
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My point is this: the support is there.
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Unfortunately, though caucuses and party conventions are held every year, once every four years, delegates are selected not by service to the party to represent their city or town, but rather singularly through the prism of the gubernatorial race.
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The caucuses are not a deadline.
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Like I said before, Gabrieli should not be “entitled” to a spot on the ballot – but hopefully uncommitted/undecided delegates will agree that the primary is better (more full of ideas, solid debate, and new supporters) with Gabrieli in it and decide that his campaign and vision deserves continued inclusion in the primary process post-convention. It is good for the Party.
I just can’t see the argument that it would be bad for the Democrats or for Democracy if Chris Gabrieli doesn’t receive 15% of the votes. The only “argument” I’ve seen so far for why it would be bad is “the people… won’t have the opportunity to have a contest between the ablest candidates.” (from the Globe article referenced by David)
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One could make this same argument about any step in the process: the requirement to get 10,000 signatures, the ability to use one’s personal funds to finance the campaign, etc. Yes, there are hurdles to getting on the ballot, and along with other reasons, the best and the brightest aren’t always the ones who end up there. The ones, however, who plan ahead, mobilize their supporters, and reflect the interests of the party membership, generally do end up on the ballot.
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I also don’t buy the implication that it’s bad for someone to have to be vetted by the party membership before making it to the primary. After all, what is a political party if not a group of activists that work together to support candidates who reflect their political interests? If you can’t get the party activists excited about your campaign, then why should you have a chance of representing that party in the general election?
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I am a Deval Patrick delegate, but I would not have been had he entered the race when Mr. Gabrieli did. Although many Democrats are proud of their history as rule-breakers, there are times when you need to play the game to win.
There are things you have to do to get on the primary ballot, but running in the caucuses is not one of them. It helps, but it’s not a requirement, as will be evidenced if Gabrieli gets on.
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I don’t understand the line among Patrick supporters that “I like Chris, I might even have supported him, but he came late to the party.” It’s everywhere and it smacks of a talking-point. If you like him, consider supporting him now. I think this hard line on the early stages of the process is cover for a strictly defensive action to protect Deval’s campaign. Which is fine. I just wish more people could be open about it.
too quaint a notion for you? Too naive for the political arena perhaps?
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Deval Patrick’s supporters worked hard organizing for the caucuses: phone calls, canvassing, etc. The people elected as Patrick delegates are going to the convention as a direct result of that hard work. They said they would vote for Deval. We expect them to keep their word. It is not complicated.
I don’t see why caucus support should be understood as an ethically binding promise. It’s too early, especially given that the overriding goal is to get a Democrat elected to the office in November. And when a very appealing candidate was not an option at that time.
“…And when a very appealing candidate was not an option at that time.”
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Maybe there were none appealing to you Cannoneo. But there was one who was very appealing for maybe 60%+ of the delegates elected that day……
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I personally find NOTHING appealing about Gabrieli – nothing.
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And when half the Italians in this state realize he’s not even Italian? There goes a lot of his support too! 🙂 (/humor)
I meant one particular candidate (Gabrieli), not that there were no appealing candidates already in the race. Patrick and Reilly indeed have a lot to offer. I like them both.
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Too bad you don’t feel the same about Gabrieli. I think you might find SOMETHING to like if you checked out the web site.
the above line looks like the one I used, which was:
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“I like Chris, he just came late to the party (small “p”), that’s all.”
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maybe someone offered a different quote, but mine did not have the middle phrase, for the record. might be true or might not.
that he won’t vote unless he gets to vote for Chris Gabrieli.”
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Really. Let’s call a spade a spade here.
Lehigh has chosen a horse in this race and is praying he doesn’t get scratched. His op-ed is so distorted, it’s a public endorsement for the guy who can afford to buy the election.
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Why should a guy who ignored the process be encouraged? If everyday voters went to their town caucuses and voted for who they wanted to represent them at the convention, they deserve to be represented as they wish.
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I propose a new change to the “rules”: Only those who participate in the democratic process and work locally for individual votes should be given a chance to be on the ballot. Let Gabrieli be a write in candidate.
Isn’t it odd that LeHigh thinks it is too early for us to pick a candidate but apparently just right for us and him to pick HIS candidate?
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What a numb nuts!
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But I guess it’s true to form, considering his employer.
The idea that it would be some great failure of democracy if Gabrielli gets taken out is silly. I have mixed feelings about the 15% rule. One could, for that matter, question the whole caucus system itself. Rules like this are basically expressions of organized interests pursuing advantage in the name of principle. But it is the system we have at present, and if anyone was positioned to understand and take advantage of that system it was Gabrielli. He didn’t run because he made certain calculations and had other plans. To have a caucus system and then simply disregard its results is not in any obvious way an expression of deep democratic commitments. Furthemore, what makes Gabrielli appear to some to be so serious a claimant for the nomination? A recent surge in polling born of the spending of millions, a move made possible solely by the candidate’s vast personal wealth. I don’t accept that the ability of the uber rich to buy their way into an election well after the most grassroots moment of the process has passed would be a victory for small “d” democracy. If Gabrielli can muster the votes, fine. I’d be stunned if he can’t. But speaking as a delegate who did not bear him any ill will at the start of this race (and who thought of him as better than his running mate in the last general election), I can say he’ll certainly not get my vote. And I certainly hope that if, contrary to my understanding, the Patrick campaign has the capacity to knock Gabrielli off the ballot, they will go ahead and do it.
Might I remind everyone that internecine primary battles have been hefty contributors to Democratic losses in the past several gubernatorial races? I hardly see limiting them as a “democratic debacle.”
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Also: David, I don’t mind changing the rules – but not in the middle of the game. Mr. Gabrieli is a smart man, certainly smart enough to have understood the rules before he entered the race. So did Reilly. Neither bothered with the caucus process that is part of the party rule. Presumably they did so at their peril. If they don’t get 15 percent? tough nuggies.
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As to allowing any Tom, Dick or Harry on the ballot: we have a party convention in order to present its candidates to the party voters. The covention refines its choice and the party as a whole chooses its final candidate in the primary. Frankly, I have no problem with the democratic measure of that process beyond the fact that too many delegates are not elected in the caucases. I do find the idea of five or ten or twenty candidates on the ballot, which you seem to suggest, chaotic and rife with the possibility of corruption and manipulation.
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Reilly and Gabrieli should have worried about their 15% at the beginning of the process, not at the end. They both took the party for granted – perhaps a bit arrogant, and, if there is a price to be paid, they might consider being men enough to pay it.