Insider deals, super-sized checks to influential Democrats, and rumors of cooked numbers!
All cast a shadow over the 2006 Democratic State Nominating Convention that otherwise might have claimed itself an unalloyed success. I am referring of course, to the various ploys used by Chris Gabrieli to assure himself a place on the Primary election ballot in September. The message sent is that the Democratic State Party is doing business as usual, which means that money talks and lots of money speaks loudly enough to gain one a place on the ballot. No need to follow the rules; if youâve got enough dough, youâve got enough clout to buy your way in. I mentioned this to one of Gabrieliâs supporters on the convention floorâa very young man who replied, âBut everything he did is legal!â Apparently, so long as what is done is at least technically legal, there is no problem if it is also unethical!
This was my first nominating convention and I was a Deval Patrick delegate. While I was elated at the Conventionâs endorsement of Deval, who garnered 58% of the vote, the machinations of the Gabrieli campaign in league with Party insiders, left me angry, disheartened, and discouraged.
House Speaker Sal DiMasiâs remark to the media, âIf I helped put Gabrieli on the ballot, thatâs good. Everybody should be on the ballot because this party is about inclusion.â is completely off base. âEverybodyâ in fact, should NOT be on the ballot. Candidates who follow the spirit, and not just the letter, of the Party rules and qualify on that basis should be on the ballot. Candidates who get into the race early enough to be vetted by the public belong on the ballot. Candidates who put themselves on the line at the Democratic caucuses and earn support from a sufficient number of delegates should be on the ballot. However, individuals who bypass public vetting, dis the caucuses, and spend millions of their own money to buy their way into the process, do not belong on the ballot. Of course I know that politics is all about cutting deals. But the actions of Mr. DiMasi, and other Party insiders make a travesty of the democratic process.
The fact that it was done to undercut Deval Patrickâs success because he is an outsider, helps explain why it is so difficult today to convince people that their vote does indeed make a difference, never mind engaging them in the process itself.
I am also disheartened by the behavior of those delegates who chose to support Gabrieli A close look at his campaign should have raised some questions. Why did he enter the race so lateânotably after being dropped by Reilly as his choice for Lt. Gov? Why hasnât he been heard from in the four years since he lost the election for Lt. Gov? Is it acceptable for potential candidates for Democratic office to avoid the Democratic caucuses? Is buying access a desirable democratic value? If these delegates were not aware, they should have been. It appears they might not have understood, or cared about the ethical issues involved. I donât believe there was any malevolent intent on their part. Just possibly ignorance and a willingness to be seduced by the big bucks. Perhaps that is what should worry us most if we are concerned about the future of real democracy.
Leslie Burg
Deval Patrick delegate
Alderman at Large, Newton; leslie@leslieburg.org
Leslie-
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You have managed to combine EVERY supposed negative point pushed about Gabrieli, from the entire blog, into one comment!
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Nice work!
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p> Faulty reasoning aside, I still get a kick out of the NOTION the DP gang still pushes as DP as an outsider!!!
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Reminds me of the George Bush School of PR, keep repeating something long enough and everyone will believe it!
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Get over it DP failed to keep Gabrieli OFF THE BALLOT, so you’re going to have to face the facts. DP is in the middle of a three way race for Governor.
“Why hasnât he been heard from in the four years since he lost the election for Lt. Gov?” are you for real? He did play by the rules, i guese some folks just dont like the rules
If you want your candidate to win, work for him to win — no one promised that elections would be easy. The best revenge for whatever games you think were played at the convention is winning.
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Keep your eyes on the prize.
I can tell you that is the best you can do. It hurts especially when you really think your candidate is THE guy. I swore I would not get involved in this campaign following 2004 However, I once again found a candidate I like, so I am in. Lets hope this time I am not the kiss of death. 😛
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(Full disclosure statement In 2000 I lived in Manchester, NH and volunteered for Bradley (we lost by just 4% :.( ), in 2004 I was a congressional district coordinator here in MA for Clark, but then went on to work for Kerry in Northern Maine for the final two weeks of the campaign. I am now a Patrick Ward Coordinator).
I was the Gabrieli whip in Leslie’s district, and I think I was the “very young man” (I’ll take that as a compliment, since I’m past 30!) who she quotes in the post. We certainly had a conversation in which she made this argument to me. If I said “everything he did is legal” (and I don’t have an exact memory of that, but it’s possible and I won’t dispute it), it’s because Leslie, as in this post, strongly implies Chris had broken “the rules.” My first duty then, as now, was to counter that false accusation. I also wasn’t about to spend precious time defending candidate self-funding or putting the caucuses in perspective, to someone who clearly wasn’t going to change her vote.
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In Leslie’s defense, when she made this argument to me on the convention floor she was genial and polite, and in general seemed like a very nice person.
I must say that the “breaking all the rules” talking point was ubiquitous, presented to me as the “Achilles Heal” of the Gabrieli Campaign continually.
It was so widespread, that in my opinion, it must have been issued internally from the Patrick campaign.
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So bad they hadn’t vetted it, because everytime I was confronted with it, one simple question dumbfounded the proponents: “If he broke all the rules, then what is he doing on the convention ballot?”
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After a couple of moments, a dumbfounded look, the sheepish response was, “I guess you’re right.”
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Apparently thought we did violate several unwritten rules:
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UNWRITTEN RULES VIOLATED BY GABRIELI CAMPAIGN
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1) You can’t get 15% unless you run in the caucuses.
2) IF you get 15% at the convention you have broken rule #1 and must be challenged in the tally room.
3) Never run a campaign against a campaign that is claiming to be inclusionary, it just gets TOO inclusionary.
4) Working really hard to win can really piss off a campaign that is supposed to knock off all the opposition that violated unwritten rules 1 & 2.
5) Anybody running against DP’s “Outsider” campaign, must automatically
by definition be an “insider”, because, that is the ONLY thing that makes sense.
6) When the script was written in March that DP would come out of the convention with over 70% PLUS splitting the opposition vote evenly, thus achieving an uncontested primary, DON”T MESS WITH THE SCRIPT. Too upsetting for the script writters, to have such a messy ending.
7) There are many more unwritten rules, but they are too numberous to
list at this time…
Win lose or draw, agree or disagree, we have a ticket in front of us. All three candidates are on. It’s not going to change.
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I speak as a Patrick supporter who was mad as hell at some of the things that went on, particularly the misleading “lend us your vote” calls.
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It’s Wednesday, June 7th. The convention is over. I don’t want to dismiss your concerns about it, but it’s done. We all did what we had to do on Saturday, and we all need to continue doing it going forward. Let’s play the game and play hard, instead of complaining about our opponents.
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Secondly, this could have been a better post if it spoke about all of the problems at the convention without making it seem that the one issue was Gabrieli? What about the lack of training for volunteers? The issues with access? Handicapped people stuck in the crush of standing people? Sit/Stand “housekeeping” votes being taken as the vast majority of delegates were either gone or standing and walking out the door? I could go on and on…My point is, it could’ve been a well rounded post.
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I’ve seen people say that continuing to complain about what took place makes Patrick supporters look bad. I think they’re right, and I for one am done with that. I’ll work my ass off for Deval from right now until the primary, and if he is not the voter’s choice I will work my ass off for whoever is until the general. I hope we can all agree to do the same.
(I, too, was a Patrick delegate at my first Dem. state convention. And from the 1st Essex Middlesex district, which turned out the second-highest percentage for DP out of the entire state, I might proudly add.)
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Everyone who defends Gabrieli says that he is playing within the rules. Maybe. But just barely. And he is clearly violating the spirit of the rules. This is undeniable.
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I have tried to âunsubscribeâ (I never âsubscribedâ in the first place) to his email list twice to no avail. After getting another email last Thursday asking me to vote for him on the first ballot (yeah, right), I sent an email to David Gregory, the former Mass. Dem. party political director who went to work for Gabrieli and is listed as the Middlesex and Essex county regional contact. No response. This from a campaign who has put the full-court press on delegates, many of whom seem all too easily manipulated by the lure of a one-on-one telephone chat with a political quasi-celebrity.
Wasn’t this post just precious? I actually laughed my butt off, because it was also a smug, self-righteous, pretentious and obnoxious whine of a post.
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Leslie – I am really sorry that this convention was your “first time” and all, and it didn’t quite live up to your idealistic expectations (it’s usually that way the “first time”)…but please – spare me the sermon. This was probably my fifth gubernatorial convention and as far as they go – it wasn’t that bad.
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Your comments about Gab delegates were just too adorable for words:
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“It appears they might not have understood, or cared about the ethical issues involved. I donât believe there was any malevolent intent on their part. Just possibly ignorance and a willingness to be seduced by the big bucks. Perhaps that is what should worry us most if we are concerned about the future of real democracy.”
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Ignorance? Willingness to be seduced by big bucks? That answer would be “no.” My town’s delegates were ripe for the picking by Gabrieli because Patrick didn’t show up at all, and Reilly had only a small showing. Mr. Gabrieli called many of us personally. It was a nice touch.
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I have a newsflash for you – not every town conducts their caucuses the way yours does. My town doesn’t do the slate thing, so the wrangling usually occurs AFTER the caucus. In fact, we typically have good representation for all candidates, and that was manifest on Saturday. Not surprisingly, we’re all very friendly and cordial with one another, no matter what candidate we’re supporting, because at the end of the day – we’re still neighbors and friends. It’s a lesson that some people in this party may want to learn. I couldn’t believe how poorly some delegates (of all stripes) were being treated by their “home” delegation.
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So Leslie – you may look down your nose at us, but after September you may need us or we may need you. You may disagree with us – but you don’t have to be quite to disagreeable or ugly about it.
Honestly, the Gabrieli issue was probably sewn up when the Democratic party insiders changed the rules from allowing “elected” delegates to sign off on Gabrieli to letting all delegates to sign off. From that point, it became an insider’s game and he was pretty much assured a ballot. Getting 30% of the ex-officio vote, which is probably about 13% of the delegate vote, was never going to be a problem for a guy as well-connected as Gabrieli. From that point, the Democratic officials had to figure out a way to get him on the ballot or risk looking bad in the public eye.
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More importantly, the 90% of the MA Democratic population couldn’t give a rat’s tuckus who won or who lost or what happened in Insiderland (and all of us who were delegates, even if we were first-time delegates, count as Insiderland to the general populace). All they know is that there are three guys on the Democratic ballot, Reilly’s the only one they recognize, and I’m betting most of them are either undecided or still easily persuadable.
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It’s a new type of race now and it’s up to each candidate to get the popular support needed to win. The Democratic endorsement is a nice start, but it doesn’t really deliver any votes. If the Patrick campaign is going to actually win the nomination, this is where the whole grassroots volunteer movement has to stand up and deliver in getting out the vote. Otherwise, I think Gabrieli will win with his money and media buys and any whining that goes on will just look like sour grapes.
I am sick and tired of Deval Patrick supporters’whining! I have been a delegate to this convention for almost 20 years and have NEVER before witnessed the poor behavior displayed by so many of the Patrick supporters. You certainly did not serve your candidate well. Many delegates were turned off by you and unfortunately for your candidate, he will ultimately suffer. For example, the unrelenting verbal harrassment suffered by those of us who supported/voted for either Gabrieli or Reilly by the Deval delegates/supporters. The holding up of “silence” signs by some Patrick supporters while Gabrieli was giving his speech. These 2 examples are indicative of the disgraceful antics that the Deval Patrick supporters/ delegates employed last Saturday.
Do you really think that those of us who were there on Saturday or regularly read the newspapers do not KNOW that Deval is an insider? Let’s run down the list of just some of the insiders who support Deval: Congressmen McGovern, Tierney, Olver, Capuano and Frank, former Governor Mike Dukakis and his wife, Kitty, former Leutenant Governor, Evelyn Murphy, Senator Barack Obama and countless state committee members and officials. Additionally, Deval has spent a good portion of his adult life working in government and therefore, by definition, working for and with insiders.
I am one delegate who absolutely felt that denying Chris Gabrieli ballot access would not serve our party well. Chris Gabrieli is in the lead or very close to the lead in ALL of the most recent polls. Do you think the “average Democratic voter” would look positvely at the 58% of the 5000 party insiders who denied ballot access to the democrat who received the most primary votes in 2002, the democrat who has consistently supported other democratic candidates and causes, and the democrat who is ahead in the polls? The answer is a resounding NO. I have had enough of republican do-nothing governors. Apparently, the Deval supporters have not. They would rather have seen Deval get the nomination and knock the other two candidates off the ballot by using intimidation and threats even if it mortally wounded the party and the party’s chance of recapturing the corner office. Why is the Patrick crowd so scared and cynical? Is it because you know that Deval cannot win the primary? If he cannot win the primary, he cannot win the general.
Patrick delegates and supporters are whiny, harrassing, disgraceful, threatening, intimidating, scared, and cynical?
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Who knew?
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I’m sorry, but it’s hard to take this comment seriously. If you’ve been a delegate to this convention for over 20 years, one would think you’d have developed a thicker skin and a less judgmental attitude towards those who don’t agree with you or support your candidate. Your sweeping generalities may make for stirring rhetoric, but actually bear little resemblance to fact and serve no productive purpose.
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Slogging through your invective, though, I was able to glean the notion that you are a Gabrieli supporter. Well, fwiw, rants like this will surely help your candidate.
Because the post that we’re all commenting on isn’t a series of invectives? Please LightIris; dear sweet Leslie had this to say about Gabrieli supporters:
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“It appears they might not have understood, or cared about the ethical issues involved. I donât believe there was any malevolent intent on their part. Just possibly ignorance and a willingness to be seduced by the big bucks.”
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So…Leslie thinks we’re either stupid or uncaring about ethical issues, or perhaps ignorant or too easily seduced by “big bucks.” Are you okay with this kind of Colterish screed? Aren’t these statements aren’t “sweeping generalities?”
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When Patrick supporters complain, whine, and carry on – it’s for the “good of the party,” and the “spirit of democracy.” When anyone points out the obvious – they’re thin-skinned and judgemental. It’s everyone else’s fault.
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This is a winning strategy for November? We’re gonna be toast if people don’t start focusing on the issues instead of this crap.
the “silence” signs were only coming out for Gabrieli when a Deval delegate was being inappropriate, i.e. waving a Patrick sign or booing. The official campaign obviously has nothing to gain from having an individual delegate who isn’t behaving. And, considering that a lot of Deval delegates were first-timers both in the convention and in the political process in general, Deval’s whips had some work to do in calming them down.
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I’m not excusing the Deval delegates who were rude and, as a Deval delegate, I found the booing to be inappropriate. However, I didn’t see any Whip action that was also intended to silence positive audience reaction. Maybe that was happening in other locations, but not in the Middlesex/Suffolk area.
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And nobody has disputed that Deval is a political insider in the federal sense. He’s always been advertised as a Clinton administration official. However, in state politics, he’s not the insider that Gabrieli and Reilly are. Nobody gets to be a serious gubernatorial candidate without having connections, but Patrick’s campaign has been dependent on energizing a lot of activists and grassroots organizations, which is both its greatest strength and weakness. Strength in that it is not dependent on the machine politics of other groups, but a weakness in that coalitions of smaller groups are inevitably harder to manage. And, as the most volunteer-based campaign, Patrick supporters tend to be more personal and defensive about their candidate. It’s no secret that Patrick’s supporters would like everyone else to leave the primary race, but isn’t that the goal of all the candidates? If a candidate wants voters to vote for someone else, he’s in the wrong business.
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Even so, I’m holding to the same stance that I’ve made in other comments: the booing and general hard feelings of the convention don’t matter to 90% of the voting Democratic population. I worry about Gabrieli’s big money entrance in the race assisted by Sal DiMasi becoming a Republican talking point, but if Gabrieli wins enough popular support, it won’t be an issue. Other than that, Gabrieli came out as a legit candidate, Reilly gave a good speech, Patrick gave a great speech, and now it’s off to the real race.
You just can’t stand the truth about the Deval supporters comintg out. Your candidate supposedly stands for inclusiveness and diversity but a lot of the committed support for Patrick was nasty, divisive and exclusionary at last Saturday’s convention and that is a fact whether you like it or not. A dirty little fact that the Patrick campaign rhetoric tries to hide. You want to play hardball politics fine but don’t be the hypocritical. Deval proclaims to be supportive of diversity and inclusiness. But it is quite apparent after watching his campaign last Saturday that Deval is all talk. He supports diversity and inclusiveness unless that diversity and inclusiveness threatens him. Once he’s threatened, he plays inside, exclusionary politics with the best of them. But alas, on Saturday your little plan to barr Gabrieli from the ballot fell short and so to did Deval’s plan to be the nominee.
Your right I support Gabrieli now and it is thanks in large part to the overzealous, obnoxious Deval supporters. At first, I felt that Gabrieli deserved ballot access and I was just thinking of voting for him for that reason. But after witnessing the tactics that I thought only W and the Republicans capable of: such as the attempt to silence people, pulling of credentials, intimidating people when they were voting, trying to knock viable candidates off the ballot etc. etc., I can no longer even consider voting for Deval. Your distasteful and undemocratic campaign has pushed me firmly into Gabrieli’s camp. Don’t preach to me about being thin skinned. I can take it and give it very well. I nor the other Gabrieli voters were afraid or intimidated by the likes of the rabid Deval delegates who were throwing tantrums when a vote for Gabrieli was cast but some were. When they have the anonymity of the ballot box, Deval will be the loser.
Here, have some Kool Aid…it’s delicious. 😉
Thanks but I like to think independently.
You can feel the heat coming through greencape’s keyboard. Everything he/she says, however, appears to be accurate based upon what I have heard and seen.
It is naive to think that Gabrieli made the ballot based on the strength of his candidacy. Delegation control of some delegates sometimes works for you, sometimes not, that’s just part of the game. If you are a Gabrieli supporter congratualtions, you made the ballot, but don’t expect everyone to play nicey nice with you. He’s a good guy, but no one seriously thinks his run is anything but sour grapes. He’ll spend lots and lots of money, consultants and pollsters will be thrilled!
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Now the point was made that, well look at Deval’s endorsements, he’s an insider also. I’d guess that most of the people that were mentioned had little idea who Deval Patrick was a little over a year ago. They didn’t endorse him because of a long standing relationship, but from the strength of his message. Much to the resentment of other campaigns, the Patrick campaign has a large, committed grassroot organization. If Deval doesn’t win in September, I would sure want those people on my side come November.
Is name recognition the only test of whether you are an insider or not? Of course, it is not. Let’s ask one question: which gubenortorial candidates have been employed by the public sector and which has not? That’s right, Deval and Tom have been working in the public sector for most of their adult lives, and Chris has not. So let’s not be disingenuous. Public service is honorable and polictical endorsements are great but let’s not pretend to be an outsider when you’re not. Hard ball politics are also fine with me but don’t tell me that you are inclusive and different when you’re not. As far as being naive, with all due respect, you, Mr.leibowitz, are the naive one. I’d guess most people still do not know who Deval Patrick is. With respect to Patrick’s so-called large grassroots campaign, he won the votes of 58% of the voting democtatic delegates or somewhere around 2500 votes. That result was impressive in the convention arena but get a grip. Winning the Democratic Convention’s endorsement is hardly a predictor of success in either September or November. And guess what, whether you or anyone else likes it, a candidate needs lots and lots of money to win.
Just a brief note to those who misunderstood what I said re Gabrieli breaking either the law or the “rules”… Please read the first paragraph again. I never said that what he did was unlawful or illegal; in fact, it wasn’t. I did say that what he did was in my perhaps still idealistic view, unethical. I happen to believe that the caucuses, however they are run, are important since they do give a voice to the people delegates ultimately represent. The rudeness of some Patrick supporters ostensibly experienced by Gabrieli delegates is not excusable. However, the ways in which their candidate won his place on the ballot should be of much more concern to all of us. The position I read in many responses is basically, that’s the way it is, the way the game (of politics) is played, and in the final analysis, the end justifies the means… That may be true but I won’t ever support that way of thinking.
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I was in college when JFK ran for the presidency and I worked in his campaign. Some things are better today than they were then in terms of openess and transparency. Decisions used to be made in those literally smoke-filled rooms by insiders who controlled the process almost entirely.
The public frequently didn’t know who the candidate was going to be until it was announced on the floor. However, if I recall correctly, there was a lot less cynicism then than I see today. No doubt we have a lot more to be cynical about these days, but seeing so much of it in so many young people (and 30 is indeed “very young” to me!) is troubling.
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Leslie