The first televised “debate” between the three Democratic candidates for Lietenant Governor aired Friday on WCVB. What a disappointment. There was no debate at all. Janet Wu, who can do much better, simply posed a series of predictable questions about taxes, health care, and the role of the LG, followed up with some easy lifestyle questions (the most interesting part of the conversation) and wrapped the station’s civic obligation. I can’t say anyone won or lost because, frankly, there was no debate.
For the record, none of the candidates support a tax rollback to 5.0% — even though the people of the state voted for this reform and we have a $700 million budget surplus. (The donkey-headed stubborn-ness of this position continues to amaze me — hello! do any of the candidates actually want to win?! — but I digress). All of the candidates support the health care reform package passed by the legislature. Murray, if elected, would like to serve as a liaison to cities and towns, help develop commuter rail, and improve brownfield cleanup efforts; Silbert wants to help coordinate the state’s economic development efforts and federal lobbying programs, and improve programs for the disadvantaged, in particular the homeless; Goldberg spoke in generalities, the most specific she got was that she wanted to provide “homes for families in Massachusetts.”
The lifestyle questions were the most interesting. Goldberg sends her children to private school, drives a Lexus — her husband has an Audi — her favorite charity is the adoption agency that helped her adopt her children, she listens to Aerosmith, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, and enjoys reading, skiing, playing tennis and spending time with her family. Murray plans to send his infant child to public school when the time comes, drives a Chevy Impala, cites the Worcester Boys and Girls Clubs as his favorite charity, doesn’t like heavy metal music, and reads and works out in his free time. Silbert says public school is the only choice for her children, drives an old Subaru Legacy — her husband drives a Dodge pickup — says the Center for Women and Enterprise, which she founded, is her favorite non-profit, with the Harwich Conservation Trust, where she is a trustee, as her second-favorite, listens to Santana, Springsteen, and 1970s disco, and spends her free time with her children and husband.
My advice is that if you want to learn something about the differences between the candidates in this race — and they do have them — skip WCVB and read their websites.
Personally, I thought those questions were godawful. “What kind of car do you drive?” Please. These were obviously designed to demonstrate one thing, and one thing only: that Deb Goldberg has a lot of money. Well guess what, folks, she does. So do Deval Patrick and Chris Gabrieli, and I’ll bet they’re not driving a Chevy Impala either. Did any of that info help you decide who’d be a better Gov or LG? It sure didn’t help me.
Bob, I’d have thought you would have liked Goldberg’s answer the most – she was the only one to acknowledge the importance of the 2000 vote, and to recognize that the fact that the voters said they want something must be accorded respect. She floated the possibility of a re-vote. What do you think?
I don’t care about lip service, I care about action. Goldberg’s position arguably was the worst: she acknowledged the importance of the voters and then said, in effect, screw ’em. If the 2000 vote was indeed important, why not follow it and roll back the tax rate? There’s no logic in her position. At least the other candidates were straightforward enough to say the 2000 voters are irrelevant — foolhardy though I think that position is. As to the specific issue of a re-vote, I think that’s a make-weight i.e. she doesn’t really mean it. By that argument, what’s the point of having referendums at all since there is always a lag between votes and implementation. Would six months be too long? How about six weeks? What if the stock market crashed, or there was some other major change, in between our theoretical vote and implementation? Call me old fashioned, but I think if the people vote for something in a democray, politicians should bend over backwards to try to get it for them, not spin endless excuses about why they don’t really want or need what they are voting for.
the economy we have now is not the economy we had in 2000. If held to a vote again, who is to say the voters wouldn’t vote the other way.
who’s to say they would? đŸ˜‰
…the voters wouldn’t chop of their noses to spite their faces, or jump off a bridge if their friends do? The rollback was stopped (LEGALLY by passing a LAW) midway because of changing circumstances and a diminishing economy, which we STILL are recovering from. And increases of up to 40% on property taxes (which are regressive) to boot.
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Yup, keep on touting that ol’ Taxpayer Wisdom. I’m sure our local aid and our school systems would not have gotten more of a cut in funding these last few years if we’d just done what the taxpayers felt in their gut they wanted.
The Party normally associated with a self-appointed elite deciding what is best for us common folk is normally seen as the Republicans.
Who cares if the overturning of the ballot measure was done legally? Of the 50,000 posts on this topic during the last few weeks, I haven’t seen any that argue that the legislature’s act was illegal.
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What they have argued is that the legislature’s action was weasely and underhanded. The continuation of the debate just reinforces the already prevalent notion that this legislature will not ever miss an opportunity to take a little more of your paycheck: taxes must always be at least as high as they are now, if not higher.
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If you think that this is not a political liability for the Democratic nominee, then you have not been paying attention these last few decades.
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Why taxes seems to gain traction as an issue in the governor’s race, but doesn’t to the same degree in the legislative races is a mystery to me. But an issue it will be in November.
Now if you’ve read any of my other comments on BMG you will notice that I’m a Silbert person entirely. But I must say that after watching this forum I think that Deb came off the best. I agree that there are no winners and losers in such a softball forum, but I would rank them Deb, Silbert, Murray based on performance… and I’m still a Silbert guy.