Dan Payne of the Boston Globe has written another op-ed analysis of the Governor’s race. I haven’t generally had too much of a problem with what he has been writing, but I do have one question. Seeing as Payne was employed by the Patrick campaign, and left on less than friendly terms, is it appropriate for the Globe to have him writing columns about that race?
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In fairness, however, his stint with the Patrick campaign is clearly disclosed at the end.
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I actually find it rather interesting to get the views of a (presumedly) disgruntled ex. He sometimes damns Deval with faint praise, until you realize he’s looking through smoke-colored glasses, and then it comes across as begrudging admiration. But, of course, that could just be my prejudices showing…
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Fairly humorous, I think. Nice to have some levity.
is that he’s a media consultant. He gets paid when candidates go on TV. His bias will always be toward putting candidates on the air, and it shows in his piece today.
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There’s less money for media guys in a grassroots, Patrick-style campaign than a media-heavy Gabrieli-style campaign.
I don’t know whether it is ‘appropriate’ for Dan to blather on, but I do want to know is do they really pay him to write that crap? Most of us posting here could have done a better hack job on the candidates than that grammatically challenged piece. His whiney, “I can’t think of single thing I get if Patrick wins”, is very telling. As sco says, it sounds like he wanted his cut on Patrick’s TV buy. Dear Dan, I know what I get if Patrick wins, and it has nothing to do with the irrelevant tax rate or stem cell research. It has everything to do with leadership.
…but would you suggest Deval say in a debate with Kerry Healey that the tax rate is “irrelevant”? Then, show all you’re graphs plotting the effective tax burden of Massachusetts vs other states?. I have no words to describe how badly we will lose the election.
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In general, forty percent of the population are Liberals or leaning liberals) and they’d accept you arguments. And forty percent won’t care what you say, they are conseratives or lean that way and they hate any level of taxes.
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The middle 20 percent don’t really pay attention until the last few days before the election, and they are never going to pay attention to all those graphs and arguments involving tax rates vs income ratios vs wages and standard of living. Blah, blah blah. But they will understand “I’ll give you $200 back to you–he won’t” from Kerry Healey. Now my generalities maybe a little off, but my point is sound.
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Now I’m not knee-jerking in favor of the tax roll back just to win in November (but there is a part of me that leans that cynical way–even after watching Deval’s Convention speech for the third time, I just got his email of it). But I will say, that if you dismiss the tax rate as “irrelevant” and back it up with graphs, charts and tax jargon–let’s cancel the election and swear Kerry Healey in right now as the next Governor.
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Sorry for the snarkness, but I get this way with comments that just dismiss out of hand the reality of taxes as an issue in this (and every) election.
I’ll jerk that knee for you. If we don’t win, we’re not going to make much progress!
I don’t know about David’s response,
but, yes, I would say so.
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Do you mean, “show all your graphs…”?
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I don’t know where you get your 40/40/20 breakdown of liberals/conservative/lalalands in a state that is overwhelmingly Democratic. btw, one of the results of the most recent Suffolk Universtity poll that I’ve not seen commented on here is “Question 10” — 42% of Unenrolleds said they are “most closely associated” with the Dems versus 27% for the GOP. So, by my crude arithmetic, that comes out to 56/29/15.
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And, even worse news for your fiscally irresponsible idea is that not all “conservatives” buy it. Many old-time Republicans remember when their Party stood for balanced budgets and the like.
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So, try as you like, you cannot come up with any way that the majority of Mass voters support cutting services and local aid.
…you answer a question I ask DavidRaRall, but as of yet, you have not answered a related question I asked you on another post.
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You seem to cling to a belief that Massachusetts is a liberal state in all aspects; therefore winning the governorship is an easy task. And if I remember some previous comments, you would submit that we haven’t been nominating candidates with true conviction and that’s why we lose. Well I think Mark Roosevelt and Scott Harshbarger had true convictions. Silber certainly had true convictions–ones neither one of us shareâand Shannon, while not perfect, but she was more of the liberal choice than Mitt.
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As for my 40/20/40 math, you ignored my comment that said it was a generality and that my basic point still stands–neither liberal/dems and conservative/reps have clear majorities in this state. To win they must rely on a significant amount of swing voters. These voters are the ones who do not pay attention to the election until the last week–often the last weekend. They do not vote with the same level of knowledge as you, I or Bostonshepard have. They are often persuaded by emotional arguments. Use graphs, facts and fiscal jargon and you lose.
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Now Michael, for someone that prides himself on facts and not illusions, I’m surprised you used data from the Suffolk poll to back up you agreement that MA is overwhelmingly Democratic. Think about this for a second. If 56% of the MA electorate more closely Id themselves with the Dem party, we would not be having this discussion. Shannon OâBrien would be Gov. and she’d be prepping for an easy reelection.
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I suspect the problem with the Suffolk #s is that they were prescreening for likely Democratic primary voters, so of course that number would be skewed. And after a 10 million barrage of hate media the Healey will run, there wonât be that level of self-idâs Dems going to the polls.
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My basic point is that history PROVES that Democrats get killed on the issue of taxes and unless someone comes up with a bullet-proof way to beat the Reps on this issue–the political side of me leans for the rollback. (The policy side agrees with you–but I’d rather have rollback Reilly–who I deplore and would never support in the primary–then Kerry Healey). Show me all the polls you want, tell me you sense this year is different (I can understand why you sense that, I sense it to, you MAY be right or weâre talking to the same like-minded people), but, as we discussed before, I look at history as a predictor to future outcomes. And “we” lost on Prop 2 and 1/2, we lost two graduated income tax votes, we lost the last four Gov races in which we were unfairly painted as taxers, we lost the rollback in 2000 and the entire income tax system was nearly thrown out by voters in â98 (?). With that evidence I submit we can not dismiss the tax issue as irrelevant. If so we lose again.
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Can you cite any historical factors that can refute this?
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And in closing–I want you to be right. We can not afford this rollback. Investing in people will generate far more tax revenues. But the election system is so imperfect that I fear, and history validates this fear, that we will lose if we are “soft on taxes”.
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“Frank” — sorry, I did not see that other question. I will try to get to it and to comment on this one as well.
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You make some excellent points about the emotional content of voting, but I do think you’re overstating the impact of the tax issue.
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Wish I had more time to comment right now, but I gotta do some real life things for a while…
real things in life pertains to enjoying the wonderful summer day, particularly in the Berkshires.
But now that it’s dark out I can spend some time at me computer. I did respond to your other query.
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To some extent, I think we’ve been talking past each other, while agreeing on most things. I think you said as much in your comment re tactics. So, thanks for helping me sharpen my thinking.
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I think you may be misunderstanding me when you talk about the “convictions” of candidates. I’m not questioning that any of our Dem candidates in recent years were better ideological choices than the Guvs we actually ended up with. What my belief is can perhaps better be stated thusly: Dem candidates have not been good at framing their positions in a way that will appeal to the inherently liberal, fair-minded views of Massachusetts voters.
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And I will stick with my numbers over yours, though both are admittedly guesses. I hope you realize I was being a bit facetious by being overly precise, but I do believe that the majority of voters in this Commonwealth share our basic Democratic values.
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As to the tax issue, you may be right about past failures, but the cure, imho, is not to pander to the baser instincts of voters, but to frame the issue the way Patrick is, and to talk about investing in ourselves exactly the way you do. Sure, everyone wants to pay lower taxes, but people ain’t stupid. They know they get what they pay for, and right not they’re not getting what they want. The skepticism and cynicism that people exhibit has more to do, I think, with a worry that their taxes might be wasted via corruption and inefficiency rather than that they don’t want government services. That is perhaps our challenge, to address that fear. And I think Patrick does a good job of that. Perhaps if people see him as a leader they can trust, they will indeed put down their cynicism and give him a try. Let’s hope!
Frank, I would in no way think of my comments as material for ‘talking points’. You would probably agree that I am much more of a wonk than a hack. I think I have heard Patrick describe the tax rollback in very similar, if not the same, terms: shell game. You know that towns are being tax revenue starved. How many 2-1/2 overrides have gone through in the last four years? At least at the local level we know that we need to invest in ourselves, why do we have such a disconnect at the state level. Here, I’ll put my hack hat on and give it a try: “Will you really be better off next year with that $200 you got from the tax rollback? Look around. That’s your rusty bridge. Trying to book an appointment with your primary care physician? Too bad, he moved to Wisconsin. And, by the way, does your kid even have an art class? I know, it’s your money, and it needs to be used wisely, but it’s also your Massachusetts, and it needs to be kept strong.”
— I won’t quit my day job 😉
Christy Mihos was a major player in recruiting a Utah resident to seek the Republican nomination four years ago when Gov. Swift tried to boot him off the Turnpike board. Four years later, we know how the Commonwealth fares when “Mitt Happens,” and Mihos is showing himself to be a nuttier version of Ross Perot in his own quest for the corner office.
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All of this matters little, of course, unless the blue team can tie the silly Republican circus to Healey and Hillman. . . .