On Friday night during the Silbert whip meeting it was announced that the Silbert campaign did not have their 15% of the delegate identified for ballot accessâin fact they had only identified 450 supporters of the estimated 750 needed for the 15%. The campaign had called most of the delegation and was confident that there was a large block of undecided delegates that we could tap into, if the whips worked their delegations and secured further support.
On the floor Friday night, it was clear they were right. By the end of the night, another 125 Silbert delegates were identified and we were only a couple of hundred votes any from getting our 15%.
Saturday morning started much the same way Friday ended, with a steady stream of commitments coming in. But things changedâfor the betterâafter the three presentations from the LG candidates. I know there is a debate as to whether Silbert was to âhotâ during her convention speech. Maybe she was for those very few watching it on TV, but the reports of Silbert support from the floor dramatically changed after her video and speech. She clicked who those undecided delegates.
The bottom-line is the Silbert campaign came into the convention with about 450 identified supporters and left with about 1200 supportersâgarnering nearly a third of the convention support. Critics will be critics, but it is a shame that the facts are getting in the way of their spin.
The way the undecided delegates broke at the convention bodes well for the Primary in September. Of the delegates that were not âcontrolledâ by the power-brokers that other LG campaigns relied onâthe undecided broke substantially for Andrea and her message of jobs creation to fund social needs. The lesson learned from the convention: when people meet Andrea and hear her message (via TV for the primary) they get it.
Letâs put the convention / primary dynamic into perspective. There were about 5,000 delegatesâmany âcontrolledâ by Mayors, State Senators and other established politicians. Despite the reality of not having any of that support, Andrea captured 29% of the convention delegates because she was able to connect with those independent delegates who made up their own mind.
In September about 750,000 Democratsâ99% of whom will not be controlled by the power brokers that skew convention resultsâwill be voting. These primary voters will have the same reaction to Andrea as the independent delegates did at the convention and Andrea Silbert will win the nomination.
The Party “controllers,” by contrast, have lost three gubernatorial elections in a row, and were just barely prevented this weekend from shutting out a talented candidate with ideas woth discussing. What are they adding to the Democratic Party, besides jobs for their friends?
Doesn’t everyone agree that it was the “controllers” who, by hook or by corrk, made sure that Gabrielli barely squeaked by? Can you all stop pretending that it was some sort of popular swell… it just makes you look even more disingenuous.
exactly. i was watching this take place at the front of the floor and behind the stage, and i have to say i was a bit disgusted. one of my state reps was central to this, and he no longer has my support like he did previously.
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if gabrieli could’ve swayed enough truly undecided voters with his ideas and bankroll, fine. he didn’t, and as a result the sheep delegates were asked by the shepards to place their votes accordingly. that bothers me.
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if we wind up losing another election in november because our 3 primary candidates have beat the crap out of each other all summer, i know who i’m blaming.
yes, indeed.
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I saw a few “sheep” go to the slaughter myself. What do you do? What do you say? These were people who came to Patrick organizational meetings, all excited, ready to work. What happened? A call (or two) from the local state rep to vote a certain way. And they did. Pathetic.
what do you do-
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i for one will be calling pedone and spellane tomorrow to express my disappointment in their decision and their part in the dirty dealing.
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what happens-
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i still think it was an idiotic decision to sway votes and cause all to spend more money while healy sits back and watches the beating, but i do think quite a few of the convention folks will be ultimately following the patrick campaign anyway. a lot of people felt an obligation to get reilly or gabrieli on the ballot. stupid, but irregardless these people’s obligation just ended. the patrick campaign knows this, as evident by the envelopes passed out or mailed to all delegates with contact information for their neighbors. i think that you’ll see a decent number of reilly/gabrieli folk who wind up in the patrick camp post convention.
1WO?
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My email is attached to my bio….make yourself known??
And they are continuing to work for Patrick. Basically the big brokers in my town were able to convince them that getting gab on the ballot was the right thing to do. I think it is not. We shall see.
. . . the Dems have lost four in a row, but the Party controllers were the people voting in the Democratic Primary elections.
I am a big supporter of hers, and I’m glad that she did so well. I don’t think that there’s any denying, even among supporters of the other candidates, that she had the best video (very professional, and the comments from the “normal” women who used the CWE were effective), and that her speech was very good.
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I thought it was interesting that she and Patrick were the only two that really engaged the audience from the get-go, by looking for (and getting) audience responses. This is an oratory technique that can flop, or be annoying, but I think both used it well.
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I’m sad that she didn’t win, of course, but she did better than anyone expected and that bodes well for her political future, if she decides that she wants to. I hope that her showing was more than enough to make the democratic establishment take notice. If it doesn’t work out this time around, I think she should try again next cycle… and I hope that Tim remembers her letting the voice vote slide when he starts thinking about lt. governor options when Deval’s long and successful reign as governor is over!
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For the record, the cheerleading picture totally threw me off: who knew that Harvard even had cheerleaders?
Pmegan: I think you know this, but your comment makes it sound like Tim has already won the nomination. He has not. He could, and in my opinion will, lose the primary to Silbert. I think you’d agree that it’s Tim who should be getting in Silbert’s good graces ;).
I do not think I am ready to count out Deb yet. She got 20% yesterday and is sitting on 1.5 million. Anything could happen at this point in the LG race. And as we saw with Gabrieli, good TV ads can do wonders for you.
I’d say Deb has tremendous room for improvement, if yesterday’s video intro was any indication.
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Also, too much schwag: Were the medallions really necessary?
… Being that money spent, is not necessarily money spent wisely.
Goldberg would have come in a clean second had her video not been so condescending to the people who actually work in the jobs she was parodying. I have worked hard in my life and gotten places I never dreamed I would, but her role-playing was just wrong and bordered on inappropriate. If her TV ads are going to be kitchy like that, then she’s in trouble because if Murray and Silbert put up 50% of the ads she does and they’re good, she’ll be an afterthought even with a big ad buy. Remember the 2002 downballot ads: Gabrieli’s were good and plentiful. Pines’ were bad (getting out of a cab at the State House) and sparse. In the treasurer’s race, Segel and Cahill had about the same ad buy, and while Segel’s were kitchy (lottery scratch ticket), they told us nothing about him other than that he was an insider. Cahill’s were kitchy too (Tim for Treasurer), but also told us that Tim was a sitting treasurer – which told us he was in Pawtucket and ready to be called up to Fenway. Guess who won.
My opinion of her speech was mixed. Yes, she went for passionate and firey(sp?), but it came across as a bit forced. I have no doubt she can be a really good speaker, but she needs to relax into it a bit more. I still voted for her because I liked the content of the speech and her message has always resonated with me.
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One guy in my row had been wearing a Goldberg sticker throughout the day. When I asked him what made him like Goldberg he looked down, realized he was still wearing her sticker, and took it off before voting for Silbert. (Though he said it was Goldberg’s video and not Andrea’s speech that was the deciding factor.)
In today’s Globe
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Not especially flattering. All she’s missing, says my Silbert-supporting wife, are fangs and a cape: “I vill have yoooor vote!!!!”
That was a tough choice by the Globe photo editor. Why didn’t they just choose one with her eyes closed?
… Worcester County, the truth is I’ll never win you…”
Hoss – if it were morning time – coffee would have exploded out my nose when I read your post and only THEN proceeded to look at the picture!
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Thanks for a great laugh.
I think that photo should be used for comedic value by us Silbert supporters. Now that I think of it, its operatic qualities may also sway David and Charley to our side.
I expanded on Hoss’ Evita take with additional lyrics….
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If anyone wants them – shoot me an email.
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I agree – Andrea should use it to poke fun at herself and all others should learn – NEVER make the “V” 🙂
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Wayne
Yeah, the clip of her on NECN yesterday she looked completely frazzled, and that Globe phot just looks scary. As a Silbert supporter, I was very suprised how badly she came off in the media, while the clip of Goldberg and her video played really well on tv… (seemingly the exact opposite from what people there experienced in both cases)
watching from the press room. When she hits TV in a serious way, this stuff has simply got to be ironed out, or she’s in trouble.
Do you really think the Silbert people are going to produce ads with her giving a speech? Did you see her video? It was the best of the 3 and showed the kind of production quality we can most likely expect.
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As for her live TV demeanor, if that’s what you’re speaking to, there will be one, maybe two widely televised debates, if there any at all. A poor performance in such an event by any of these 3 will have little to no impact on the outcome of the race. Furthermore, having seen all three perform at the Lowell forum, there was not such a clear distinction in presentability to warrant concern on any of their parts. Sure, Murray was the most polished, but he ought to be. This is not something that “has to be ironed out, or she’s in trouble.” Rather, it’s something that any statewide campaign correctly should not concern itself with unless and until the need arises in advance of a live, widely televised forum. (It may be more likely that the most widely broadcast event in this race is a radio forum on WBUR or WBZ – in which case, these concerns are also irrelevant and the actual words, and the way they are presented, mean more than anything else.)
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Your comment would be more more weighty if you were reflecting the views of the newspaper, radio and TV reporters who were in the press room, since they are the ones who could have an impact on the “conventional wisdom” regarding the candidates. But given the scant attention that has been and that will be paid to this race, I doubt reporters will waste precious inches of an article or seconds of a report on these issues. They certainly did not in the reports on the race following the Convention.
…I agree with another poster, but I can’t find their link. Basically they said that it seemed that Andrea had to much to say in to little time. So she rip through it fast and, as a result, we have Hoss’ Evita image.
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Charley, you would be right that Andrea would need to correct this if she had another convention speaking situation–a huge arena before thousands of people (many talking over your speech) with only 5 minutes to speak. But she won’t be, so why worry about it?
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As for her TV peronsona, from the NECN candidates interviews to Emily Ronney to the Lowell debate, Andrea has proven herself to be very telegenic and well spoken for the medium. Do you really expect her to speak to a interviewer or a small debate audience as if she were in a huge convention hall? No, it’s apples and oranges when comparing a convention speech and a tv debate or interview.
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Hoss, I hope you’re wrong (but I’m generally in agreement with you) about an LG televised debate having little effect on the voters. You are right that if NECN or BZ radio only have the debates, they will have little impact. Hopefully we can get 4, 5 or 7 to throw an hour of time on a Sunday morning (little lose in ad dollars because the small amount of people watching tv during that time period–but a big % of influencers accustom to watching Sunday morning interview shows.)
The only clip I saw was this one, where she was holding her cute kids, waving to the crowd. If there’s another, please link.
It was a video clip on TV of her speech, she was sort of hunched over, hair a mess, talking really fast… very different form the the very polished images of DG and TM they played.
I disagree with those that claim that Goldberg’s video and speech caused a lot of undecideds to break Silbert’s way. Yes, the video was embarrassing and the speech was bland-as-can-be, but I think the major factor was a coalescing of her progressive support in the few weeks prior to the election. The departure of Sam Kelley and endorsements from the Progressive Democrats of Cambridge and stalwart progressives like Pat Jehlen, Denise Provost, Felix Arroyo in those last weeks tipped a lot of undecided progressives (myself included) into the Silbert camp. I’m not surpised that Silbert got the same percentage as Bonifaz — 30% seems like a good gauge of the level of progressive support at the convention.
That may be true, but most of the people I talked to in my delegation hadn’t been following the LG’s race, so I doubt they would even know about those progressive endorsements. I know that Silbert’s speech swayed at least one delegate, and Goldberg’s video was not well received by anyone I talked to about it.
I don’t think someone needed to hear about the endorsements directly to be influenced by them. The many who heard and were convinced by the endorsements told their friends and political allies to support Silbert or simply stated their support. And they told their friends, and they told their friends, and so on. It think it worked like a ripple effect through the progressive delegation, so that nearly the entirety of Silbert’s 29% had made up their mind prior to her video and speech. I don’t doubt that there were a few remaining undecideds that were convinced by the video and speech, but again, I suspect the progressive support at the 11th hour was the overwhelming factor.
that she was the only progressive in the race. Which we all know is untrue. She won the Berkshires & Cambridge woohoo. Thats fine with me since the majority of voters don’t think like me and other “crazy” liberals. Most of those voters in the Primary will prob go to Murray and/or Goldberg.
What do you think is going to happen to Bonifaz? I consider myself a progressive as you are well aware Greg. But progressive support is not what we are looking for. Tim Murray is getting the support of a lot of progressives as well as a lot of moderates. This broad appeal is what we need. Tim Murray is the perfect candidate in that he has the right ideals coupled with the right mix of forming practical coalitions that get real things done. What absolutely no one has managed to do is tell me why, when their positions are virtually indistinguishable, is Silbert the progressive darling and Murray isn’t?
You were a part of Murray’s campaign video. Not your average blogger, eh?
Yes, a Harvard Business School graduate who is advocating economic revitalization and the progressives are loving it. Many of the jobs Andrea helped create (and will create more when Lt. Governor) assisted low and middle income people learn how to start businesses for themselves and create new jobs. That is a concept wholeheartedly endorsed by business groups and the progressive community.
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That sounds like pretty broad support to me and that is why Silbert is the “progressive darling” you suggest…and if you took a survey of a local Chamber of Commerence, Silbert would be getting their endorsement also.
because I looked at Silbert’s site and I don’t see any such endorsements. One would think that if her ideas were so MBA friendly the business/conservative establishment would be clamoring to endorse her. Also, if she is so good at creating jobs why is she not have trotting out union endorsement after union endorsement? Does she have any? My favorite part about her site though is her Andrea in the News stuff where the most recent article is a March 26 article. Aren’t they saying anything good about her?
because if you look at her supporters in OCPF, you’ll find those business people your clamoring for (along with progressive donors)–not special interest money from the lawyer-lobbiest crowd like you’ll find in another LG candidate’s reports.
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And the last I looked, Andrea’s getting as much press as the rest and isn’t flushing valuable money way paying for a flack to pitch stories.
wanna name one you know of Frank?
I did not make the argument that Silbert deserves progressive support, nor did I argue that her progressive support will be valuable in the primary. I happen to think those are true, but I’ll save that debate for another post. My point in the comment above was only that she has progressive support, and that it was mostly that support and not her video or speech, that boosted her numbers beyond expectation at the convention.
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Regardless of whether you agree that (1) she deserves progressive support or (2) the progressive support will be valuable in the primary, do you agree it made the difference at the convention?