A couple of items of interest from today’s Globe and Herald:
- Public financing. The three Democratic candidates for Governor must decide this week whether or not to opt into our limited public financing system. Here’s the Globe’s write-up on how it works:
The program offers $750,000 in public money as an incentive for candidates to accept a $1.5 million spending limit until the primary. However, that spending cap applies only if all three candidates opt in, which is improbable, given the self-funded nature of the late-starting campaign of venture capitalist Christopher Gabrieli.
If at least one candidate opts for public financing, the other candidates must file statements by Friday declaring what their own spending limit will be. The highest figure becomes the new cap for all candidates, including any who have taken public funding. If only one accepts public funding, he keeps the full $750,000, but can spend up to the highest limit declared by his opponents. If two opt in, they divide the $750,000 and can spend up to the other’s self-imposed limit. In the unlikely event that all accept a $1.5 million cap, it’s a three-way split, and all would be bound to a $1.5 million limit on expenditures.
Seems like a no-brainer that Patrick and Reilly should both opt in. Obviously, Gabrieli is not going to participate, and will declare his spending limit to be “the sky.” Which means that Patrick and Reilly each get $375,000 of free money which they can spend however they like (i.e., on TV ads), and can continue to raise money to their heart’s content. Plus they get to use Gabrieli’s fabulous wealth as a talking point against him. UPDATE: And sure enough, that’s how it’s going to go.
- Healey/Hillman ticket suffers coattailectomy. According to the Herald, it looks like the GOP candidates for Treasurer and Auditor, Ron Davy and Earle Stroll, won’t be
losing torunning against Democratic incumbents Tim Cahill and Joe DeNucci after all. They didn’t make their signature requirements – which shows that even a well-funded paid signature gathering effort isn’t always enough. - Leave blogging to the … uh … professionals? Here’s the Herald’s amusing take on the current state of campaign blogging:
Gubernatorial candidates boast their entrees into the blogosphere, but they apparently still donât understand what a blog is. While the Tom Reilly camp has filled his with press releases, Deval Patrickâs video entries look like television ads. And Christy Mihos seems to have given up altogether after one post. Maybe Kerry Healey and Chris Gabrieli have the right idea: leave the blogging to, well, the bloggers.
A note to the Herald: at least one statewide campaign has an actual blogger on staff – long-time BMG denizen Cos is really Ofer Inbar, the John Bonifaz campaign’s official blogger.
You outted Cos! How will he fight crime now knowing that villains everywhere might bring harm to his loved ones? Why don’t you just go tell Lex Luthor that Superman is really Clark Kent! Geez…;)
I think all those postings I made to Usenet back in college
"From: Ofer Inbar <cos@cs.brandeis.edu>", signed “– Cos” at the bottom, probably outed me long before blogs were invented 🙂of Howard Dean/Meet Up/Dean Yahoo Group stuff way back when? Seems I remember seeing your name in my email from around that time….
You could say that 🙂 I was the statewide meetup coordinator for MassForDean. I started (and created the role) at the end of the summer of 2003, and kept at it until the end of Dean’s primary campaign. I helped start a majority of the Dean meetups in MA, and train a majority of the hosts.
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I remember you, you were one of the Worcester area hosts. You got a couple of emails from me every month, that I’d send to all the meetup hosts in the state. I never made it to one of your meetups until after we’d all become DFA, and I don’t remember if you were still going then – Monica was hosting. Since Monica burned out during the transition from Meetup to DFA-Link, there haven’t been regular Worcester DFA meetings, which saddens me. Wanna start them up again? I’ll help!
I can’t possibly do another thing. Heeding Dean’s call to local action, I ran for local office and got elected (check bio), so between that, town committee, Deval Patrick stuff, and life, I can’t possibly add another thing. I will, however, ask at this week’s town committee meeting whether anyone is interested in resurrecting the group with some help.
Cos, does this mean that you get paid to blog for Bonifaz? Nice gig if so!
It’s a nice gig in that it’s something I really want to do and love to do. As far as the gig part goes, though, the pay is minimal – just enough to serve as an excuse for me to devote the time to it that I’d want to devote anyway. I still have to do other things for the bulk of my money. Including designing and hosting candidate websites.
So much for Cos’ super-secret identity.
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What’s next? No Easter Bunny? pouts
He’s announced it here
Don’t you think the GOP knew that it would be silly to raise money for statewide races they wouldn’t win when they need to focus all their resources on keeping the corner office? They also knew that their ’04 strategy of having candidates spread all over the state had been a disaster, so they are not going to spread themselves too thin in ’06.
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I expect it was a conscious decision to let the signatures fall short for their Treas. and Auditor candidates so they could move on to their real strategy.
Why send checks to Spoonworks to get what little signatures they did? The party could have just said “you’re on your own” from the beginning.
Just noticed that Deb Goldberg paid a “JEF Associates” $12,000 for signatures. You can see the details (and the rest of the $93,482.34 she spent in May) on the mass.gov/ocpf website. Sorry I don’t know how to create a direct link to the page.
of ready, able, and willing candidates at their convention. (Maybe? Did the shortfall in signatures become clear before their convention?) I expect the cost of the half-hearted signature gathering effort was small compared to the cost of mounting a full campaign, and it got them through the p.r. moment they needed.
I know Ron Davy was 4 short or so, I don’t know about Stroll. Most of those were gathered at the convention I think.
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globe article
I liked him, and got about 50 signatures for him. Stroll I never met.
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BOTH jobs should have been offered to either Bruce Herzfelter or Dan Grabauskas, IMHO.
With regards to the decision to opt in to public financing that David referred to – it is important to note that Gabrielli will probably opt out, as will Goldberg. And Patrick & Reilly will opt in for the 1.5 Million, as will Murray & Silbert (though the Gubernatorial candidate will get this money in the Primary, not the LGs). This is where my undergrad seminar in Campaign Finance Reform helps . . .So in September if Reilly or Patrick win the Gubernatorial nomination and Goldberg happens to win the LG Nom, then the Democratic ticket is out $750,000 dollars in public financing with less than 2 months til the General against Healy/Hillman. This is because a public financed candidate and non-public financed candidate cannot get public money as a ticket.
Patrick and Reilly have both opted in, Gabrieli opted out. No word on LG’s yet.
A commenter on my blog is saying that Murray is opting in for public financing. I am sure Silbert is as well though I have no confirmation.
I got such a nice tickle from this line: “Plus they get to use Gabrieli’s fabulous wealth as a talking point against him.” Holy cow- that was NOT Chris Gabrieli’s multi-million dollar summer place all over the Sunday paper.
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Patrick cannot get away with the “I’m just a poor boy from Chicago” schtick and when people know he’s a multimillionaire. Playing the wealth card will backfire because people get it. They will understand that in terms of wealth, there isn’t an iota of difference between these two millionaires other than the fact that one guy is willing to spend his own money to campaign – and the other guy is willing to spend public money.
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The only one who can get away with it is Reilly, who doesn’t even own his own house!
If Patrick and Reilly both agree to a spending cap, and Gabrieli does not, then there won’t be a spending cap, and we’ll get a high-spending campaign. And it’ll be entirely Gabrieli’s fault. The candidate who will be most hurt by it will be Reilly, since Patrick seems to be able to raise enough and if he can’t, he can put more of his own in. So if Gabrieli is responsible for skyrocketing campaign spending that hurts Reilly, while Patrick (who is rich too) has agreed to a spending cap if only Gabrieli does it too… I think Patrick comes out looking very good from such a scenario.
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It’d be better for all of us if all three candidates agree to a spending cap. If Gabrieli does that, and also forgoes public funding, then he’ll look good for making the right choices – because he really doesn’t need the public money.
Neither Patrick nor Gabrieli need public money…so why take it? Did you see that house that Patrick’s building? No one’s going to mistake that guy for a pauper any time soon.
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I think Gabrieli will make the right decision for his campaign.
has less to do with personal wealth (though they’re connected) than the decision whether to self-finance the campaign or not. By agreeing to accept public financing, Patrick and Reilly have a limited “high road” that they can talk about, while not actually being bound by anything because Gabrieli opted out. It’s a relatively minor point in the great scheme of things, but everything counts for something – if a dozen voters decide not to support Gabrieli because he dissed the public financing system, that’s a dozen more votes for Patrick and Reilly to divvy up.
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Re the personal wealth, Patrick is plenty rich, but by all accounts doesn’t approach Gabrieli’s personal fortune. Nonetheless, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Patrick make a substantial donation to his campaign when it’s time to hit the TV. He cannot allow either candidate to beat him in an air war.
I mean, REALLY…an adult man with a good salary for all his adult life, not motivated enough to buy his own house, but still renting like some college kid? Was he planning to pull up stakes?
My grandfather never owned a house. He was afraid to have money tied up in property and preferred to rent. Everyone’s different…so I don’t see it as sinister.
Centrist – Perhaps ‘sinister’ is too strong a word, but still – why would you NOT have money in property? It’s the single best investment Reilly could have made in the last 30 years. Like I said, was he afraid he’d be moving on and not get a quick sale?
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Also – what empathy does he have for people paying property taxes, water/sewer bills, homeowner’s insurance, etc? From what I’ve read, his rent is reminiscent of GHWB’s amazement at the invention of supermarket scanners!
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I get the whole blue collar thing – but if it’s been cushioned from ACTUAL blue collar reality, how valid IS it?
This bizarre suggestion that renters are somehow out of touch weirdos, and property owners are the “real” common people, is ludicrous and totally detached from reality. In fact, it sounds Republican 🙂
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the early days of the republic. The Whigs and others believed that only white property owning males should be allowed to vote. Do you really want to go there? I still can’t believe you think it’s such an issue! People own or don’t own for a variety of reasons.