MassDems chair Phil Johnston, Mike Dukakis, Cam Kerry and former State Sen. candidate Katherine Clark have signed on as referees for the 15-round primary fight this summer:
“I believe the party has a real responsibility to do what it can to minimize the political damage to our nominees during the primary,” Johnston said. “This initiative can act as a deterrent to candidates and make their media consultants think twice before they produce harshly negative commercials attacking their opponents.”
Well, this cuts a couple of ways. On one hand, the party wants folks to pay attention to the primary. On the other hand, they want it to be the right kind of attention — hey, whatever happened to “No such thing as bad publicity?”
On balance, they’re probably right. If the Guv and LG candidates want to score points, they would do much better to target Kerry Healey and the 16-year record of Republican governors. That’s the preferable approach, both on substance and strategy.
Tom Reilly’s campaign has not signed on to the anti-Mutually Assured Destruction pact:
Corey Welford, a Reilly spokesman, called the creation of the panel a “silliness that you would expect from some good government group than from your own party.” He also said it was a “distraction” from the party’s responsibilities to raise money to defeat Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey, the GOP candidate for governor.
“Good government is silly, silly stuff — and don’t forget to cut us a check.” Nice quote, Corey. Looking forward to more Ameriquest stuff and aerial photos of Taj Deval. That’ll be exciting.
So what have the Gov. candidates doing since the convention, except repeating talking points at “debates”? Anyone making noise? Taking bold positions? Rescuing little kids from shark attacks? etc.?
And gosh, I sure hope that our four-judge panel allows a healthy amount of raillery between the candidates. It would be a dull dog of a primary indeed, were it not for the bracing tonic of raillery.
UPDATE (by David): Check out Adrian Walker’s interesting column on this topic, complete with some quotes from Dukakis.
Charley,
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I don’t see any danger of raillery disappearing from the campaign, especially as September 19 approaches. We’ve seen plenty of it in the “debates” that have been held so far.
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I also think this panel is a great idea, although I wonder how much moral suasion it will exert. And, I think it is complete silliness on the part of the Reilly campaign to dismiss it as “silliness.” I think the Party can walk and chew gum at the same time. I don’t see how this is a “distraction” — if the AG’s campaign plans to stay positive, as Welford claims, why not just endorse the idea?
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As an example of how to be positive and still raise money, take the Barack Obama rally in Boston on June 1. In addition to raising gobs of money for the Patrick campaign, a separate appeal was made for donors to contribute to the State Party toward the unified campaign after the Primary. If memory serves, something like $80K was raised for the MassDems. I don’t think that was a “distraction” but an affirmation of how dedicated we all are to ending 16 years of GOP misrule in this state.
MFW, you’re so much more gracious than I am.
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I love that the campaign spokesperson called this proposal “Silliness.” He obviously has so much more experience than Mike Dukakis and Cam Kerry – shame on those silly kids for thinking they might have some insight on long-term strategy.
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Maybe this is the same spokesman who said after the February caucuses that people who participate in the process are all “special interests,” and not worth having as supporters:
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Why listen to, or work with, others when the alienation strategy has been working so well?
Reilly’s campaign seems to be defining ever smaller its targeted group of voters. They don’t care about the delegates. They don’t care about the liberals. They don’t care about the establishment. They don’t care about the special interests. They don’t care about the anti-immigration folks. They don’t care about folks on the internet — they don’t even answer our emails.
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Never mind that all these people actually vote. It’s the incredible shrinking campaign.
Not about kissing the asses of people who would never vote for him.
Certainly those folks won’t vote for him if he never asks.
Reilly is brilliant. He shouldn’t court anyone right now and if he should be lucky enough to win in September he will just expect all of those groups to vote for him. Do you see a problem here? Reilly CANNOT win without Democratic support. If he shuns every single bloc of voters within the Democratic Party how does he plan on winning in November. Reilly’s general ignorance and indifference to the concerns of many Democratic voters will make a victory in September and definitely November very difficult for him.
Taking a hard line is all very well, but not to the point of alienating everyone but one’s inflexible core — because that usually is not enough to ensure victory, and definitely is not enough in the case of Mr. Reilly.
No matter who wins in September I will support that candidate because I am more committed to winning in November than I am to my own selfish desire to see one candidate win (though I know I will be lucky and have my cake and eat it too when Patrick cleans up in September!). However, Reilly’s stubborn desire to shun all things Democratic makes it difficult for me to think that he will get much more than my vote and not any of my time. I wish his campaign would understand this. He can court the people he thinks that he needs to win, that is fine, I have no problems with that, it is good politics. However, when he keeps poking me in the eye with a stick I start to get a little annoyed.
Is commenting on Ameriquest unfair practices and Deval’s relationship with it against the rules?
This is crazy.
If a candidate does not point out the bad things about his opponents, than who does?
The far left in this state is what is killing this party.
Keep on keepin’ on.
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Speech police is all it is.
After all, we saw how terribly Reagan’s “don’t speak ill of fellow Republicans” doctrine worked out for them.
on how gently Paul Cellucci and Joe Malone treated each other in the last contested Republican primary for Governor in this state:
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Scott Harshbarger’s primary opponents were never a serious threat to him. Cellucci kicked his ass in November.
My understanding is that Reagan’s edict really applied more to the national than to the local level, and that by 1998, it wasn’t really in force as strongly as it once had been anyway. Nonetheless, I take your point, and I wasn’t actually saying that Democrats should emulate the Reagan-era national Republican party — just that it’s pretty hard to argue that not publicly attacking each other “killed” them. And I agree that Harshbarger’s case illustrates how playing nicey-nice in the primaries doesn’t necessarily translate to a strong campaign in the general, though I admit to not remembering much of anything about his primary opponents.
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Personally, I’m all for “negative” advertising as long as “negative” means “pointing out (true) things that will make voters less inclined toward your rival” — I don’t think a campaign can get by just on “why not to vote for him” ads, but neither can it live on just “why to vote for me” ads; there pretty much has to be a mix. What I despise are sensationalism, scare tactics, and personal smears. So if “negative” means things like Bush 41’s Willie Horton spot or the Swift Boat ads, then no thanks.
I suppose it’s all relative, but a 50.8% over 47.4% is not something I’d characterize as an “ass-kicking” by a sitting (acting) governor over his challenger, particularly when you consider the last election up until that point where Democratic candidate Mark Roosevelt couldn’t even get his friends and family to vote for him over Bill Weld.
But Cellucci – a far weaker candidate than Bill Weld or Mitt Romney – won, after a much bloodier primary than Harshbarger experienced. That’s my point.
See how the speech police work?
How shallow you people are.
For people to use the rating tool here is pure censorship! Next they’ll be kicking down your door. Better be careful.
NG—you hit the nail on the head. Phil Johnston and Mike Dukakis are schmucks. Johnston, the man who has overseen four straight GOP wins, sounds so absurdly pompous when he is on tv that I feel like screaming. I suspect his act also repels the average unenrolled voter (read also former Democrats).
Dukakis is the idiot who lost to Papa Bush because he didn’t fight back. And now we are so supposed to listen to his nonsense? If he and his tweed jacket/blue jean wearing crowd didn’t run this state into bankruptcy the Dems would never have lost the corner office in the first place.
As for Cameron Kerry. Please, go back to Nashan Island.
And who the hell is Katherine Harris? A former candidate for state senate? Does that mean she lost? Oh God, this Party is full of elitists, blowhards and, most importantly, LOSERS…no offense to those of you on this blog to whom that description would also apply.
Mike Dukakis never won a damn thing in his life!
…next thing you know, we might actually come up with a good candidate. From some of these comments, apparently anything that Dukakis, Johnston, and lil’ Kerry come up with is golden, so is above criticism. Nonsense. Dukakis won big back when I was in middle school, and Cam Kerry has a famous Dad.
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So we need to keep our candidates in bubble wrap now? This is another example of Democrats being so wrapped up in the primary that they forget that this is the prelminary round, not the real deal.
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Heaven forbid they should even get a scratch before the general election. Woudn’t want them to practice having to defend themselves. These men should be vetted and tested, not treated with kid gloves. The campaign will be negative whether it starts in July or September.
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I’d rather we get out Deval’s Ameriquest issues in July when he has time to respond and react, than have Healey break ’em in October as the last thing on voters’ minds. Same with Gabrieli and Reilly. Am I the only one who doesn’t want any nasty surprises coem September?
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I hear you, but with our inexplicably late primary date, I understand why the self-appointed authorities would want to keep it clean. If the primary winner had a few months to clean off the blood, I would agree with you wholeheartedly. O’Brien came out of the primary tired and broke in 2002, so there’s good reason to try to avoid that happening again.
I’m really confused as to why this appears, from the comments above, to create consternation. Four people–some of them well-known, some of the not–are going to issue a public scolding if they consider the canddiates to run overly persoonal negative ads. It may not be that effective, as candidates can still do whatever they want–which indicates that it’s not any kind of speech police (free speech includes the freedom to criticize others’ speech). There are different opinions on what constitutes a negative ad, and what kind of criticism is out of bounds. So what’s the big deal?
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In the meantime, Reilly’s spokesperson makes a comment that makes him sound rather obnoxious, though mostly because it’s dismissive of good government groups. It may turn a few people off, but hardly anyone is likely to make much of a spokesperson’s comment in early July.
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So could we all take a deep breath and relax about this one? There are really much better things to argue, let alone to write nasty messages about.
Mike Dukakis called Ed King corrupt by calling the new tax a “coruption tax”. Ed King was not corrupt. (The Weld, Cellucci, and Swift administartions were.)
Mike Dukakis defends his negative campaigning in today’s Globe. Will the real Michael Dukakis please stand up?( Oh sorry, you were standing, little guy.) So it’s alright for him to be negative because he is “good’. The rest of us don’t know what is good for us. Thanks Mike, and Phil, and loser senate candidate – whatever your name is.
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This is about the far left party not wanting anyone to air Deval’s dirty laundry. He has a closet full of negatives that now no one is allowed to mention, or else they aren’t playing fair?
Basically, Deval’s private industry resume is “Black man for hire.” I said it. Is that as bad as calling Ed King corrupt when he was not? Can a reasonable inference be made from the facts that Deval’s career in the private sector runs counter to the issues Dewmocrats have been screaming about for years? The Ameriquest thing stinks. The Coke buy out with a “keep yopur mouth shut” provision stinks too.
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This is so consistent with how “you people” operate. Blinders on. I look at the ratings on this thread for anyone who does not follow the “party line”. Yet, what is so comical is how people on this blog think of themselves as so much more intellectually superior than those who disagree with them.
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And yet, the readership of this Big Daddy of MA progressive blogs is abysmal. It actually makes the case that blogging does not have any effect.
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As New Guy said, and was given 3s for his efforts, “Keep on Keepin’on”.
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September nominee – Tom Reilly. Governor elected in November – Kerry Healy.
Sorry to chime in so late, but I do so very much think a self-appointed thought police is a silly idea and is rather demeaning to voters.
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This project is going to lead to painfully inane debates about “negative” vs. “comparative” ads. Each of the parties named to the panel (I gues by fiat of Phil Johnston) had been a negative campaigner or is related to one. (See Dukakis vs. King; Dukakis vs. field in Democratic primary; Johnston vs. Delahunt; Clark vs. Tisei – though Clark gave $50K to the state committee and had them do the deed against Tisei – better to appear to be pure – and we give negatives a pass if the target is a Republican I suppose).
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I don’t think Democrats, Republicans or Independents need Phil & Co. to tell them if an ad distorts, misrepresents, or outright lies. And I think voters can make their own judgments about how ads reflect on the candidates whose campaigns run the ads.
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I supported Shannon O’Brien in the primary, but Shannon lost that primary on her own by going off the rails during her debates with Romney. This is another case of the party fighting the last campaign.
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HOw about if instead of this self-policing effort by an argubly unrepresentative subset of the party (According to OCPF, Clark and spouse have given $650 to Deval Patrick, with $250 coming in May, creating serious imparitality concerns for Victory ’06), the group of four tries the following:
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Pick an issue a week and hammer Kerry Healey on that issue for an entire week. For example, on the minimum wage, schedule a high profile press conference on Monday with people whose lives will be directly improved by an increase. On Tuesday, follow up with some economic experts, etc.
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New week, new issue. Hammer Healey for a week. Continue this throughout the summer. Let the candidates (and the voters) take care of the primary. An effective state party chair should be able to drive the campaign against Healey until we have a nominee.