1. Deb Goldberg
Starting Balance: $1,057,124.84
Receipts: $1,023,417.34
Expenditures: $98,199.63
Ending Balance: $1,982,342.55
Starting Balance: $475.517.32
Receipts: $68,851.00
Expenditures: $19,040.25
Ending Balance: $525,328.07
3. Tim Murray
Starting Balance: $386,166.26
Receipts: $61,743.95
Expenditures: $52,013.16
Ending Balance: $395,897.04
Please share widely!
Why do you say Silbert has the clearest message?
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I think Deb Goldberg’s message is muddled. Murray, however, seems to be pretty clear: support and fund cities & towns. I’m curious what your impression is of Silbert’s and Murray’s messages.
Simple messages break through the clutter in downballot races.
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“A Treasurer for Treasurer.”
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“A prosecutor for Attorney General.”
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Except when there’s money involved: Gabrieli 02 (what was his message then?).
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If Silbert’s team packages the jobs message well, it ought to trump a bit more of a nebulous “cities and towns” message. And I say this because in 2002, Segel ran on a cities and towns message, and it was trumped by Cahill’s simpler message.
About ending the Telecom property tax loophole which would generate tens of millions of dollars for local governments, which has been a key plank of Murray’s campaign. The Globe endorsed that approach again today.
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It may not be a call for revolution, rare in Lt.Gov campaigns, but it ain’t nebulous.
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Oh, and if someone is going to spend $2m on media, please make it more interesting than the stuff we’ve seen to date.
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A Patrick-Murray supporter ….
That’s his platform now? Sure, I see how it relates to helping cities and towns, but I don’t think a whole lot of people are drving past a cell tower cursing it…
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The reason I say being an advocate for cities and towns is because its effectiveness as a campaign strategy was proven to not work in 2002. Plus, it doesn’t give people something to point to. “Mayor” does, however, and I’d think the Murray campaign would play up that end more. “A proven executive, for executive.”
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I happen to believe that people are more concerned about jobs than their communities. People are more concerned about the relative or friend who is talented but out of work because she can’t get into a retraining program or can’t get the skills she needs to get a decent paying job. That’s why I think talking about jobs works. I could be way off the mark here – I’ve supported enough winners and losers to know that it’s about a 50/50 chance I’m right! One of these three will hit enough of the electorate with a message that resonates that they’ll get the 40% or so they need to win. As I’ve said many times, at this point Goldberg has the best chance to get her message out, and in these races, the most money is often the safest bet – particlarly when the most money will so greatly exceed the next-most money. But as I also said, we’ve never had a down-ballot primary where the #2 spender will be able to spend as much as Silbert will be able to do here.
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BTW, can someone who knows as-buying let us know if Murray can even mount a credible TV campaign with his amount of dough? If he’s planning a field operation that is greater than the others, should we even expect a major ad buy? Same question goes for Silbert, but to a lesser degree due to her 125K lead and overall thrift thus far.
the telecom tax loophole is just one specific of his platform which you called nebulous, he’s also called for increased investment in commuter rail, for connecting commuters w/wifi and put forward a number of specifics.
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Job creation is a fine issue, so is being able to pay for school books, for repairing bridges (which creates jobs) and for parks. If the average citizen doesn’t get outraged by a “cell tower” (we’re mostly talking utility poles, actually), well, its for our leaders to make them care — how about — have your property taxes gone up lately, well, some companies are making out just fine with their taxes as you pay through the nose … (property taxes came up at my Demo Committee meeting tonight, in fact)
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I think we have very good candidates for Lt. Gov, the ticket will be just fine with any of them
more ad buy can you get with the extra 125 k? Translated into votes; how many votes can be moved with 125 k of ad buys
1) A Liaison to Cities & Towns (created responsibility)
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MURRAY: Current Mayor of Worcester, campaigning on the fact that he wants to be a TRUE Liaison to cities & towns, unlike Kerry Healey. He has proven himself as a leader on several fronts, and has already worked with neighboring towns & cities to promote their needs and advocate for better funding methods, so that municipalities can afford to provide essential services. He has already released a Municipal Bill of Rights and other issue oriented proposals to demonstrate how he plans to help MA municipalities better provide for their residents.
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2) Chair of the Governor’s Council (by state law)
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MURRAY: An attorney, who put himself through law school at night, while working as a teacher and advocate for the homeless during the day. Who better to head a legal body than someone who knows the law and went to school for it.
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Looks pretty clear cut to me.
One must tell me what jobs,,, it’s a lot easier to talk about job’s when you have benefited from getting Local and State governments helping to create tax breaks for all these non-profits. On the other hand Murray is the ONLY one who has had to make real life decision that impact critical services in a large city. Goldberg and Silbert have not had to work to keep schools open try to find ways to keep Police/Fire on the Streets in a big city. It’s easy when you to talk a good game, but to actually to the job is a whole different story.
Just a brief interruption of your swooning over Tim Murray’s supreme executive experience:
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“The Worcester mayors position is part-time and without executive authority; the mayor is a city councilor who runs the council and also serves as chairman of the School Committee. A professional city manager oversees the city government. ” – Worcester Telegram, “Murray says hell disclose tax info; response to challeger”, April 13, 2006
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Maybe you meant to be swooning over City Manager O’Brien and his need to work to keep schools open try to find ways to keep Police/Fire on the Streets in a big city. Also, Didn’t Worcester close a school or 4? just checking – http://telegram.com/….
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Anyway, with all the overrides we have all voted on, it’s a bit presumptuous that we haven’t all wrestled with school closings. In fact, it’s been put on all of us that if “insert ballot #” override isn’t passed, we will lose “insert schools/teachers/sports/band/police/firefighters emotional pull here”. You don’t need to have to be a city councilor in Worcester to feel that pain, just be a resident of Massachusetts.
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OK, before anyone starts the “voices for cities and towns” crap again, I remind you all have state representatives and senators doing that. If they’re not getting it done for local aid from your pespective, send someone to the legislature that will.
What Mayor Murray brings is real life decisions. I never said he was the sole person, did I ? I said that he has had to make decisions that (good or bad) that effect our daily lives. It’s obvious that Andrea has only be able take from the taxpayers by show casing her NON PROFIT ENTERPRISE, in english thay means taking money AWAY from cities and towns. Let’s face Murray is the only one who has worked together to keep the city of Worcester above the fray. Last time I checked Worcester had somewhere over 500 million dollars in NEW construction going on. Saying this at least Silbert and Murray are working to get elected like,unlike GoldBerg who wants to buy the election by putting in her 2 million goldbucks into the race.
If she is, will it be heard over the shrills of Deb Goldberg?
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It seems to me that Murray and Silbert need to get creative, and get it going earlier. Neither will have a particularly strong GOTV effort (it is LG after all), so they’ve got to raise name recognition before Goldberg drowns ’em.
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Yes? No?
What exactly do you/and-or other members of the BMG community think could be in this office that is worth $2 million or more to Deb Goldberg?
Bob, here’s one guy’s speculation, from onbrookline.com
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“The spectacle of a rich person running a vanity campaign is always a bit sad. But when the person thinks that a few years letting Richard Kelliher whisper instructions in her ear qualifies her to be the States Number Two, its just tragic.
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I doubt Goldbergs ads will highlight the fact that the Brookline Treasury carries as much long term debt as it takes in for property tax revenue. Or that the Towns unfunded pension liability is $120 million.”
That dude ain’t happy about Brookline’s leadership…
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Looks like Deb’s assertions of how great a job she did may not be so true after all…
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$120 million unfunded pension liability? W-O-W. I guess I know where I WON’T be buying a house any time soon… And taxing a cell-tower or three in Brookline ain’t gonna bridge that gap either…
onbrookline.com is Jim Conley’s e-rag.
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I think someone pisses in his corn flakes every morning. He’s spent years searching for something, anything to be cranky about in Brookline. For a while, he was at least getting paid by the Brookline TAB to do it; he’s recently parted ways (officially: mutual. unofficially: he got canned) and now does it “for the love”.
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This is a guy who would take the side of trampled grass instead of applauding a new playground and park. It’s good to have people stirring things up a bit, but Conley’s beyond the pale.
Just to set the record straight. I didn’t get canned. I quit. I quit because another columnist Stanley Spiegel was attacking me on the TAB’s website under two pseudonyms (and having conversations between the two).
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When I confronted the TAB with the evidence they said they wouldn’t address the issue because the blog is different than the paper. This was after the TAB told me to take down a post about Selectman Nancy Daly, because it didn’t meet the paper’s standards.
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So yes, I am cranky because just like everything else in Brookline, no one bothers with the facts before making claims.
The pension is underfunded by a bit more than $100 million, but not $120 AFAIK. To put that in perspective, that’s $1600 per resident. Not massive, but not tiny either.
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It is a problem, and one the town should work harder to reduce. In fact, it was part of my town meeting platform. How to do it? * No new underfunded pensions: the financial contributions for every new employee must be 100%. This will help reduce the gap over time. * Start siphoning off a bit (bit more?) of the budget into that pension liability. * If the CPA passes this November, it can be used to take pressure off of other budgets (for example, fixing historic Lawrence School’s roof). Those budgets could then be reduced slightly to put more funding in the pension. Net result: slightly more CPA priorities funded, slightly more non-CPA overlap priorities (like schools in my example) funded, and slightly more pension funded. Everyone gets more if managed well.
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Unless there’s a Prop 2 1/2 override, there won’t be a whole lot of money available to play catch up with the pension without slashing budgets elsewhere, which simply isn’t going to happen. In the mean time, Brookline should be (is?) taking efforts to stabilize and/or slightly reduce the pension deficit, and then hoping to grow its way out of it.
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What does that mean? Seriously, I don’t know. Fully funding a defined benefit plan with no consideration of lapse rate would result in a over-funded plan everytime. Also, what growth rate and mortality assumptions do you build in to conclude that you’re 100% funded?
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Why not just go defined contribution?
They’re so 20th century. New employees at all levels of government should pay into a 401K-style plan, which plans should be opened up at the state level too. Public employees should be also be paid more, for the most part, so that we don’t have to have these incentives to get them to work for the govt. that screws the rest of us.
Should I point out that Ms. Healey has advocated the phase-in of 401(k) for new state employees?
No, you should point that out and people should notice it.
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Without ANY economic analysis whatsoever, my thinking is this: new state employees get the 401K plan and don’t pay into the pension plan and have no chance of getting any pension ever (I realize them not paying in is a problem because then the current pension monies wouldn’t be enough. We need to figure this out, I’m just not sure how).
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Current employees in the pension system stay in.
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Returning employees who were in the pension system can return to it and will vest once they reach their 10 years. (Ahem, that’s me, with 3-ish years and a decent chunk already in the pension system. Selfish? Sure.)
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Does anyone know whether a study has looked at this scenario and its impact on the budget? I could be totally wrong here on how this would play out.
Defined Benefit
The Brookline Unfunded Pension Liability (according to the latest actuarial analysis) is $120,000,000. If you only take people in town government at their word, it’s $100 million…and that’s not so bad.
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But I don’t tkae them at their word.
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The Town wants to issue $100 million in pension obligation bonds – new debt – to cover the liability. And who first proposed the idea? Deb Goldberg.
The underfunding is going to have to come from taxes or debt, no? Take your choice.
…it’s “another piece of my inherited fortune I didn’t need for anything”
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Even money can be a relative phenomenon.
That is, unless you’re staggeringly incompetent. Being LG for four years makes yo ua serious candidate for governor, even if you don’t have anything worth mentioning beyond that. Most people don’t care if you have little experience when you run for office.
It’s all about POWER AND EGO, tha’t all folks! Don’t think for one minute that Goldberg is about helping the “little person”. How does one relate to us little guys/gals when they can put this kind of dough into this position???
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How does one talk serious about job creation, keeping our economy flowing, bringing the tax rates down, helping our seniors with life altering decisions. Come on folks, money should not be the sole source when we have so much at stake. Haven’t we in MA been subjected to this long enough?
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I think the fact that Deb and Andrea basically have written 2/3 of the State off, and believe the media will carry them over the finish line is a dangerous strategy. I think once all the Governors candidate’s get their Media going the LG race is going to get lost in the mist.
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p> In a close race the ground game will push the Murray team over the top. This race for Murray will be all about getting out of Suffolk County/Middlesex County with a decent showing. I feel his REAL LIFE experience as Mayor and ability to fight for cities and towns will benefit him. Let’s face it folks, Tim is the only candidate running who has done the job balancing budgets for the second largest city in the Commonwealth. I think Andrea has done a good job in attempting to get her message out, but her lack of state wide support is going to hurt her.
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p> And finally, Goldberg’s message of working the hard way, through the ranks of her family’s business is a bunch of baloney and many of us saw that first hand in June. In my opion Goldberg’s Gold is not going to go as far as her camp thinks it will. I small snap shot of this was when Gabby MONEYBAGS first ran for Congress. He spent I beieve 6 million and cam in 9th, correct me if I am wrong on these numbers, but I know I am not that far off. He may have actually spent more !
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p> We must not forget, this is a PRIMARY, and every good camp knows,one must know their audience ! I think Tim Murray is a smart politician who knows where to go and pull a vote out. We shall see if any of “Monday Morning Quarterbacks” know what we are talking about.
Hey, high guy, can you provide me the quotes where Andrea Silbert or Paris Goldberg or their campaign staff have said “we’ve written off 2/3 of the state”?
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Also, thanks for letting us know you have to be an elected official in Worcester to experience, ahem, REAL LIFE, as you say. Do reserve me a spot in a neighborhood near you as I get my slogans and soapbox read to stand for election.
If they are working it, maybe someone should tell them life does exists beyond 495. They are real people in outside the 495 belt. Believe it or not but people do live in Middlesex, Worcester, Hampden,Hampshire,Bristol,Franklin,and Berkshire. I know it’s hard to believe but we do live out here, and although it’s all about numbers, in a close race, every vote may count. So tell Deb to purchase a GPS and get into her Lexus,and try visting the entire state.
I’m sure FrankSkeff has some data showing why the west-o’-wistah/west-o-495 voters don’t impact races, but I’ll just speak to the conventional wisdom: because voters outside 495 don’t vote in blocs, they essentially nullify each other and winning a primary requires appealing to those within 495. Not fair, I know, but unless Frank tells me otherwise, true.
I will not disagree with ya, but in a close race mainly with both Silbert and Goldberg having no name recongition I think WORCESTER,MIDDLESEX,HAMPDEN ETC>>> WILL BE CRITICAL.
It’s all interesting…money raised/money spent, frugality, field operations, tv ads, messages, experience…all good stuff to banter about…but we are talking Lieutenant Governor here…no one except their parents and staff cares who gets elected Lt. Gov….people are going to trot to the polls to vote for Governor…the downcard is an after thought and is driven by much simpler considerations…”who is most like me?” (gender, religion, veteran), “who lives nearest to me?” (geography), “who’s last name is most like me?” (ethnicity)…and yes, even less substantive:”Who’s first name is the same as my grandson’s/daughter’s?”
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Almost like picking a bet on the 5th race at Wonderland…not scientific…
So in this race, the handicapping may be more accurate by assessing how people actually vote for Lt. Gov (and downcard races)…
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Gender: Woman, woman, man
Geography: Brookline, Brookline/Harwich, Worcester
Ethnicity: Jewish-American, Jewish-American, Irish-American
Religion: Jewish, Jewish, Catholic
First name: Deb, Andrea, Tim
Military: none, none, none
Title on Ballot: former Selectwoman, none, Mayor
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okay…that given…someone may just have won this race when both women got their 15% at the convention and Sam Kelly was history…
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$2 to win on Murray…
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I can not argue your points are well taken. You have stated facts that many would not post. I argee with most of your points but also think that Murray’s field work will carry him over the finish line. Money can not buy this position, the Dem’s ticket 4 yrs ago proved that Gabby’s money before the primary and after amounted to another loss.
(A correction of your statement : Gabs money did get him the Lt. Gov. Primary win 4 years ago…his opponents did not have the money to compete on TV…)
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Statewide races are NOT field races in 2006… unfortunately… the Democratic party was stronger when field was an important factor…but media has overpowered and local gressroots have shriveled up from neglect…
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As for 2006…there are 3 candidates running for Governor and 3 candidates running for Lt. Governor…the Democratic primary is a little more than a month away…and I cannot remember a year when there was less interest in a statewide election…look around..very few signs, very few bumperstickers…little excitement…the press/media seems totally uninterested and they are grudgingly filing a story now and then to give the appearance of coverage…but reporting on the latest poll numbers or endorsement is not coverage.
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Of these six candidates, two will be running our sorry state come January…lacking proper media coverage, they will be selected on the basis of TV ads…chosen just like we choose shampoo…did you ever buy a brand name shampoo that ever made your hair look like they promised in the ad?
I don’t totally disagree with your theory,however I ask you to explain why a no name like Patrick is still ahead in the polls? His camp is running strictly on grass roots and so is Murray’s.
Money is not the sole reason to vote for someone, and as far as GOLDBERGS DOUGH it’s not her’s and people around this state already know it. At lease Chris made it on his own,why he would spend it on politicals is another story.
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Murray can win with grassroots and great name recongition,his ablity to campagin hard and cross the state has been an major asset. People West of 495 want someone who understands what it’s like to be left out of the picture.