A shout out to Reed Hillman who hit the half-way point about 10 days ago in his quest to visit every city and town in the Commonwealth. Kerry Healey Out of Touch has been making merciless fun of the effort, and recently posted a draft poster for Reed’s Big Adventure. I think they should be more kind. First, this is a titanic effort. If Hillman is only at the half-way point, it may be months before he wraps up the cities and towns — and after that there are the villages, hamlets, and unincorporated areas to consider. Nantucket, most of the Cape, and a large chunk of northwestern Massachusetts, by the look of the attached map from the campaign website (snail added), are not at the top of the Republican priority list (nor is that tiny thumb of Massachusetts in the middle of our southern border … anyone know the history of that bite we took out of CT). Second, consider the human cost. One imagines Mr. Hillman, grinding up to yet another roadside motel, kicking off his shoes and flipping on NECN, and drinking yet another cup of bad instant coffee, perhaps a short telephone call to his loved ones, a few hours of sleep, and then an early wake up call: hundreds of towns still to go on his lonely road. We’ll keep an eye on Hillman’s progress. If anyone sees him pass through — a solitary, driven man, perhaps, with a small satchel and a well-thumbed map — please send us an update.
Heck, I’ve been occasional tour guide! And thank you for the kind words.
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You may agree with him or not, but he is a kind, dignified and intelligent man – uber polite – and I think this IS a huge effort!
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I kinda LIKE the snail logo, though, because it sort of represents him. He may not be speedy, but he is committed and will absolutely do what he says, no matter how long it takes.
Rewarding, or even worth it, ummm… This has the feel of something that sounded like a terrific idea when a bunch of campaign staffers were brainstorming late at night right after the convention about how an uncontested nominee for Lt. Gov. could generate some excitement. But now that it comes to actually executing it, I’m guessing that Bob’s “roadside motel” description is more right than wrong. It’s a chore – 351 is actually quite a large number of localities – and nobody really cares that poor Reed is passing through town number 238 on any given day.
There are a lot of small towns and semi-rural areas in MA where people have always felt that they are unknown to Beacon Hill. Some people appreciate it when a candidate takes the time to come to them – even if it means avoiding political gatherings and merely snapping a picture in front of the vacant town hall or (based on the current look of the map) stopping somewhere along the Turnpike to chat with one of his state police buddies in a speed trap.
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This may be a superficial way of campaigning, but it can be effective in swaying some support so don’t laugh it off.
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I would concede that it appears that the red team is short on substance and motivation, if they can afford to spend so much time driving around putting pins in the map. Their royal coronation process ruled out a primary for their voters yet again, so they have the luxury to wander around like this, burning up fossil fuel.
There are no ‘unincorporated areas’ in Massachusetts. (Though maybe I shouldn’t be telling the Republicans this.)
Interested to see the source.
I don’t know what you mean by a ‘source’. The state is entirely subdivided into municipalities (towns and cities).
Certain areas within incorporated cities and towns are themselves unincorporated. Click here for more information.
But every square inch of land in Massachusetts is under the jurisdiction of an incorporated city or town.
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This is not true of most other states outside of New England where the County is often responsible for unincorporated areas.
since we pretty much did away with county government a few years back!
I see nothing on that page to suggest that there is any such thing as an unincorporated part of a town or city.
You are quite corrrect that every inch of MA is part of a city or town. What RightWinger means, I think, is that an entity like “Turners Falls” exists, but is not incorporated (TF, for example, is part of the town of Montague). So he’s referring to it as an “unincorporated area” because it’s an area and it’s not incorporated. But most of these entities do not have political boundaries, except sometimes for fire, water, school districts, etc. — it’s different from New York state where you can have villages within townships, or Maine where you have the town-sized areas that PP refers to such as “T2 R6”, which have been laid out by surveyors but never organized as towns because they have very little or no population.
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I agree with you (Ron) on usage but RightWinger is not being perverse. Getting back to the topic, the question is whether Mr. Hillman would count a single visit to Montague as covering Turners Falls, Millers Falls, Montague City, and Montague Center. If he’s counting to 351, it would seem so.
More information on the bite we took out of Massachusetts:
The short version Wikipedia:
Here’s more from the Connecticut state library, and a more detailed version of the events from the Town of Southwick (PDF).
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Apparently some Nutmeggers are still holding a grudge.
The bite Massachusetts took out of Connecticut.
Anyone know if any of the Gov. or LG candidates is planning a statewide tour? It can be a waste of time and effort, or be improperly targeted (i.e. Shannon’s bus tour at the end of the 02 campaign).
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I give Hillman credit for doing this because, well, what else does he have to do? Nada. Might as well guzzle some gas and give your ticket a reason to say that it’s been all over the state. More than the others can say, I suppose… I would think Paris Goldberg (I like that name, sorry to whoever I stole it from) would be out there doing that more publicly since she is ineffective at/does not have to fundraise.