Turning to one of the toughest problems society faces these days, LG candidate Andrea Silbert has announced that next week she will unveil her plan to end homelessness, beginning with family homelessness. She plans two events on Tuesday, Sept. 5, one in JP at 10 am, and one in Worcester (hi Tim!) at 1 pm.
This is a gutsy move by Silbert, for which IMHO she deserves a lot of credit. It would be very easy for her to stick to the script that has worked well for her so far, and just keep plugging away on “jobs jobs jobs” as the engine that drives the economy, thereby generating revenue to address other needs (not that there’s anything wrong with that). I mean, who could be against jobs, right? Instead, today – less than three weeks from the primary – she’s directly confronting a really difficult problem that, frankly, most people prefer not to think too much about. (I don’t doubt, by the way, that she’ll link homelessness back to her “jobs” platform, which is fine. The point is that she’s suddenly gotten really specific on this one issue.)
I’m still officially “undecided” in the LG race. But today Silbert’s stock went up considerably in my book.
Note: post has been updated to correct dates.
I agree with you David.
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According to her website, though, it appears the events you reference are on Tuesday the 5th…
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Also, she did mention this in her Convention Speech, so it’s good to see some follow through on that.
I’ll update. Thanks for catching the mistake.
However, for the MA Democratic Primary, it might be a smart move. There’s got to be decent % of primary voters who would like a candidate with priorities like Silbert. She obviously knows the issue first hand from her work in Latin America and understands that homelessness affects everyone… whether it’s property values, healthcare costs or, dare I say, one’s conscience.
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Cheers to a newcomer who’s pushing the envelope.
This indicates exactly the kind of strong leadership that I expect from Ms. Silbert. She is obviously ready take on any Massachusetts problem that the new governor hands to her. Showing initiative like this is indeed an important characteristic of a leader. Now I have no excuse not to go to this fundraiser (My wife would probably have made me go anyway.)
I think this marks Andrea Silbert as being one of those people who see the office as a means for doing good things, much more than doing good things as a means for getting into and staying in office. That’s one of the main things I admire about people like Howard Dean and Russ Feingold.
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As an electoral strategy, it would be a win if it draws new voters to the primary. Which I hope it does.
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(Note: I came around to it slowly, but I definitely support Andrea Silbert for LG. I maintain my opinion that the other two candidates are good ones as well đŸ™‚