Blue Mass Group needs you. When we started this site, our goal was to revitalize progressive politics in Massachusetts and around the country. We can’t do that really well without you: your arguments sharpen our thinking; your criticisms offer food for thought; your reservations force us to consider the full implications of our proposals.
The regressive wing of your party made a terrible mistake under George W. Bush: they tried to slam the door on the opposition; stifle debate; and divide the country. In some instances, leaders of your party said opponents with reasonable, principled disagreements supported terrorists and were traitors. The evidence from last week demonstrates the short-term self-defeating nature of this approach in America. Now the shoe is on the other foot, as it were, especially here in Massachusetts: we want to be sure not to repeat their mistake.
You are welcome here. We thank those of you who have been contributors over the past months and years. We encourage those of you who have been lurking to come out of the shadows, and to invite your friends. We can’t say we will agree with you, but we will listen and be civil.
Viva discussion. Viva raillery. Viva democracy.
Don’t come here and troll. Or flame. Or spew “facts” without any factual basis.
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We’re reality based. We expect civil discourse, honest questions, and honest answers. “I don’t know” is perfectly OK… making crap up is not.
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This, of course, goes for us blue blooded types too. However, those in opposition will generally be kept to a slightly shorter leash, fair or foul.
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So, everyone’s almost equal.
but we’re not there yet. Let’s keep working toward such a lofty ideal.
“However, those in opposition will generally be kept to a slightly shorter leash, fair or foul.”
I didn’t say it was fair or right, but that is how it works around here.
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There’s only 3 or 4 hardworking “whistleblowers” from the right — gary, PP, EBIII, and I’m sure I’m forgetting someone. There’s dozens from the left. There are a few who are known for being evenhanded, including our esteemed benevolent dictators… but they are rare indeed.
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So, lose the self-righteousness. It is Blue Mass Group, not Red Mass Group. It’s going to attract more left-leaners, and those left-leaners are going to comment and moderate from their perspective of fair, which is almost certainly left of center. End result: right-leaners are kept on a shorter leash. Their cynical jokes often get moderated down harshly. Their claims of fact are held to greater scrutiny. Their opinions require clearer, lengthier justifications.
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That’s the shorter leash. That’s life.
You’re not Charley, Bob, or David.
Whistleblowers? What the heck is that?
Or even, “who in heaven’s name are you.” Either way …
I’m having trouble being clear, which is quite frustrating for all.
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I’m not stating that things are the way I claim because I want it that way. It’s an observation on the behavior of the masses. It seems to me that when a person makes a “pro-liberal” post, he’s given slack because most of the folks around here are of a liberal bent. The poster, therefore, is presumed to be speaking truth to power instead of spin to obfuscate.
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However, whenever gary, PP, et al makes a claim, the majority of BMGers will use a finer tooth comb when considering their posts. It’s differently-winged than the viewpoint of most of the BMGers, and therefore the majority of BMGers will judge the post far more carefully.
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Therefore, they tend to demand more citations, more tight logic, and don’t view favorably on marginally funny but lib-unflattering jokes. As such, it’s harder to post here if you’re a GOPer. This is the shorter leash I’m taking about.
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The proof is in the moderation. When a poster compared Jack Robinson’s traffic accident to Kennedy’s, he got some 0s and 3s. If, however, a poster had compared it to GWB’s speeding/traffic accident (that may or may not have involved booze or drugs), I’d bet it would have gotten 5s. That’s the shorter leash I’m talking about.
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The proof is in the reply posts. When a poster makes a claim that the liberally-bent folks generally believe is true, we let it slide. When PP makes a claim about charter schools, we jump him, demanding peer reviewed studies. That’s the shorter leash I’m talking about.
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The proof is in the gushing (and IMO well deserved) respect and adulation for David, Charley, et al. They are uncannily fair, and that is such a rare characteristic in the blogsphere that those guys are openly praised for their evenhandedness and levelheadedness. Most folks — including most of the BMG community who aren’t editors — don’t behave quite so fairly. That’s the shorter leash I’m talking about.
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I’m not saying its fair, its appropriate, its required, its condoned by the editors, or that any individual in particular is advocating for this behavior. I’m making the claim that in aggregate, this is in fact the actual behavior of the community.
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As to “who the hell” I am — you know damn well who I am EBIII. I’m just another poster, one who’s been around for a while on this blog, and one who’s got enough of a posting history that my reputation and personality are well enough known around here.
Let’s not get any more detailed. There are laws about this kind of stuff in Massachusetts đŸ˜‰
below the statewide races were almost no contests. For most offices here in Worcester 1-1, there was only one candidate.
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Reducing ballot access requirements until you start getting 2 or 3 candidates per office, consistently, would seem a good step toward getting us elections with more options than were allowed voters in the old Soviet Union.
For a state rep race you need, what, 150 signatures? That’s not a huge obstacle to overcome. Two weekends in front of a grocery store should do it.
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I honestly don’t think it’s the access requirements that are keeping people off the ballot.
It’s all the stuff you have to do to get people to vote for you that is hard. Running for office is a huge time commitment and few people want to take it on without a reasonable prospect of winning. For that matter, I am not sure how many people out there actually want to be state reps, or city councilors, etc.
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isn’t likely to win election…after all, they’d have to convince a lot more people than that to vote for them.
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Incidentally, to get on the ballot for state Rep here in Florida you need around 1,000 signatures. There is an alternative, though…pay $1,859.76 if running with a party affiliation ($1,239.84 if running with no party affiliation). Most candidates qualify by payment rather than petition.
…Puts a whole new face on the toungue clucking about paid signature gathering, doesn’t it?
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I DO think it’s bad politics, because getting signatures is the BEST campaign tool you have. I advise people to collect three and four times what they need – not because that many will be thrown out, but because people recognize your name when they go to vote and say, ‘Hey! I signed for that guy!’ It’s FREE, too!
because without them, you’d be hard-pressed to find 150 registered Republican voters in districts such as mine (27th Middlesex, Somerville).
then there’d be far fewer unenrolled — and therefore more Dems and more GOPs, making signature gathering more difficult than it is now for GOPers, but less difficult than if they only tried to get GOP sigs now.
Well, this will be interesting. Perhaps the boys at HubPolitics will join the party.
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The mind reels….
“the mind reels” – classic cynic elitism. How could anyone be so stupid as to disagree with your platform? The mind reels.
In the spirit of peaceful co-existence I think the link to Hub Politics should be restored. While the Margolis boys do go off the deep end once in a while, it is no more so then some of the regulars here on BMG.
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For either side it will hone your debating skills to see what the “loyal” opposition is writing about.
I do appreciate the sentiment and the wisdom of paragraphs 1 and 3 above, and the welcome. I don’t post much here but then again I dont post much anywhere lately and this election hasn’t given me much to be excited about.
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Anyway, couple things: Mass has become so overwhelmingly democrat that we practically live in a one party state. On my ballot, half the races were uncontested D; the other half were contested by R as often as G. The R’s, predictably, got wiped out. The only time I voted for a D was when a G was the opponent. (talk about lesser of evils!)
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I love how media and political types are all encouraging about having republicans run, in the name of democracy I guess, and then they endorse the D anyway and the D wins by a landslide.
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How can MA be so homogenous? People retort: well there are alot of conservative D’s on Beacon Hill! Yea, so what? If a 2 party system is suboptimal, then a one party system can’t be good, can it? Is it that the MA R organization is so awful? Is it coincidence of historical Kennedy dems happening to land in the same national bucket as “progressive” dems? Or are we really all leftys? I’m flummoxed.
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Now, as for paragraph 2, first of all the term regressive seems to carry a perjorative note – but lets explore: If “progressive” means progress towards socialism, then I suppose regressive in this context is a positive. If progressive means taxing people unequally and regressive means the same thing, then both are perjorative. I wonder …
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… and that, I’m afraid I must disagree strongly with. If you witnessed the 2004 Democratic primary race, then you saw divisiveness in rare form. And many left bloggers and activists, having lost their minds over Iraq, have spewed intense and dividing hatred ever since. I’ve seen nothing even close to this on the right, and certainly not coming from the administration. The question now is how beholden to this cauldren of vitriol are our newly elected Ds, or more aptly, how beholden do they feel? They’d better be careful or they’ll learn what its like to be on the wrong end of, for example, Dkos.
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Beyond that, I challenge you to find a single instance of this:
… and don’t you dare call Ann Coulter a leader of my party!
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Making up facts indeed!
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They say that in a democracy, the people as a whole always get what they deserve.
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Demo
+++Is it that the MA R organization is so awful?+++
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When a Governor wanders all over the country bad-mouthing his state, it’s not going to do wonders for the party’s reputation.
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Instead of talking about the number of really wonderful Republicans who could do great things if only they were given a chance, this discussion is very abstract, why can’t more Republicans get elected? There’s your problem right there.
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I don’t think it’s too kooky to want elected officials who actually care about Massachusetts or their districts as opposed to people punching their ticket on their way to national office or people who just want to “get elected”.
You may recall in the last elections Romney and others put a bunch of effort into finding and fielding a crew of R challengers across the state. There were high hopes in some quarters. The result? 100% loss.
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It really brings focus to the question: why try? Why run? With all of the personal sacrifice involved, the loss of privacy, financial implications, etc., and against a stacked deck like the MA electorate, why try?
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Not everyone wants to keep running up and kicking the football only to have Lucy pull it away.
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In some sense, this is all of our problem, not just the Rs’ problem. Unless of course you’re cool with a one party state.
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Demo
The problem is that Romney’s hand picked candidates were all people like Greer Tan Swiston. Running on vague “family values” platforms just isn’t going to get you much of anywhere in this state.
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Romney himself understood that since he positioned himself as the sort of “fiscal conservative, social liberal” candidate people in this state go for. It turned out not to be exactly true, but the pitch itself was a good one.
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From the point of view of a small-l libertarian (i.e. me), it’s sad that Romney and Weld failed to build any sort of moderate farm team. It’s fairly clear that people in this state will vote for real moderates.
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And, not to put too fine a point on it, the Democratic party in this state contains both Marie Parente and Jarrett Barrios. One party doesn’t really describe what’s going on.
One thing that always throws me for a loop is how anyone describing themselves as a libertarian could possibly support the democrats. I’ve heard the old “punish the R’s for the war” argument, and recently read this piece:
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http://time-blog.com…
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which has some interesting points in it…
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How do you figure yourself an L in the party of big govt.?
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Demo
And was the first president in modern history, maybe ever? To reduce the size of gov’t spending during his term. And the current gov’t expanded the size of it more than anyone since FDR.
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I know the repubs in congress at the time Clinton was prez deserve some credit too, both sides kept each other honest (well as honest as they can be in DC), but “big government democrats”, “tax and spend liberals” and all that junk is just so… 80s. You gonna bring back Duran Duran too?
I do give Clinton credit for signing e.g. welfare reform, but bear in mind that the small govt initiatives came directly out of Newt’s contract with america, mandated by the ’94 elections. Those were republican ideas, put forth by republicans, signed by a D president, and lambasted by many on the left.
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(plenty of quotes from D’s of that era if you want some!)
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I’m surpised that you would take issue with the characterization of big gov D’s – everything the D’s stand for involves more programs, more taxes, never tax cuts or government cuts. Just look at the howling over Romney’s budget slash!
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Just because the Bush administration screwed up and spent too much and increased the size of govt. doesn’t mean that the D’s have suddenly flipped to the other side and become tax cutters and gov. size cutters. To a large extent this election reflects R and I voters’ dissatisfaction with the R spending, in direct contradiction of R principles and platform.
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Universal health care.
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-Demo
not sure how reliable this is but for what its worth:
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http://www.house.gov…
AND raised taxes (a little) in his first two years in power, without any help from the Republicans TYVM, but people love to conveniently forget that. It was an attempt to get the budget deficit under control and it worked, too, bringing us a little closter to the black and a better economic foundation that set the stage for some of the boom we had in the 90s. (The boom also came from a leap in productivity due to the speed computers improved, but without a solid foundation for the dollar, investments would have been slower and it wouldn’t have been so much of a boom. I will also say that the latter half of the boom was inflated, in part because the lovely Republicans deregulated many industries in the mid 90s, including the accounting industry, which resulted in all sorts of accounting fraud which is why we came “down” off the boom so hard in 2001. Clinton vetoed that bill, BTW, and was overriden, and we’re still paying for that.)
I think you are right about the first 2 years, which is a good point.
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However, if Clinton raised taxes and cut spending, and later acheived welfare reform, etc, then it was also Clinton who deregulated many industries- for whatever that is worth.
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Deregulation, FYI, does not allow or encourage criminal conduct. Just ask anyone currently in jail or being prosecuted. It does however generally improve efficiency and thus the economy.
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Another factor in the 90’s growth was IMO welfare reform, another was the internet. (Thanks Al! sorry couldn’t resist!)
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Bubbles get big sometimes due to speculation, not due to lack of regulation. Then they pop.
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Demo
the “a little” part – wasn’t that the biggest tax increase in history? If that is a little I’d hate to see what you think is alot!!
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đŸ™‚
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Demo
Links to support your assertions?
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Here’s the vote 23 Republican agreed. YWVM.
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Footnote: Republicans shouldn’t have voted yes IMHO, but nevertheless, the tax increase did have significant bipartisan support.
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You – are – dreaming.
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I’ll go so far to credit Clinton’s NAFTA and maybe Welfare reform for meaningful economic growth. But Clinton caused the dot.com boom and the Republican caused the bust?
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Seriously, don’t just make stuff up!
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The boom: 1) internet and dot com fever 2) Fed reduced its unemployment target from 6% to 4% and loosened money which reduced rates which increased borrowing and increased investment.
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The bust: irrational exuberance. The S&P PE hit 41.4 which was twice that of the 1929 market. The bubble cracked, companies folded. Presto, recession 2000.
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Accounting fraud, materially speaking, was a minor blip barely worth a footnote.
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distrust the government. That means they distrust government spending programs, but they also don’t want * the gov’t snooping on their phone conversations * the gov’t putting the 10 Commandments in public spaces * the gov’t telling people what they can do in their bedroom with other consenting adults * the gov’t telling people they can’t protest by burning their own private property safely, even if that property is red, white, and blue
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The GOP’s so-called “values” fly in the face of libertarians. So, they may not like how the Dems spend money, but they also don’t like how the GOP tries to control how others spend their free time.
The case for the libertarian democrat was asserted in KOS last month
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I wasn’t convinced. We figure that the Democrats will involve themselves in our personal liberty at least as well as the Republicans but the Democrats will also figure out a few dozen different ways to
tax, spend and regulatelegislate away all of the economy’s problems.agreed agreed ( phone convos of terrorists aside) but I mean how many times has any of that stuff really affected you? whats the net negative?
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how many times have you been impacted by [progressive] taxes? Ever met a liberal speech code?
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perspective?
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Demo
First, I’m a libertarian, not a Libertarian.
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Second, there are two sides to the equation: government out of my bedroom, government out of my wallet.
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I think the Rovian “big business, big religion” coalition fails both. The big government side has been pretty well addressed by others. I’ll add that Deval’s point about keeping taxes down if you raise every fee in the world resonated with me. Every real libertarian knows there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.
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However, it’s the big religion/loss of personal liberties side that really chafes me. I’m a gay man; this administration is hell bent on making me a second class citizen. Further, the Republican party in this state has gone from Bill Weld to Mitt Romney (aka the guy who feels the party needs to move further right). There’s very little for a libertarian to grab on to.
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I’d vote for a Weld-like Republican again in a second. Kerry Healey never was able to convince me she really held any of my core values. Her answers on gay marriage sounded like they were written by a focus group…
hmmm – I couldn’t name a single thing the adminstration has done to make you a second class citizen, really. Unless by “make” you mean to say “keep” you a second class citizen, i.e. by not supporting your agenda to change the status quo. In this, they probably represent the majority opinion in America. Personally, I think we’ve got bigger fish to fry (i.e. the bloated govt itself)
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What do you think of Cheney’s stance on gay marriage?
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Anyway, I now find it ironic that you engaged in the little “outing” exercise against pp which I assume got deleted… I hope you don’t do that sort of thing again.
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D
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ps: seems to me that the appropriate answer to local spending crunches would be to let the localities collect the taxes rather than the state. sending it up then back down comes with a steep skim for overhead, graft, beauracrats, etc not to mention providing ample opportunity for earmarking style corruption…
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I think you just made my point. Today’s Republican party and libertarianism have little to do with each other.
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Cheney claiming in an interview to be pro-gay marriage is not the same thing as doing anything about it.
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Ironic?
Deval is looking at a US Senate seat?
We need someone who actually wants to be Governor and not run off after another office. For a change.
the Senate is such a dead end job. Who ever heard of a senator going on to be somebody.
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đŸ˜€
You know, education — if you make the most of it — you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in the senate.
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Iraq really has been an extraordinary disaster. The left blogosphere was “shrill” about it because the national Democratic party refused to talk about it. For example, I was getting fundraising appeals from all sorts of people and groups (Harkins, H. Clinton, Progressive Democrats, 21st Century Democrats) that did not even mention the word Iraq.
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Republicans have an unfortunate tendency to regard Iraq as some sort of video game (U.S. v. Terrorists). Witness the current complaints from Republicans about Rumsfeld’s leaving. “Why wasn’t it earlier?”
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Why don’t we instead hear complaints about the war being stupidly managed from the Republicans? Let me point to the reasons a war supporter might be concerned:
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I’m not sure you can say that the left bloggers have lost their minds. We are not abetting a self-refuting policy in Iraq.
Bill Frist told CNN:
You could argue, I suppose, that “want to surrender” is not the same thing as “support”, but the point is still valid. And you can’t argue that Bill Frist is not a party leader.
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Oh come on! Want to surrender is entirely different from support, is that something that I really need to argue?
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Surrender, run away, embolden the terrorists, withdraw, etc – different spins on a withdrawal from Iraq. (bonus: how would the terrorists perceive it?)
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Support terrorists, treason, totally different concepts. Not even spin can get you that far from surrender.
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Were the French Nazi’s because they surrendered to the Germans in WWII? Were they treasonous?
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If you can jump from surrender to treason/terrorism and be cool with it as a reasonably accurate portrayal, then you (1) ain’t living in reality and (2) might be wrong on a few other things, too.
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Demo
You are proving The Editors’ point. Keep talking.
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was the editors’ point? Because if the comments you respond to here are in some productive, I think I need someone to explain to me how that works.
You can make a substantive critique of a particular proposal or platform, and you might get somewhere. Or you can simply tie your opponent to the enemy, which shows nothing supporting your position except hatred of the other side.
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Yes, well, I should think that goes without saying.
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We mostly have the hit-and-run conservative on this site, an MO of short/sweet little jabs, which, of course, happens to be the MO with most conservatives on Democratic sites around the internets. The conservatives drawn to this sort of thing tend to come over to insult and mock and are rarely interested in a substantive conversations with those on the other side of the spectrum, primarily because they think they’re on the correct side of every issue, so what’s to debate? The same is true, of course, for liberals who go over to stir the pot at conservative sites. I read a lot of political blogs, and I have to say that not one has been able to achieve a meaningful balance of right and left. The one attempt that was marginally successful for a short time was the former-dKos poster Armando’s efforts with Red State blogger Josh Trevino call Swords Crossed, but that was ephemeral (for many reasons) and the site has since devolved into an unremitting foodfight.
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On the whole, I’d say the nasty troll-type conservatives have gotten off easy here as most folks tend to simply ignore ’em or throw ’em a low rating. I suspect that pattern will continue and there will be civil but little meaningful dialogue with those on the other side of the political divide.
On BMG, I cannot say something that ‘everybody’ knows without getting a sharp demand for citation, backup, and my first-born. By forcing that explication, you are in fact raising the level of dialogue from sloganeering to debate.
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And that is an excellent thing!
There is no such thing as The Terrorists. Honestly, could you guys move beyond this? Arab Nationalists and separatist Shiites would be quite surprised to discover that they are on the same side as Al Qaeda since Al Qaeda has long regarded Arab Nationalists as their main enemies. Many Sunni radicals, such as Al Qaeda, regard Shiites as disposable heretics.
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Of course, you must enjoy the deliciously powerful rhetorical effect of talking about The Terrorists. It’s just dishonest or ignorant or a bit of both.
I disagree – there sure is such a thing as “the terrorists” – there is also such a thing as sectarian violence in Iraq. The two are not mutually exclusive. Al qaeda is there, and they are commenting on, among other things, the end of Rumsfeld.
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Which sect do you think Zarqawi belonged to?
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Demo
Zarqawi belongs to Al Qaeda. Your point?
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Much of the sectarian violence, you know the people who put holes in people’s faces with electric drills, is quite terrorist. Estimates are that Al Qaeda is not a particularly big force in Iraq. Certainly, Al Qaeda could be no more than a temporary ally of the Baath Party.
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Talking endlessly about “The Terrorists” is just politically-motivated confusion. The phrase implies unity where it doesn’t exist. It implies simplification where there is complexity. It implies a desire to win political points rather than to confront the human tragedy the guys that ran Abu Ghraib and the Coalition Provisional Authority have created.
You are incorrect when you conjecture that talking about “The Terrorists” is in this case (or many others I’m quite sure) politically motivated. You are also incorrect in inferring from this a desire to win political points, except perhaps insofar as I perceive the political result to become a more safe America.
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Sorry if this language drives you nuts, but you know it really is possible for people to see things differently. What if all this talk about defending America against terrorists is what people really believe, rather than made up? Do you think that is possible?
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Just because a situation in Iraq is complex does not mean that there aren’t terrorists, there and elsewhere, who want to do more 9/11’s. This is relevant. We can bail from Iraq and lose the problem of the sectarians but we will retain the problem of the terrorists and the T’s will now potentially gain a new supporting nation. Not good. Worthy of debate.
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Forget the political points angle, the election is over. Time to start thinking about other perspectives.
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Demo
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Well, if the guys that talked about The Terrorists actually made us safer, you might have a point. They haven’t. You don’t.
I just can’t let that pass –
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– no attacks on the US since 9/11
– numerous plots foiled, some major
– al qaeda massively disrupted and on the run
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Safer? Compared to an unknown alternative, granted, but I think yes.
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Demo
no attacks on the US since 9/11
Internationally, terrorism is up. Remember the Bush administration having to rescind a report that said the opposite. They have been targeting our allies more than us.
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numerous plots foiled, some major
And some totally goofy and hyped for cynical political reasons like the guys trying to get Al Qaeda uniforms. Or the Padilla prosecution.
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al qaeda massively disrupted and on the run
Like since 2001. A very long marathon.
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Meanwhile, the Taliban is resurgent in Afghanistan with Frist (yes, your Frist who is more of a spokesperson for you than the Globe columnist you believe is a spokesperson for the Left on your site) saying they might join a coalition government in Afghanistan.
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Meanwhile, too, the NIE points out that the Iraq adventure has caused massive recruiting. The foe is ideological. Doing stuff like letting the Israel-Palestine issues fester is dumb; undermining moderate Muslims dumber; bombing Iraqis dumbest. Your guys fighting their anti-terrorist video game have done all of that. The rest of the world has to live with the human consequences of bone-headed talking points.
but anyway the only remotely coherent point you have is that perhaps our adventures in the mid east have increased recruiting and thus worked against making us safer. Debatable to be sure but the alternatives to fighting your enemies are pretty ugly. (dare I call it suicide-liberalism?)
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Anyway when I say and you say “made us safer” we do in fact mean “since 9/11” and we do in fact mean here in the US, not abroad. Right? When we talk about al Qaeda being disrupted and on the run, we are talking about since 2001 right? Isn’t that the whole underpinning of the “made us safer” debate?
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If actual plots have been foiled and there have been no attacks here, then we have certainly been safer than we would have been if actual plots had not been foiled, and there had been attacks.
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Being the victim of an attack is imo by definition less safe than not being one.
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Simple stuff really.
It’s just a PR trick.
Unfortunately for you folks, this year the National GOP damaged the Republican brand so badly here in Massachusetts that your ticket never really had a chance.
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Yes, precisely.
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There was a time when I drew a distinction between the national GOP and the moderate, libertarian-leaning loacl GOP. I could vote, happily, for the latter. I never consider myself Republican because of the former.
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Mitt Romney, by running national GOP type candidates locally last election, and by morphing into a national GOP guy before our very eyes, erased the distinction; hence my first party-line Dem ballot ever.
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The local GOP must declare independence from the Congressional party and Karl Rove, and return to its roots.
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It was indeed a huge failing for Weld and Celucci to miss the opportunity to build a moderate, libertarian party when they had the chance.
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Question for gary, PP, etc.:
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Are you a fan of Romney? Support the white house bid? Why or why not?
Romney’s a supportable, legitimate candidate. Had he run for Governor it would have been a closer race, no question.
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He has a legitimate, unwavering, fiscal conservative philosophy and some excellent management skills in running large organizations.
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He’s got some charisma and an ego equal to that of all politicians for higher office. Take that as a plus or minus.
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Social issues: gay marriage, abortion. I have no strong feelings one way or another on either issue. Those issues won’t affect my choice.
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No foreign policy experience, but that’s not a deal breaker. Governors have done well in Presidential election despite a lack of foreign policy background I think.
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He has some regional appeal outside New England, and at the end of the day, if nominated, will probably garner some minor regional ‘favorite son’ support from New England.
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Am I a fan? I’m not a fan of any politician I can think of, but yeah, I’d support him, particularly over some of the current crop of aspiring Democrats.
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Sorry to post this in two different places, but Romney as presidential candidate is a complete non-starter. He didn’t accomplish much here, and he brought the state GOP to its current minor-party status.
Under Mitt Romney, the Massachusetts GOP declined to minor-party status. It lost state legislative seats in both houses in two successive elections, bringing it down to less than 1/8 of the Legislature. It holds no statewide offices and no seats in either house of Congress. (You know all of this.)
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This is not a good record for someone who wants to lead the Republicans nationally.
Republicans around the rest of the country– particularly in the so-called “red states”– H-A-T-E New England Republicans, far more intensely than the lefty Democrats hate Joe Lieberman. “RINO” is a term in use for longer than “DINO” and was used to disparage Bill Weld when his abassadorship was gleefully tanked by Jesse Helms.
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Any Republican capable of being elected in Massachusetts is, by definition, barely considered Republican elsewhere. The national party could not care less about whether local candidates were successful.
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Indeed, I think that the national GOP would like nothing more than for our legislature to be 100% Democrat, for our taxes to be tripled, and for our economy to crash, just so they have a bad example to wave around nationally.
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Romney may be vulnerable on Big Dig issues, but I don’t think the issues you cite cost him a single delegate at the GOP national convention.
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At this point, without Allen in the race, the evangelical vote is very close to coalescing on Romney– this despite his Mormonism, which is remarkable. The Goodridge decision has been a huge gift to him in this regard, because it gave him the ability to convince the kind of people who view SSM as a terrible thing that he is “right” on these kinds of issues. Who do you think he meets with on all of his trips all over the place?
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Unless another credible candidate emerges to McCain’s right, it looks to me like Romney will have the right wing sewn up. That would make him, like Bush in ’00, a juggernaut for the nomination. And the Republicans are far smarter than the Democrats in that, when the wing settles on a guy, it settles on a guy– there won’t be some fatuous candidate to split up the social conservative vote.
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I wish that you were right. I dislike Romney, because I think he misrepresented himself as a Guilinai/Weld type, but turned out to have more in common with Gary Bauer.
He’s “right”, but not effective. 100% of the legal SSMs in the US have been under his watch.
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But sadly, I think he made a lot of hay with his testimony before Congress, the use of the 1913 law, etc.
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besides, who says they want effective? They haven’t been effective, except around the margins, at banning abortion, and this gives them big energy in every single presidential election.
Statistics? Polls? Link?
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Just asking.
the ad in Penn with Bob Casey’s face next to a mushroom cloud and bin Laden? I skimmed Cathy Young’s column this morning in the Globe. I think she mentioned it to as a reason she pulled the D lever this year.
Charley invited me here long ago, when he noticed I kept heckling him. David I have met in person, and I enjoy his intelligence. Cos is interesting, and Bob is a mystery.
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That said – Editors – MANY comments I make are given zero rating for deletion. Sometimes I complain, sometimes I don’t. I ask that you reeducate your members – I have NO problem with a ‘3’ for worthless (well, yes I do, but you are entitled to your opinion) but I am annoyed at attempts to censor.
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This is an excellent political site, and Our Editors are sharp enough to know that preaching to the converted may be soothing, but it is also pabulum.
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Stomy – I would expect you to advocate for the same standards of trughiness for all. And please – opinion can BE mere opininion , if so labeled.
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Civility rocks!
Don’t forget – we R’s get the added bonus of being able to stare at a neon flashing “worst president ever” graphic while reading and posting!
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No big deal, its to be expected I guess.
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Demo
“Worst President Since James Buchanan” wouldn’t fit as well.
Firefox browser, with AdBlock Plus plugin?
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I haven’t seen an ad on a regularly visited site for many months…
I don’t think I’ve seen a single comment from Peter, for example, that is
“worthy of deletion”. Even the less intelligent Republican trolls rarely reach
this standard, and the ones that do have left quickly.
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Advertisements in Korean, on the other hand…
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Am I right that these 0’s are simply advisory to the editors, who decide on whether to delete a comment? I had a very witty response to a troll deleted the other day, in what I think was just collateral damage from the deletion of the troll’s moderately offensive original comment.
Peter,
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HubPolitics routinely ignores postings which they don’t like. I’ve “lost” five postings that way. None of them were inflammatory – they just didn’t fit the Margolis’ agenda.
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The deletion system here is far more democratic. Aren’t you the one who keeps talking about the people’s right to vote?
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David,
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Peter Porcupine is a Republican State Committee member who openly posts only Republican talking points. How exactly does that help the “level of discourse?”
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But I might have read a talking point or two on the left here as well. Hey, if it gets a good dialogue going then why not. If it’s a flame on the other hand …. it’s a concern.
Yes it’s unfortunate that both parties feel sockpuppetry is a valid form of discourse. I still don’t understand Ms. Porcupine’s value add. Nor am I comfortable with PP pretending that e.g. the gay marriage issue is all about the “right to vote” while posting stuff like this on her blog (courtesy Ryan’s Take):
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http://capecodporcup…
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I freely admit that I come from a time when gay meant cheerful. Sodomites, as we called them then, certainly existed and many were socially received – but they were expected to be discreet in their relationships, as were heterosexuals, also known as normal men. Only a cad would speak of carnal relations with his wedded wife, but only a beast would speak openly about bedding a person who was not.
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What you’re getting from PP on here is the shiny happy polished version of Republicanism. It stinks on ice.
Just to be clear, what’s hypocritical about that quoted text ?
The correct word is disingenuous.
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Peter is a Republican Committee member pretending to be a moderate commentator. Granted, you can find the truth with a little digging, but her posts here are never going to be more than the prettified version of the party line. It does little to advance the discussion.
…not just ones you think you can win an argument with.
Talking points are easily refutable. It’s just a waste of time.
I can’t speak to anyone else’s experience with Hub Politics, but I have submitted a number of posts and they all have been accepted. I have been directly critical of the “Margolis’ agenda” on more than one occasion and I have always been impressed with thier willingness to post criticism of their views.
I have all SORTS of comments on my blog right now, some of them from people here, calling me all SORTS of names.
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I have deleted none of them, nor would I, unless the dreaded ‘N’ comparison (has to do with Germany) arises, which I do not tolerate.
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And I must say, I am impressed with Ryan’s research project, wandering from forum to forum, trying to find where I said I would vote for the marriage amendment – no luck so far. I would ALSO hope that people would take the time to read an entire post instead of an excerpt.
“Peter”
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I just went over to your blog. There are three articles on the front page. In all 21 comments on these articles, I found one person who called you a name: homophobe.
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People do disagree with you, but the strongest other epitaph I saw was disingenuous.
what committees Peter Porcupine, or any other commenter, belongs to. Most of the time I disagree with PP’s bottom line, but I generally find the comments to be cogent, and I find that they contribute to the discourse around here.
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Any other questions?
Please. I have never given a zero rating. I would at times give a 6 to something that I thought was good or provided information that I didn’t know. But crying over what others rate some of your comments, are you kidding me? Good grief.
I hate it when you get 0s, most of the time. Sometimes you deserve them; most of the time you don’t even deserve a 3, no less a 0. I tend to give you a +1 in general, both because (1) you tend to get rated too harshly, and (2) I appreciate the Don Quixote in you.
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That being said, you do two things that really annoy me: (1) complain about your ratings in that thread. It seems really childish and silly. (2) you tend to both respond to a comment and rate that comment a 3. You certainly aren’t the only one to do this; I just happen to notice you. It’s bad form. Moderation ratings aren’t cat-calls. I encourage everybody to refrain from moderating a thread that you’re participating in, but to moderate other threads more often.
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P.S. I know it seems like I’ve been jumping you for proof lately. I don’t know why. I promise you I’m not looking for your sig and then reading your posts… its no vendetta by any stretch. I agree on the opinion, but you tend to write from a very authoritative angle, both because of your tone and your general knowledge. So, sometimes your opinions look like statements of fact, and that’s when I get twitchy.
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OK, enough love fest. Keep on keepin on, my friend.
…the only time I’ve complained on a thread was when a comment – not offensive, but perhaps controversial – was going to be deleted. The speculation about Nancy Pelosi is a good example. How was wondering if she could KEEP the job so offensive/obscene/graphic that it had to be banned for common decency? As I said – a ‘3’ is fine, but there has been a lttle too much of the nuclar option. I’ve had many comments deleted on that basis.
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And that is what I am asking. If I am just going to be censored – then why post? That was my question to the editors. I think most of the commenters here prefer a strong argument to a Kub-Bah-Ya circle.
ly poster. If I have, apologies are indeed in order.
Where to start? Do you want the ideas for actually how to get more cops on the street, how to lower property taxes and shift to less regressive means of taxation, or how to save millions of dollars of waste from the state budget? We’ve got lots of good suggestions but no forum in which to present them.
Without a few contrarian voices on BMG (or anywhere, for that matter) then you get was is likely to become an echo chamber. Conservative voices are good and needed here, and I wish there were more of them on Beacon Hill.
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Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t vote for anyone without a D next to their name last week, but you run the risk in situations where it is so one sided that you end up with Groupthink. I’m not quite sure how you could rebuild the Republican party in this state, but the more I think about it, the more I think that pablo’s suggestion that we move to nonpartisan elections may be a good idea.
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For the next 5 election cycles we don’t have party affiliations next to candidates for anything below Constitutional offices. Then, 10 years from now, we make everyone in the General Court pick a side. Hopefully by then we will have elected enough people who will identify themselves with the GOP that we might have some semblance of a two party state.
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For the 2002 midterms I was working in DC for CBS. There was a candidate in Alaska who won the Democratic nomination for US Senate, even though he considered himself to be a – I kid you not – political prisoner. His website consisted of three pages, with broken links galore, and a url of something like candidate.homepage.homestead.com. When I called the state party in Alaska to try and get some contact info for him they told me, somehwat sheepishly, that the guy didn’t even own a telephone.
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Thats the state of the Democratic Party in Alaska. I don’t want to see that happen to the GOP here.
The Republican House, in the last Congress, made every effort not to include Democrats. If a bill required Democratic votes to pass, it didn’t reach the floor.
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Let’s be clear, though. Big important issues, like stopping global warming and attaining universal health care may require marginalizing the Republicans completely. Frankly, I could enjoy the spice of their constrasting opinions more if there were less CO2 in the atmosphere.
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Maybe this is my theme: This stuff is not a game. If it were a game, we’d want fun playmates to challenge us. Think though of the stakes in a non-rhetorical, human, on the ground sort of way.
Thats a pretty poor argument, and I was talking more on the state level anyway.
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I agree, this is not a game. Thats why I think it is so important we have contrasting opinions. If we end up with only one party we might as well pick up and move to Cuba. The only debate in Havana is between the far left and the looney left – how well are they doing there?
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I am confident that if we take the best of our ideas and put them up against the best of their ideas, we will win 90% of the time. However, without a viable second party to butt up against, we will get lazy and weak. If we don’t need to defend ourselves we won’t put all the effort into fully developing ideas that they deserve.
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Put it another way, if the Sox only had to play the Falmouth High baseball team, then they wouldn’t have to practice very much and they wouldn’t fully develop their potential. Making them play the Yankees means they have to work a whole lot harder. If we want to be the best, we have to be able to play against and beat the best. Right now the state GOP is like the girls softball team – not much of a challenge there. If we want to be the best in baseball, we have to be able to beat those damn Yankees. If we want to be the best in the Statehouse, we need a strong GOP who can challenge us and force us to work to our full potential.
I totally agree with you! Anyone who makes that argument just isn’t thinking.
Too many of my posts have been deleted.
We need a better comment management system. You are right. No pun intended đŸ˜‰
I originally started reading HubPolitics looking for some kind of balanced, intelligent views from the other side of the fence. Unfortunately I never found much. No argument, no humor, no new ideas or decent debate, just cliched thinking and links to the Herald which I could find on my own. Since the election the site has degenerated further–nothing but pouting and fearmongering about “taxes are gonna go sky-high.” My last comment did not made it through the Margolis’ “malice-o-meter”–maybe because I pointed out that the approach that the site took during the run-up to the election–all negative sniping at Patrick, no positives, no genuine enthusiasm or arguments in favor of Healey–were exactly what cost her the election.
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Honestly–can someone find me a smart conservative site?And please–if I can manage to stomach the perpetual sidebar photo of Mary Jo Kopechne with the blinking caption “One of Our Senators Killed This Woman,” then I think the Republicans here can deal with “Worst President Ever.”
Here are some more national sites that lean conservative that I would recommend:
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powerline http://www.powerlineblog.com is often quite good
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captains quarters captainsquartersblog.com goes into some depth on issues that you might not even know about
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I find both of these sites to be intellectually honest, if not always 100% correct.
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Another excellent source for conservative writing is the weekly standard (get the magazine!) online at weeklystandard.com Like everything else, they aren’t always right but they are also intellectually honest, funny, great writers, and brimming over with ideas.
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For mass blogs, if you dont like hub (or mine, which I rarely write in and is basically an anticommunist cannon) I’d recommend the little known Kobayashi Maru, which is well written and interesting: http://kmaru.blogspo…
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You can find alot of other sites by following blogroll links; some will be partisan, others thoughtful, others both. Personally I’m cool with any site that is intellectually honest, on either side.
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captainsquarters is often interesting, but powerline is far from intellectually honest. They’re built on the assumption that being a liberal is a mental illness and conservatives can do no wrong. John Hinderaker in particular can make Ann Coulter seem non-partisan.
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Here’s my favorite Hinderaker quote:
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http://www.powerline…
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It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can’t get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.
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Powerline is entertaining, but you need to read something like World O’Crap afterwards to put it all in perspective.
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http://world-o-crap….
you conveniently omitted the very next 2 words:
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Hyperbolic? Well, maybe
The words you quote are actually the start of the NEXT paragraph. Here it is in full. Please note the next six words (in bold). He’s clearly saying, “no it’s not hyperbolic.”
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Hyperbolic? Well, maybe. But consider Bush’s latest master stroke: the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate. The pact includes the U.S., Japan, Australia, China, India and South Korea; these six countries account for most of the world’s carbon emissions. The treaty is, in essence, a technology transfer agreement. The U.S., Japan and Australia will share advanced pollution control technology, and the pact’s members will contribute to a fund that will help implement the technologies. The details are still sketchy and more countries may be admitted to the group later on. The pact’s stated goal is to cut production of “greenhouse gases” in half by the end of the century.
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I can provide other quotes if you like. This is just my favorite.
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Let me ask the obvious question: Do you agree with John’s statement? Or are you just all about the insults?
OK–I went and checked Hub again. There HAS been some improvement in the tone since last Tuesday–things are sounding a little more constructive. But really–I was not impressed with the pre-election stuff. I want facts, argument, debate, not more talk-radio head-cases calling people Demtards.
I sometimes dig the WS–haven’t read it in a while. I’ll check these out.
“The regressive wing of your party made a terrible mistake under George W. Bush: they tried to slam the door on the opposition; stifle debate; and divide the country.”
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This from the same guys who are cheering the MA legislature for turning their backs on the constitutionally mandated process at the ConCon? That’s rich.
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I’m pro gay marriage also, but what they did was slap in the face of the voters. Talk about slamming the door (literally), stifling opposition and dividing the (state).
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And if you think the country voted in favor of the politics and beliefs of Nancy and the Gang, you are sorely mistaken. In Mass, sure. Nationally, the country didn’t suddenly lurch left. Look at the ballot initiatives across the country. They voted against Republican corruption, arrogance and Iraq.
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Kevin
Pundit Review
“This from the same guys who are cheering the MA legislature for turning their backs on the constitutionally mandated process at the ConCon? That’s rich. “
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Take a look at some of the ConCon threads before making a blanket statement if you want to gauge responses. Very, very few people are cheering on the MA legislature. There is disagreement still about the obligations imposed by the mandate. The SJC has had to rule on these kinds of issue before, and I don’t quite think the situation is resolved.
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There have been a variety of responses to this issue. The Health Care Amendment progressives are certainly not cheering the lege. Many same-sex marriage supporters have problems with this as well.
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My view (which I’ve detailed in other posts) is that it isn’t the vote that is broken if the language of Article 48 opens the way to majority override of constitutional intent with parliamentary maneuver. I believe constitutional amendment by citizen initiative is of dubious value, and on both the HCA and same-sex marriage initiative the silver lining is that the initiative process will seem less attractive as a method of amendment.
Glad to see that BMG is open to ideas and discussion, and I hope you all are open to comments from the GRP (and others) as well.
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An irony about the election at state level is now that the Democrats have all the power, they also have the status-quo and are, in that sense, the conservative party in MA.
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Every party has a limit beyond which reform will not extend, and power seems to minimize that limit. More concretely, who will advocate for election reform when the status quo benefits the liberals, even though change (e.g. public financing, IRV, making redistricting nonpartisan) benefits democracy in general?