Maybe I should introduce myself to Ms. Buckingham. I’d never been very active in state and local politics before I got involved in the Patrick campaign. If you’d asked me a year ago to name my state senator and representative I’m not sure if I would have been able to get them both right. I got involved in the Patrick campaign because I sick of the way politics works in this country and when I went to a Patrick community forum back in April I heard someone that could both discuss the complexities of an issue in a way that would never fit into a 30 second political ad and who wasn’t afraid to tell you things he knew you might not like to here. I ended up serving as the volunteer coordinator for my town not because I was well connected but because all of the ‘convention delegates, town meeting goers, and coat holders for the selectmen’ were supporting Chris Gabrieli.
Since I ‘checked back in’, I’ve subscribed to the local paper, volunteered to serve on the town finance committee, and made plans to attend the Democratic caucus in February. I now have my legislators phone numbers and email addresses in my contact list and I pay attention to how they’re voting. And yes, I plan on attending the grassroots organization meeting this Saturday. If Ms. Buckingham finds that scary, I’m sorry.
I have a couple of questions for Ms. Buckingham. First, just who exactly is it that we are supposed to have silenced? Last I checked Deval was being very vocal about wanting to here from people on all sides of the issues. Has anyone been kicked out of one of the community meetings for showing up with a Healey/Hillman button?
Oh yeah, and while we’re talking about the community meetings, here’s another nuggest from the column:
In a conference call with reporters yesterday Walsh and Patrick transition committee co-chair Gloria Larson touted the “most inclusive process in modern times” in describing some 43 community meetings around the state designed not only to “welcome input, but solicit it.”
But they overstate their success when hyping the turnout of 100 people in Worcester or 200 in Boston as indicative that “people are hungry” to participate. It is surely not the Patrick team’s fault that most voters are too busy getting flu shots or getting a jump on their Christmas shopping to show up and give their 2 cents’ worth on the “creative economy.” But neither should they pretend that their efforts, thus far, have been some kind of breakthrough in civic engagement.
If Ms. Buckingham thinks her readers are too busy to attend the meetings, has she done anything to actually cover the meetings and let the public know what’s being discussed? For that matter, has anyone seen any coverage in the main stream media about anything more than that the meetings are taking place? I’ve been looking and I haven’t found any.
Or how about this one:
This doesn’t diminish that Patrick won the election by a huge margin. But polls showed that even most voters supporting him disagreed with his stances on taxes and illegal immigration, for example. Thus, neither the media nor an inundated legislator should mistake a cascade of calls, e-mails or postcards generated by Patrick maestro John Walsh as any more representative of public opinion than a badly constructed poll which oversamples one segment of voters.
Did Ms. Buckingham ever stop to consider that maybe Patrick was able to win in a landslide despite people’s attitudes about taxes and immigration because in fact these issues weren’t their top priorities and maybe its Ms. Buckingham that is out of touch with public opinion?
Finally, I’d like Ms. Buckingham to explain how what we are doing is any less legitimate than the 170,000 that signed the gay marriage petition. Does she really think that all 170,000 were equally passionate about the issue. Instead, I suspect that a core group of ‘activists’ went out and thrust the petitions under a lot of people’s noses and got them to sign. Does she think that the small subset of voters that bother to call the Howie Carr show truly represent public opinion in this state? Sure didn’t seem so this past election.
Cross posted at Jim’s Attic
You fit the bill perfectly jc. You are exactly what Virginia is describing.
A new recruit yes, but the Kool-Aide tastes just as good today as it did 10 years ago.
Your claim (or, rather, Virginia’s) boils down to:
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if you become more engaged in government, you’re now no longer representative of the grassroots.
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Hogwash. It’s a false choice: you’re either engaged or you’re “keeping it real.”
are the ones who don’t have time, or are too bored, or apathetic, to participate. The ones who participate are by definition non-representative.
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There’s some logic for you.
“are the ones who don’t have time, or are too bored, or apathetic, to participate. The ones who participate are by definition non-representative.
There’s some logic for you.”
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You are absolutely right Charley. But remember, a noble prize in economics was awarded for disproving the old sacred cow that people think rationally.
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The real activists (not those looking for jobs) GENERALLY, in my experience, tend to be from the futhers sides of the bell curve of politics.
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The numbers of Deval hippies will fall as Deval’s days in office grow, but the core true believers will not let the flame die.
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i think.
Your observation about activists generally coming from the fringes is true as far as it goes. That’s exactly the problem that Deval was trying to address when he spoke over and over again during the campaign about asking people to check back in to civic life. If the only people he was talking to were the folks on the extremes there was no need to make the appeal because, by your definition, they were already checked in. My personal views on the issues are way too complicated to fit into your stereotype of a ‘Deval hippie’ and I don’t think most of the people I worked with during the campaign would fall into that category either. For the most part, we were people who got excited about Deval because he was talking to us about solving problems that we and our neighbors were dealing with on a daily basis rather than some ginned up wedge issue that makes for great talk radio but lousy government.
It is amazing that those who take advantage of an opportunity to be part of something are often seen as closing others out. What was important to me about Deval was his desire and ability to listen to whomever approached him. I grow weary of this attempt to peg Deval supporters as fringe, loony liberal, whatever. We are most certainly not a homogenous group.
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There now seems to be this new media induced thing that there is something scarey and/or suspect about the development of such a powerful grassroots movement so quickly. Those of us who participate, vote, call our reps, go to the state house are taking advantage of an opportunity to do what is open for most people to do. If others don’t take advantage of these opportunities and feel disenfranchised, they have nothing to blame, but their own inaction and apathy. I for one enjoy the opportuity to participate in the political process in a meaningful way.
Especially since most eligible voters don’t vote in most elections, and even in the blockbuster elections only about 2/3 of eligible voters head to the polls. Finally, the population of citizens is larger than the population of eligible voters.
And to think I was actually considering wasting my evening driving out to Milbury to the civic engagement WG. Now I can go back to my couch and leave the government alone for the next four years. Anybody know when the next season of American Idol starts?
i can phone in my comments to this post on a hand-free cell phone? at the moment i’m rather busy holding my city councillor’s coat.
I didn’t know selectmen had coat holders! I usually see them surrounded by people with questions and “helpful” suggestions on the floor of Town Meeting.
just so we know when such phone calls are most urgent and can have the most effect. Nothng wrong with that.
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When people we agree with organize and act in harmony, we regard this as Patriots Fighting for Liberty. When those misguided souls with whom we disagree band together and act with robotic synchronization, it can only be because they are thoughtless automata requiring the external control of their handlers.
Ration the empathy.
but the “170,000 voters who want a vote on gay marriage” aren’t grassroots either. They’re more like crabgrass. More like invasive non-natives.
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It’s a particularly disheartening tone from someone with “a lesbian sister who is ‘in a long-term committed relationship.’ “
…even if they did hurt your sister’s feelings.
with critiques such as yours. very valuable service. maybe you could think of eb III’s comments as stimulating creativte writing–some very funny comments followed!
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Gee, I guess I shouldn’t bother going to the health care WG mtg at Dimmock at 4p today or civic engagement tomorrow at RCC. I’m out x2 since I’m a nurse and my car still has that bumper sticker on it, so I probably don’t count as one of the grassroots either. No matter that I’m a taxpayer who’s pissed about the HUGE WASTE of tax dollars spent in our bloated bureacracy health system, a Mom of 2 small kids (who I don’t want to grow up thinking “I’d better choose a career that gets me affordable health insurance”), a nursing instructor in community health, and a member of the state community who sincerely cares about the health of my own family as well as the health of others in the state…
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So, jc, let me know what time American Idol is on, will ya?
Buckingham is clearly still sour grapes, her “silent majority” argument fails since a clear majority of the people loudly voiced their voice for Deval Patrick and the fact that they havent checked out should be praised not condemned. Of course since voters are following their conscience and not the pundit class people like Buckingham might lose their jobs so i understand her frustration but dismiss her “wisdom”.
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As for her use of the 170k signatures on the gay marriage petition,
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a)170k is not as big as Devals margin of victory or the number of people currently involved with civic engagement
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and
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b)many people, sadly my dad included, signed that petition under false pretenses. A young paid signature collector approached him and asked “excuse me sir would you like to sign a petition supporting gay marriage on the ballot?”, and my dad being a supporter of gay marriage signed it, later realizing that it was cleverly phrased and he just signed an anti gay marriage petition. There are hundreds of paid deviants collecting signatures across the malls and squares of Massachusetts asking misleading requests like that so dont put much credence into those numbers either.
And you would do the same if it was your issue. That’s politics.
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In support of Buckingham, her article had some merit. Let me just say….you can take the civic engagement out of politics but you can never take the politics out of civic engagement. It will be the successful Patrick supporter who realizes that.
…has a lot of merit. At the very least, she is so partisan that she has very little credibility.
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She was a spokesperson for Governor Weld, and an employee of Governors Weld and Cellucci, and, for reasons that still mystify me, she was appointed to lead Massport at a critical time.
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Since her ouster from Massport, she has used her bully pulpit at the Herald to sing the same old partisan, Republican song. I don’t take much of anything that she has to say very seriously. She just toes the Republican party line.
Thats why she was picked to lead MassPort, even though she had no credentials. She was a hack who did a good job as a mouthpiece for her bosses and was in need of a new job. Pure political patronage.
FYI. The following article appeared in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette on Saturday, December 2, front page with photo and continuation on inside. I live in Worcester, was a Patrick and Murray pre-primary activist, and am very plugged into environmental channels. No one I know heard about this hearing until late Wednesday afternoon. The hearing was at 8 AM on a week day. And as you can see the turnout was impressive.
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Saturday, December 2, 2006
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Input flows to Murray
Hundreds offer ideas for new leadership
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By John J. Monahan TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
jmonahan@telegram.com
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WORCESTER- Gov.-elect Deval L. Patrick and Lt. Gov.-elect Timothy P. Murray began harvesting fruit from their grass-roots network yesterday, in the form of hundreds of ideas and proposals offered for their administration as they plan new policy initiatives.
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More than 100 people with proposals about energy, environment, transportation and housing were at the DCU center at 8 a.m. yesterday, as a series of community forums being held across the state over the next week got under way. Another 200 came for the afternoon session.
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Mr. Murray welcomed those who turned out for the morning session and, along with members of four working groups on those issues, listened to brief summaries of the ideas offered. He reiterated a campaign promise Mr. Patrick made to expand on smart-growth approaches that combine transportation, housing and economic revitalization, and commended Gov. Mitt Romney for initiating smart-growth planning in the state four years ago.
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Mr. Murray said visitors could see evidence of smart-growth development right outside the windows of the convention center, where strategic public investment is leveraging private investment that will help solve housing, transportation and environmental issues.
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Brownfield cleanups, establishment of commuter rail and the reopening of Union Station have drawn new private investment to revitalize Worcester’s downtown, he said. The $563 million CitySquare project, which will combine commercial, retail and residential development adjacent to the train station, will replace a stagnant downtown mall, and has triggered nearby development, including condominiums to increase affordable housing.
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Mr. Murray told people who came yesterday to talk about restoring conservation and environmental programs, expanding mass transit and developing alternative energy that their ideas will fuel the administration’s policies.
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“This is an administration dedicated to the grass roots,” he said. The forums, led by members of 15 groups assisting with vision in the administration’s transition, will take in proposals and ideas from across the state, he noted.
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Margo Barnet, speaking for the Worcester-based Regional Environmental Council, said the administration could boost efforts to curtail exposure to and use of toxic chemicals in the state. She said programs from health and environmental groups to promote safe alternatives would be advanced if the administration were to set rules to increase state purchases of safer alternatives and provide better funding for the Toxic Use Reduction Institute’s efforts to promote the use of less-toxic chemicals by industry.
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Peggy Middaugh, executive director of the council, was one of several speakers who said the new administration should immediately rejoin the Northeast states’ Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which has agreed to carbon emission reduction plans. Mr. Romney pulled out of the initiative last year. Ms. Middaugh was also among several who recommended permit fees on fossil fuel power plants to generate funding for alternative energy projects.
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Philip Saunders Jr. was one of several land conservation activists who called for the state to do more to stop the conversion of parkland and protected conservation land to other uses. He also suggested an energy tax or carbon tax to reduce use of fuels causing global warming. He said any new taxes should be offset by equal reductions of other taxes on consumers, such as the sales tax.
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Kenneth Langley of Waters Corp. of Milford recommended the administration address the inability of the state environmental labs to keep pace with growing demand for water quality monitoring and other environmental testing needs.
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Nancy Wilson of the White Oak Land Conservation group of Holden recommended the state start a new “crusade” to save open space, noting the state had “slacked off that in recent years.”
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Peter Wingate, energy director for the Worcester Community Action Council, told Mr. Murray that 175,000 households in the state depend on federal and state fuel assistance to weather the dramatic increases in home heating costs. The need for heating assistance is growing, while the federal government has cut aid programs by 40 percent. Although the state put up $20 million to help fill the gap last year, he recommended that the administration increase its assistance to $30 million next year, and do more to fund energy efficiency programs.
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Kristina Egan, director of the Massachusetts Smart Growth Alliance, said the state needs to revamp zoning laws to eliminate barriers to affordable housing; produce a package of reforms to fund transportation projects, especially in light of the financial problems facing the MBTA; and raise the state’s bond cap to enable borrowing to pay for new water transit and housing projects. She said progress on smart-growth initiatives in the state have been “very modest” under the Romney administration.
Instead of adding as a comment.