I’ve never been a fan of voting based on demographic identifiers, meaning I won’t vote for somebody just because they are the so-called “minority candidate”, the “woman candidate”, the “gay candidate”, etc. What’s more important, especially in today’s political climate, is to vote for the candidate with the record and the positions which best matches your values and you feel is best qualified for the job. Being from X demographic group is not a qualification on its own. What do these candidates stand for and what have they accomplished?
In the 5th district race, the Boston media have already annointed Niki Tsongas as the frontrunner by virtue of her being the late Sen. Paul Tsongas’s widow and for being a woman. Some bloggers have already dubbed her a progressive though she lacks much of a public record in supporting progressive causes. Niki Tsongas has said “all the right things” in terms of liberal red meat, but her membership on the board of directors of the right-wing Concord Coalition (which her late husband co-founded) is more telling of her actual political philosophy than her recent public statements or (as some have posited) her gender.
I don’t know much about Eileen Donoghue since the press and her campaign haven’t done much to go over her positions or her record. She may very well be a great progressive, but that credential has yet to be vetted publicly.
The point here is that if this blog is primarily the home of the Bay State’s progressive bloggers and the goal of those who post here is to elect the best progressive possible, then bloggers owe it to their political integrity to fully and carefully review each candidate, regardless of demographics, to determine who is the candidate who best represents their values and who has the best record in doing so. Voting solely based on the gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or religion of candidate could actually result in electing a candidate whose positions are antithetical to your own.
Concord Coalition right-wing? Please. How much more bi-partisan/non-partisan can you get? Even split of centrist Ds and centrist Rs.
Perhaps it’s a matter of perspective, but the CC advocates for Social Security private accounts, blames the current Social Security system for undermining savings for retirement (though not acknowledge that many people simply can’t afford to save even if they wanted to due to high cost of living and high debt), and wants to eliminate Medicare as we know it (through medical savings accounts, a Bush favorite, and changing eligibility requirements).
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They’re market-oriented in their policy-making, which means they refuse to even consider options which might involve the slightest bit of government action (like universal single-payer health care [i.e. Medicare For All] that could feasibly drive down health care costs for most Americans) even if such options were far more cost-effective.
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Don’t get me wrong, I’m fairly moderate politically, but I call things like I see them. Whatever you want to call it, the Concord Coalition certainly isn’t progressive.