Joan V’s latest – a big loss for Kennedy column – is massively lame. Fact is, this race had nothing to do with Kennedy or Di Masi (who outside of political junkie-ville actually knows who he is?). It had to do with voters who pulled ballots for the candidate they wanted to be their next president. I’m glad they voted their own minds. Endorsements never make that big a difference. Only lame journos with nothing else to write about make them a big deal – they are good for headlines, but not much else.
Obama lost in Mass. because Clinton had history and working class women big time. They went with a woman they trusted and a competent campaigner in her own right. Obama did well to be competitive against a household name who has always been popular in the State. And believe me, if Obama had time to campaign in Mass, instead of one last minute rally, he would have done a lot better. Instead, he was busy winning 13 states across the land.
Venocchi’s simplistic analysis misses the boat.
is that endorsements are 90% for them. They don’t matter much to votes, but they grab headlines which Vennoch’s and her ilk churn into the kind of stories that justify their existence.
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p>Mark
I don’t think Joan Vennocchi’s writing is “moronic.” (You really do need to come up with a better adjective; it’s becoming one of your favorite words) I may not agree with her all the time, but I have found much of her writing to be substantive. She’s a former business columnist, and now writes on a myriad of topics, including politics and sports.
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p>One of her pieces, “Orphaned by the Church” which described the letdown that many progressive Catholics felt by the selection of Pope Benedict could be considered brave in a religion that isn’t terribly kind to dissenters.
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p>Universal Hub certainly didn’t consider her writing “moronic” in praising her here:
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p> http://www.universalhub.com/re…
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p>And she was also one of the ones willing to insist that Billy Bulger step down from his well-funded UMASS perch,due to his testimony to the feds regarding communication between him and his mob boss brother.
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p>So – you may disagree with her…and she may not hit a grand slam with all of her work, but I doubt that one can consider her writing “moronic.”
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p>Personally – I think the woman made a decent point. Let’s fact it, Obama had the rock stars of Massachusetts politics. Luckily for Hillary – she had the “work horses.”
I can’t remember reading her column and thinking that is something that didn’t occur to me or has not been said a million times before. Too predictable – as she was by saying that this was a loss for Kennedy instead of a win for Clinton.
I agree. Vennochi’s central premise was correct. The Clinton forces worked harder and got their vote out, resulting in a smashing victory. I agree that endorsements don’t mean very much at all, but I do think there’s a undercurrent in the electorate that attention must be paid to.
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p>People in this commonwealth have grown leery of a “politics of hope” that delivers much in terms of soaring rhetoric and little in terms of actual results. The first year of the Patrick administration was, at the very best, one of decidely mixed results. There is still no plan for property tax relief, we have a proposed budget that includes revenues for casinos that have yet to be approved let alone constructed, and a continued inability to work productively with the legislature.
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p>Support for Senators Kennedy and Kerry will continue to be strong in Massachusetts because they have a proven record of legislative accomplishment that has benefited the Commonwealth. The same does not hold true for Governor Patrick. If he does not significantly improve upon his performance in the second year of his administration, the road to reelection in 2010 will be a rocky one indeed. Hope alone will not get the job done.
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Mass was won because of the Clinton brand, demographics that played to her favour (lot of middle-aged, middle-class women here) and timing, i.e. the fact that Obama couldn’t spend a lot of time working the state. If he hadn’t been winning 14 of the 22 states on super Tuesday he would have done a lot better in Mass – but it was always a good state for an establishment candidate.
I was told by these peole that they probably would still have voted for Hillary Clinton, but they felt even better about their vote: they voted for a great candidate and they got to send a message to Kennedy and Kerry. A few people even told me thay would vote for someone else for Kerry’s senate seat if a good candidate were running against Kerry.
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p>I think Joan Vennochi’s column was spot on. More interestingly are her comments about the help both Clintons gave Ted Kennedy during his difficult race against Romney. A number of people have commented to me about the column and that piece of it. They think much less of Ted Kennedy as a result.
… with Deval’s Campaign (speaking of biting the hand that feeds you). Just a reminder that Deval gained the spotlight because of his appointment as the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights in the Clinton administration.
Let’s not pretend that the Clinton’s were the only ones doing something for him. Obama actually helped more dems in 2006 than anybody. He was everywhere.
Senator Jim McGovern.
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p>He’s a candidate I’d work hard for and be proud to support. McGovern has the right mix of progressive idealism and an appeal to traditional, working class, “lunch bucket” Democrats.
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p>Much of my personal affinity for McGovern comes from his longstanding advocacy on behalf of closing the former U.S. Army School of the Americas (now the Western Hemisphere Institute of Security Cooperation). His former boss, the late Joe Moakley, crusaded for years to close SOA/WHINSEC after convening hearings in 1989 to investigate the assassinations of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and their daughter at the hands of SOA trained graduates in El Salvador.
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p>I saw Jim down at the SOA/WHINSEC protest in November and was inspired by his stories of visiting Latin America on behalf of Congressman Moakley. He is a serious, substantive guy who has a deep rooted commitment to social and economic justice. He’d make a great senator for Massachusetts.
McGovern is a savvy progressive – able to deliver on the inside while still taking progressive stands on the outside. Though I wonder given his prominent post on the Rules Committee whether he would want to risk the race. He’s got a lot of juice now.
He has been there for them throughout – through impeachment, getting all the judicial nominees through the Senate. And the only reason Kennedy was in trouble in 1994 was because of the Clintons – we lost Cuomo, Ann Richards and many other great Democrats in the post health-care debacle bloodbath that was the 1994 election. I can’t imagine the Clintons actually helped that year as they were not popular anywhere at the time. Bill Weld romped to an overwhelming victory that year as well.
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