I have voted for a Democratic candidate in every statewide election since 1974, with the exceptions of 1978 and 1990, when I wrote in “Mickey Mouse” as my gubernatorial choice in preference to Ed King (in 1978) and John Silber (in 1990). I cannot, in good conscience, participate in the perpetuation of the current state government.
I have three priorities, in this order:
1. Transportation infrastructure, especially rail transportation.
2. Health care
3. Education
I am convinced that these priorities demand major capital investments and therefore require significant new tax revenue, as well as fundamental changes in the organization and financing of the commonwealth. I am equally convinced that neither the Governor nor the legislature has the courage and political will to accomplish these radical changes.
The catalyst for this post is Scott Lehigh’s column in this morning’s Globe.
In particular, I am struck by this sentence:
In part it’s because the governor clearly lacks the appetite for the bold, tough reforms bad fiscal times demand.
Bingo. I am sure that Governor Patrick is sincere, affable, honest, and well-intentioned. Nevertheless, I think that Mr. Lehigh has accurately articulated my bottom line.
Furthermore, I think that Governor Patrick’s campaign was marvelously well-done, and perhaps even served as a prototype for President Obama’s subsequent campaign. The striking difference, to me, is in President Obama’s performance as President in comparison to Governor Patrick’s performance as Governor. If a party were to somehow couple the professionalism, vision, and execution of the Governor’s campaign with a candidate who measures up to the correspondingly high expectations raised by the campaign’s success, I am confident that we would make great and positive gains. I cite President Obama and his campaign as an example.
In the high-tech world where I have spent my career, a certain company headquartered in a Seattle suburb has a long and very successful tradition of offering products that “give great demo”, and utterly fail to actual accomplish the task they are intended to solve. They solve the 70% needed to block out effective competition, while failing to deliver the remaining 10% needed to actually work. Those who have attempted to run a moderately-complex project using Microsoft Project know the phenomena.
I see a certain similarity between the current Massachusetts Democratic Party and that company. I am struck by the disconnect between the behavior of the party (I refer specifically to the recently-concluded convention) and the day-to-day reality I confront as a Brookline resident and voter.
In my view, it is time for a change. This community knows the issues well. It is well-grounded in reality, and includes a marvelously well-informed variety of viewpoints across the political spectrum.
I am therefore, respectfully, asking this community for its recommendations.
You care about health care. And you want to replace this governor and AG.
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p>You care about rail, and you want to replace this governor and LG.
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p>Huh.
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p>Lehigh’s quote is bunk, 100% wrong.
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p>Lighten up.
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p>Telling Brookline Tom to lighten up is the wrong message I think. We gotta take this kind of public unhappiness seriously. Check out the comments on the Lehigh article, not enough positive rebuttals.
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p>Anyway, I’ve already posted my worries about going back to the progressive communities heavy hearted decision in 1978, but I’m older than Scott. We brave few progressive Democratics–Déjà vu all over again?
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… but I wonder why “Brookline Tom” thinks that the solution to the problems is the ouster of people who, in fact, share his priorities. If he thinks revenue is the problem, he should discuss that, rather than making a post that is an obvious case of question-begging.
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p>Regarding revenue, BTW … this is another example of why the bad economy makes it a difficult time to be governor. I simply cannot blame this governor for a collapse in revenues. I would love to have universal all day pre-K, longer school days, and a better solution to MBTA debt. The gov has proposed all these things. Hard to pass without the $.
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p>And I read the Boston.com comments occasionally, and find very little useful in them. Not a place for thoughtful debate, unfortunately.
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p>You got that right! Can’t do reform without revenues, and so far neither the Governor, not the Legislative Leadership have proposed or produced a balanced and adequate revenue package that would yield enough $$ to fund transportation reform, pension reform or ethics reform, never mind restoring the 9C cuts or addressing the structural deficit.
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p>The reported agenda for the fall is a debate on casinos and slots to forestall 9C cuts in the FT 10 budget. Maybe we will even see some serious discussion about restoring the more progressive income tax rate back to the 2000 levels. (5.95 %)
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p>And then wait till the federal stimulus money runs out in time for the FY 2011 debate.
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p>Which triggers the memory of the last line in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid as they saw the ragged band of outlaws climbing up their hill instead of the Militia.
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p>”Good, I thought we were in trouble there for a while.”
Before the current administation, the Democratic candidates were all stuck in a dialogue about how much we could lower the income tax rate. No one was talking about long term structural issues in the transportation funding, making serious investments in infrastucture, moving us to a 21st century education system – for chrissakes the state was so head-in-the-sand that we weren’t even participating in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Governor Patrick has moved the conversation and raised expectations. Perhaps he’s done so at his peril, because problems decades in the making are not easily resolved. But it’s clear the Governor gets what the real challenges are, and is putting his energies towards working on them with the legislature. We have seen and continue to see movement on key legislation. I think anyone even vaguely progressive who would contemplate backing a third-party no-hoper against Governor Patrick is daft. You really think a Grace Ross (as admirably as I think she performed in the last campaign) is going to win next time? If so, maybe Bob could move this thread to the weekly joke review.
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p>Politics isn’t about finding some fantastical perfectly pure savior who will magically be able to resolve the tensions and competing interests in our society. Politics is about choosing the best of real alternatives and doing what’s in your power to keep improving those alternatives. Weakening a progressive Democratic governor by supporting a primary challenger or a third-party candidate likely gets you a Republican administration. Been there, done that, results sucked.
I have half a mind to hijack BrooklineToms BMG account, just so you can get another 6!!!
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p>Amen
Me and my insomnia thank you.
The MA health insurance law is a scam of grand proportions. Yes, more are “covered”, but at what cost to us, the state taxpayers ($890Mil this year) and at what cost to others held hostage by the private insurance industry? And with what actual access to affordable health care?
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p>Gimme a friggin’ break with your accolades for our AG! So, she was picked for an “award” by the group “Health Care For All”. This group gets much of its funding from the private insurance industry in the state (just check with the filings in the AG’s office…). The AG is tapped for an “award” so that lots of well-heeled attendees will pay big bucks to come and witness the “award” bestowed upon her.
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p>Like I said, GMAFB. NPR’s health care reporter Martha Bebinger told me a while back that she, too, wonders why there is no update from the Massachusetts AG’s office on the publicly-announced “AG’s investigation” into the $19Mil golden parachute payout by the “non-profit” health insurer MA Blue Cross and Blue Shield to its past CEO Bill VanFaasen. Nor is there any update on the AG’s assessment into the appropriateness of the >$3Mil annual salary of the current CEO of “non-profit” Blue Cross and Blue Shield. Disgusting.
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p>Thanks for your post, Tom. My heart is very heavy, too. As a nurse I bear witness to the incredible amount of preventable suffering and financial waste that is caused by our state–and our nation–continuing to treat healthcare as a market commodity rather than treating it as a public good and a human right.
This reminds me tons of the discussions I had with O’Reilly when he was running against Kerry. O’Reilly insisted that he had Leadership; Kerry didn’t. He would win votes by the force of his Leadership. It was all very magical and abstract. Beyond delivering orations of the sort that did sway the Senate in the days of Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John Calhoun, I had no idea what he was proposing in the post-Van Buren era.
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p>Neither, I think, did he.
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p>We have something similar here.
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p>Obviously we have a problem with getting real reform and real change through. Maybe some new leader could do it better. Maybe not. The problem though is not in finding the leader; it’s in defining the “it” that needs better doing.
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p>Get us the job description first and while you’re at it tell us why it is the correct job description.
It’s the execution that is lacking.
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p>That’s what I mean by “leadership”. I think his campaign articulated the vision, and his various proposals (especially his proposed transportation reform proposal) were a great start.
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p>I don’t see the necessary followup — the day-to-day focus and execution of the tactics needed to accomplish his agenda.
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p>How does he accomplish this feat? I don’t know — if I did, I would be running for office myself. President Obama demonstrates it, after less than six months in office. Governor Patrick does not, after two and half years. Staff is important, but even the best staffers take the cues from the boss (see Rahm Emmanuel).
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p>Rather than continue to diss Governor Patrick, I would rather we focus on who the alternatives might be. In particular, are their third-party candidates? Are their loyal Democrats waiting for a better time? I certainly understand the opinion from the various threads attacking Mr. Lehigh’s column that the current challengers each have their problems. So where else shall I turn?
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p>My bottom line is that I’ve tried supporting Governor Patrick, and it hasn’t worked. What shall I do now?
You write, “How does he accomplish this feat? I don’t know.”
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p>Isn’t that the main point though? If you replace Governor Patrick with Politician X, what possible assurance can you have that Politician X won’t accomplish even less?
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p>Politically, Obama has an immensely easier time. He can be un-Bush. He can be a Democrat, not a Republican. His big tests lie ahead of him anyway. Healthcare reform is going to be painful. Any further action on the economy is going to run into the Blue Dog No Clue Fog. Not to mention Obama’s awful Treasury Secretary and Director of the National Economic Council.
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p>In Massachusetts, the lines are much less clearly drawn. Good guys fade into bad guys. The Bush Administration provided an excellent teaching moment on what doesn’t work nationally. The Romney Administration’s failures, though real, were less obvious and less instructive.
I duck the question because I’m not a professional politician. I don’t have the information, I don’t know the relationships, I surely don’t know the nuances and personal histories (not to mention the multiple agendas of neighborhoods and interest groups).
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p>As a professional software developer, I am expected to propose a solution that works. When I get an engagement, I am expected to deliver that solution. When the inevitable bumps and changes come up, I am expected to handle them and incorporate them into my deliverable. That’s what I get paid to do, and I am measured by how successfully I accomplish it. When I’m more than two years into an engagement, have demonstrated no progress against the stated goals, and my employer learns that I’ve instead been working on projects that aren’t on anybody’s priority list, I get fired.
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p>The current engagement team has had more than two years to work on this. I see zero progress. In the area that I have clearly identified as my highest priority, not only do I not see progress, I see a system in rapid decline. If the proposed reductions take place on July 1st, public transportation will be on life-support. I see no evidence that anyone is taking this seriously. Trolleys are running into each other, for crying out loud. The Boston Red Sox have a seven-game home stand beginning on July 24th. What do we think Kenmore Square and the neighborhoods that surround it will be like if these cuts are enacted?
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p>I think it’s time to consider replacing the engagement team. In particular, I want to at least look at other candidates for the engagement manager. Knowing what I want is my job. Knowing how to accomplish that is the job of the engagement team. I expect the candidates to tell me how they propose to solve the problem(s), not vice-versa.
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p>The starting point is to acknowledge that the current approach is failing, and tackle the question of what we should do about that.
As always, we have to see what is actually enacted.
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p>The news of the past day or so has been very positive.
You know, the forward funding thing has been acknowledged here, and kicked around for quite a while. The governor proposed a gas tax increase to replace forward funding. Maybe that’s not enough. Maybe it is enough, but he can’t get it done by himself.
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p>But look, it’s just not enough to complain about the problem. If you do some homework and investigating about solutions, you will find other people working on them — perhaps even people in the executive branch.
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p>Here, Tom — why not call up Jim Aloisi’s office yourself, as an interested citizen, and try to have a conversation?
http://www.eot.state.ma.us//de…
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p>How about getting in touch with Steve Baddour, Chair of the Joint Committee on Transportation? How about Joe Wagner?
http://www.mass.gov/legis/comm…
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p>I mean, come on, you’re just flailing about here.
Commuting daily makes you feel like the system is breaking down. My commuter train is understaffed, and late nearly every day in both directions.
And actually, someone taking the Green Line from Brookline to downtown might be getting hit the worst.
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p>The question is whether we are strengthening the hands of the people who are actually trying to do the right thing; or are we flailing about, as I say, looking for a target. I’d like to think that most of the time, we try to do a little better on this site.
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p>If Tom were somehow successful in taking down the current leadership team, it’s entirely possible, if not probable, that they’d get replaced by people less sympathetic to his concerns, not more.
In a gubernatorial candidate, we need someone
Two and a half out of three is not great but it’s not bad.
So now when I ask a good-faith question about for whom I should cast my vote, I’m trying to take down the “current leadership team”?
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p>And you dare to call yourself a “progressive”?
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p>The last time I checked, this is called a “democracy”. You know, where voters try and inform themselves and then pick the candidate they deem best.
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p>Let me pass something along, Charley — with “friends” who make comments like this one, they don’t need me to take them down.
In my experience, a good leader looks over their shoulder from time to time, to see if anyone (at all) is following…
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p>(Tom – you don’t want my opinion of Sen. S-C).
if you mean Cynthia Creem.
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p>I don’t know anything about her. In particular, I don’t know where she stands on reform, transparency, and my three priorities. I’d like to know her feelings about removing the Big Dig debt from the MBTA, for example, and I’d like to know where she stands on undoing the “forward funding” fiasco that has so badly damaged the MBTA’s balance sheets.
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p>I ask about her because the seat she holds is the only one I get to vote on.
And ask her where she stands on your priorities?
Lately, I’m more and more convinced that every officeholder should be (nonword alert) “primaried.” It’s not that they all deserve to lose, most don’t, but they all deserve to be challenged, and public debate helps democracy.
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p>As much as I hated it when the GOP said the 2004 election was the Bush “accountability moment,” unfortunately that seems to be the one lever we have. Even in moments of anti-incumbent sentiment, incumbents have huge advantages.
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p>So, sure, challenge them all.
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p>I think you are confusing outcomes with… what? I don’t know. I do know that you are the only person I’ve yet met who both calls himself a progressive and denies that label to Deval Patrick, Tim Murray and Martha Coakley. That you do this on the strength of a laughably discordant essay by Scott Lehigh further calls into question your progressive cred…
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p>The only individual, of whom I’m aware, on your list who is neither competent nor honest is Cahill.
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p>The problem, as been hashed over again and again here, is that the legislature in this state is a rank and steaming pile of empty-headed, nest-feathering obstructionist morons who continually (like for 18 years and counting…) vote for leadership that devoutly mirrors their deepest desires (bottomless self-interest).
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I most emphatically do NOT deny the progressive label to any of the current incumbents.
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p>I am disappointed by the performance of the leadership team I helped to elect and for which I voted the last election. I share your views about the legislature, and included the two legislative seats for which I can cast my vote in my list.
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p>It sounds to me as though you are saying that for me to even ask whether there are other progressives who might be more effective than the current leadership team is to “call into question [my] progressive cred…”
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p>Is that truly what you mean?
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p>Is that the best way to assure that we have effective progressive leadership in this State?
Since you
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…you might have to be satisfied with that chirping-cricket sound you hear as the definitive answer to your question.
I agree that I do seem to be getting an answer.
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p>Each and every item? Apparently you feel there are higher priorities than transportation infrastructure, education, and healthcare. Would you mind enumerating one or two?
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p>I wonder how you contrast and compare your snarky response to my question with the comment you offered last January in your own Lament of the Undecided Democrat (emphasis mine):
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p>Am I being fair to characterize your comment as “seething, condescending wrath”? Or perhaps you view state elections through a different lens than a presidential campaign?
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p>A “bizarre analogy”? It sounds to me like you don’t like the idea of people you supported and voted for being measured against expectations they create during a campaign.
As what our elected officials do. How are you organizing support for your issues?
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p>My situation perhaps is different – I’ve already got some of the things on my checklist from this Governor – marriage equality, participation in the RGGI, attention to long term economic development. But I didn’t and don’t sit back and expect my issues to be addressed or it’s quits – I get out and work them.
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p>You did. The apposite statement:
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p> “I have decided to seek competent, honest, and progressive candidates to replace the following current office holders in the upcoming 2010 statewide elections:“
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p>Places the adjectives ‘competent’, ‘honest’, and ‘progressive’ in a contrasting position to ‘current office holders’ by the use of the word ‘replace’. If you’re going to modify some nouns and not others, you point your reader in different directions.
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p>You may not have meant to say that. But you did say that.
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p>Apparently, what you meant to say was:
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p>I have decided to seek competent, honest, progressive and effective candidates to replace the following current office holders, whom I find to be honest, competent and progressive, but ineffective, in the upcoming 2010 statewide elections:“
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p>But you didn’t say that.