For links to more information about this, her political ties to indicted former Middlesex County Probate Registrar John Buonomo, and her recent civil penalty for violating state campaign finance laws, see Playing Without a Full Deck.
Please share widely!
Ordinarily, I’d say “congratulations” on your maiden post, but to use it like this is really not what BMG is about. This is very mean-spirited, and may violate the rules of the road.
<
p>And I can’t seem to find any of the supporting evidence for the claims you’ve made. The link only goes to a site with a nasty video, and nothing about the abuse of campaign finance laws or whatever nebulous ties the Councilor has to former Registrar John Buonomo.
<
p>So, whose campaign are you working for?
Oops, Justice4All–I’m sorry. I’ve reposted the supporting evidence, which indeed may not have been accessible before.
<
p>Please try the above link again. (If you still can’t access the corroborating information there, you may have to register with Google in order to do so.)
<
p>Anyway, Councilor Decker herself admits that Buonomo was a regular individual contributor to her campaign and that she accepted an improper $2400 in-kind donation from his political war chest. Check the Cambridge Chronicle and the Mass. OCPF sites for details. Hardly “nebulous” ties.
<
p>And no, I’m not working for anyone’s campaign–although Councilor Decker’s city-paid personal aide may be working for hers. Why else would she send him on an official peace mission to Russia on her behalf and pay for his entry visa with campaign funds?
<
p>(Perhaps because he’s related to her husband, I suppose. How very, very progressive of her.)
I was at Marjorie’s campaign kick-off last week. She took responsibility for failing to file the signatures and is hard at work to win in November. Having been elected by Cambridge voters for 5 terms, your lame post is exposed.
<
p>
<
p>Phony progressive how? Please explain how any candidate in Cambridge is elected 5 times as a phony!
Striker57–Please see my response to Justice4All above.
<
p>Besides “taking responsibility” for screwing up her own renomination, Councilor Decker has also accepted the blame for ignoring campaign finance laws.
<
p>Nearly all the Cambridge city councilors have been reelected repeatedly. That doesn’t make them “progressives.” And if you followed their careers closely or watched them grandstand for the cameras on Monday nights, you’d realize that with few exceptions they are all shameless phonies.
<
p>Pandering to union workers, peaceniks, and poor folk while she consorts with disgraced pols like Buonomo and Billy Walsh and uses her official position to attack the press, enrich herself, and promote the private interests of her financial benefactors and family over those of the public doesn’t catapult Councilor Decker to the top of my list of “progressive” public servants.
<
p>Would a real progressive continue to support a city manager who repeatedly usurps the elected councilors’ role as city policy makers, ignores their dictates, and refuses to “take responsibility” for reprehensibly retaliating against an employee who merely exercised her right to file a discrimination charge against him?
<
p>Would Councilor Decker’s progressive mentor Alice Wolf authorize Bob Healy to piss away millions of dollars in city funds pursuing hopeless legal appeals to salvage his undeserved personal reputation as an effective fiscal conservative and fair, competent administrator?
<
p>Would a truly progressive “fighter for working women and men” rabidly support the city-funded housing developers who waste tons of public money while pursuing their worthy mission and who rely on scab labor to build their people warehouses in congested working-class neighborhoods that are already maxed out with residential density?
<
p>I’m glad you enjoyed the kick-off party, but I hope the phony progressive’s pitch didn’t gull you into donating to a sticker campaign that is destined to flop.
<
p>
and delete this thing. I don’t even live in Cambridge, but I’m pretty sure that someone is going to be able to figure out which campaign this is coming from. You’re not helping your candidate one bit with this kind of stuff.
Marjorie Decker has every right to run a write-in campaign in the Cambridge municipal election, and the other candidates all understand that she has a chance of winning even though her name will not appear on this year’s ballot.
<
p>I don’t know who this cowardly “Dimedropper” is, but I doubt whether he is affiliated with the campaign of another candidate. Those sorts of thing are always found out, and it always hurts the candidate slinging the mud.
<
p>I strenuously object to the use of material from my own civic website being used in this way. Marjorie and I have had our differences and in the past and have kicked the crap out of each other at times, but that’s over and done with. I’ll vigorously defend her right to run a vigorous campaign this year.
RobertWinters–Did it ever occur that this here trash is simply bile spewing from a disheartened Decker campaign worker who’s tired of watching the wheel’s fly off our ostensibly progressive campaign bus because of the complacent driver’s arrogance and incompetence?
<
p>Yes, Councilor Motormouth has every right to launch a hopeless write-in campaign. I never said otherwise. So let’s us join hands, take a deep breath, and both vigorously endorse her right to tilt at windmills this fall and have the crap kicked out of her on Election Night.
<
p>But in the spirit of BMG progressivism, let’s not defend or tolerate her cronyism, nepotism, conflicts of interest, concealment of financial backers, and acknowledged abuse of election laws while she selfishly pursues a fool’s errand.
<
p>And despite the other candidates’ views of her chances as you characterize them, surely you, Professor Robert Winters–the failed former council candidate, Harvard statistics expert, and self-appointed dean of prop-rep elections and political punditry in Cambridge–surely you do not believe that Councilor D will post a W in November, do you? (“Have you read the Globe today?”)
<
p> —Dimedropper
<
p>P.S. Like your buddy Madge, I hereby “take responsibility” and even apologize for wading through the opinionated garbage on your very own personal public blog site and republishing your impressive scoop about her monumental screw-up without first obtaining your express permission and strenuous approval of the context. Imagine how exercised you would be if I hadn’t attributed the snippet. Even more of your hair might fall out!
<
p>P.P.S. They say that one man’s “cowardly Dimedropper” is another’s “brave Whistleblower.” Stay tuned, Professor, stay tuned . . . Playing Without a Full Deck
I don’t understand why it follows that wanting Marjorie Decker to lose because a person disagrees with her actions as a city councillor is the same thing as not wanting her to run a vigorous campaign. I don’t care what kind of campaign she runs, vigorous or not; I just want it to be unsuccessful. I want her to lose for the same reasons you do. She’s great for lip service, but her votes tell the real story, and it’s a pretty foul story for the people she claims to care about.
<
p>People can say all they want about her constant bloviating about progressive ideals, but, as you point out, her votes support the city manager and his favorite buddies, big developers. Take a look, for example, at the Alexandria upzoning, which was almost unanimously opposed by the East Cambridge neighborhood. The vote was 8-1 to adopt it, and Marjorie Decker wasn’t the lonely one voting for the neighborhood.
<
p>So, do you have anything more to say about her sweet, sweet condo deal? The records in the registry of deeds are very enlightening.