The last two House vacancies that I recall in MA each had primaries with multiple progressive candidates and the candidate who won was decidedly not. Admittedly I haven’t watched what Niki Tsongas has done since that election happened after I left. But I vividly remember when Stephen Lynch was elected. There were three really good progressive candidates and Lynch who was openly anti-choice/no choice. He wound up winning only because the progressives split their votes between the other three.
PLEASE, I beg of you, don’t do that again. Do whatever you have to do to keep Lynch from rising above the others by way of the no-choice voters. A Lynch candidacy will foul the honored seat that Ted Kennedy occupied so wonderfully and valiantly for so long.
That’s about all I have to say. My guess is that you all get it, you just need a strategy. If I were there, I’d be in the trenches working alongside you. Me, I have to work to get Joe Sestak into Snarlin’ Arlen’s seat so I’ll be pretty busy down here in PA.
Good luck.
The man only passed late yesterday…less than 24 hours ago. Can we not grieve his passing for a few days before when get into this?
But in a lot of ways his actual death increased the urgency of this discussion.
In what manner is Lynch not progressive? There are many MA voters who would like to have an advocate of the Catholic Social Justice tradition, which is also a pro-life tradition, in the Senate just as Ted Kennedy once was. For us the unborn are another segment of society that is disenfranchised and defenseless much like African Americans, immigrants, homosexuals, elderly, disabled, mentally ill, and sick people were in this country before Ted Kennedy showed up. His legacy dare I say the liberal/progressive legacy is to stick up for ‘the little guy’ whomever he/she may be. Now you have every right to disagree with me on the abortion question, and many of the points on the pro-abortion side do have some merit, its a sticky and complicated issue and that has many dimensions that should not be reduced to sound bites. But to say that I am not a liberal and I am not a progressive because I happen to disagree with you on abortion is an insult. John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy were both solidly pro-life, as was Eunice Shriver and her husband Sargent. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. still is. Many Kennedy’s still uphold the seamless garment tradition of Catholic social justice. Ted Kennedy, while he eventually veered towards a pro-abortion stance, never wavered in his personal distaste for abortion and his support for constructive alternatives and I respect him for that. All are proud liberals. All are great progressives.
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p>Rep. Lynch is for universal health care, voted for the stimulus, has the best record on supporting organized labor in the MA delegation. You may not want him to go to the Senate for a variety of reasons, including the abortion question, and from my own understanding he was a big Iraq War hawk which makes me question his judgment on national security. I remain undecided in the race. But I am incredibly offended as a pro-life liberal that his and by association my ‘credentials’ as a ‘real’ Democrat and liberal are suspect because of that position. I am excited by all three of the prospective candidates, I urge all of them to commit to the race, to stay positive when they campaign, and I feel that any one of them would embody the spirit of our late Senator though I acknowledge none of them could ever fill his shoes. All three are progressive leaders as far as I am concerned and would make are state proud. I for one welcome the opportunity to choose between the greater of the three goods, as opposed to choosing the between lesser of three evils like we will be doing in the governors race.
I said nothing about Lynch. I was only defending the concept of discussing a replacement.
It was in regards to the comments author. I often click reply when I mean to click ‘post a comment’ my apologies.