I have been paying close attention to the Senate race because I think its one of the most important races in Massachusetts in decades. We will be electing someone to the seat of the liberal lion of the Senate. I see the importance of this race extending far beyond the borders of Massachusetts. The next Senator of Massachusetts needs to be a leader of progressive values for the entire country and I honestly believe we have a responsibility to the rest of the country to make the right choice. Though I have been critical of Coakley I have not ruled her out.
Coakely, Khazei, and Capuano have all proven to be pretty reliable liberals. But I get the distinct feeling that Pagliuca just woke up one day and realized that he might actually be able to win the election, if he just spent enough money.
He has bombarded the air waves and plastered the blogs with ads for weeks now. He even has bought up website names for possible future races. Everywhere you look, he has expensive, well polished ads that portray him in the best light. Every time I see the ads, I ask myself the same questions: If Pagliuca weren’t a multi multi-millionaire, would he still have run for office? Would he ever have been taken seriously as a democratic candidate?
Pagliuca’s biggest theme has been jobs. It’s a shrewd move for a businessman to focus on the topic with which he has the most experience, especially in a down economy. But as has been said here before:
“I remain unconvinced, however, by the persistent idea that business experience alone, however brilliant, qualifies anyone to represent Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate.”
Personally, I think his work ethic should DISQUALIFY him as a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts. His business has occasionally bankrupted companies and has left hundreds of people unemployed.
The bane of Bain has been discussed at length
Here
Here
Here
Here
Here
and Here
So I will not say much more than that I think his career is the downside to business. There is nothing wrong with someone in business measuring everything in terms of profit and loss, but that’s not what I want my Senator to do. KB Toys exemplifies the difference between a businessman’s take on jobs, and what I want my Senator’s take to be.
On lobbying, he has repeatedly and proudly said that he has not taken money from special interests – trying to align himself with the similar but much more legitimate position of Alan Khazei. This claim is deceptive for two reasons: he is self-financed, and doesn’t need PAC or lobbyist money. More importantly, as NECN points out:
“Steve Pagliuca may not be taking lobbyist money for his campaign, but he has no problem with paying lobbyists when they’re advocating on his — or, in Pagliuca’s case, on his company’s behalf.
Bain Capital, where Pagliuca is a senior managing partner, has spent millions in the past few years on big name Washington lobbyists to influence members of congress on issues including health care reform, financial regulation and taxation.”
Pagliuca has explained that he made financial contributions to GW Bush and Romney because they were his friends. I’m not sure that that argument does him much good either. Working across the aisle is important in politics, but donating to Republicans because of friendship is a whole different story.
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He is spending upwards of 15 or 20 million dollars this campaign. Again, I return to my original question: Would Pagliuca be running for Senate if he were not a multi-millionaire? Would he ever have been taken seriously with a record like his if he were not so wealthy? I really think the answer to both questions is “no”. I think he is running because he thinks he can spend enough money to win. As far as I am concerned, there are only 3 democratic candidates in this race, and now I have less than 3 weeks left to decide.
I have the same concerns about Pagliuca’s supposed liberalism. His close ties to Romney are worrying on their own, but donations to the Republican party and Bain’s documented slash-and-burn business tactics really raise some red flags. And the revelation that he’s apparently already gearing up for any number of other campaigns? Looks to me like what he’s interested in is the notion of holding office, not the responsibility of actually serving as our Senator. This seat just happened to be the first one to open up. I don’t think this is much more than another side project for Pags.
So I feel pretty safe in my progressive credentials.
just to give one example, you argue that KB was a healthy company when Bain bought it. as evidence, you cite that it had 1.5 billion in sales.
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p>the only problem was that 2 years before, it had 2 billion in sales. it was getting killed. by walmart. it was losing market share against the other toy companies.
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p>and walmart is really short for “lots of people liked that walmart sold toys more cheaply, so they could buy health care and education and rent and gas and food and stuff.”
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p>customers killed kb. bain took a risky flier to see if it could turn things around. failed.
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p>irony – you posit kbt as the victim.
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p>a few years before Bain bought KB, KB bought etoys. remember them? probably not. dot com which hit the roof and flamed out. but at one time they had maybe 500 to 1000 employees. they all lost their jobs.
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p>in your world, is that big bad KB toys’ fault? all those 700 people? so if the CEO of kb ran for office, you’d say HE’D gotten rid of 700 jobs?
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p>*
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p>i don’t disagree with your larger assessment – pags woke up one day and thought since wyc is getting all the credit for running the celts, maybe he could be a senator.
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I don’t see any claims that KB Toys was “healthy.”
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p>I see no evidence that Bain bought them as a “risky flier.” It appears to me that Bain did with KB what they have done with so many other struggling companies —
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p>1. Buy into a distressed company, usually with loans secured by the few assets left in the target company.
2. Sell off whatever assets can be sold, strip out any cash left, layoff the employees.
3. Sell the remnants (or force a bankruptcy) and get out.
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p>If you want the gory details, look at the portfolio companies Bain has “invested” in. Not just AmPad and KB — look at Bain’s long history. Bear in mind, though, that you’ll have to dig. The public face of each of these deals was surely very positive. When the dust settles, it’s always “unfortunate” that the target company had to be “restructured.”
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p>Bain is no friend of the worker.
he explicitly makes the claim that KB was healthy
First of all, the link you reference is to a diary written by kaj314. The author of the comment you responded to is “katmandon’t”.
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p>Secondly, there is no claim — implicit or explicit — that KB Toys was “healthy”. Instead, there is the following paragraph:
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p>The statements about sales and workforce size are simple statements of fact — there is no characterization of them. Most importantly, there is no statement about the cost side of the balance sheet. A company with sales of $1.5B might have costs of $1.8B for that same year, and would be sick indeed. Merely stating annual sales and number of employees is not saying anything about the health of the company.
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p>This recital of facts is followed by a statement about who created the debt that ultimately bankrupted the company. On the face of it, the statement appears true. The debt was, in fact, incurred after Bain’s takeover. Bain was, in fact, in control of the company when the debt was taken on.
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p>If the company had been “healthy”, Bain would NOT have been interested.
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p>The company was in trouble, and Bain exploited the resulting weakness to strip it of whatever value it had left.
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p>Defend Bain and companies like it if you must — but don’t try and pretend that they do anything constructive for workers.
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p>The cynicism of Mr. Pagliuca’s campaign strategy about creating jobs is a breathtaking. His history with Bain paints a more accurate picture of his values and his attitudes towards working men and women.
why would the author say $1.5 in revenue is a “pesky” fact if not to imply that that KB was healthy?
We vote for a candidate who has actually been successful in the real world.
The world is filled with “successful” men and women who I would never allow in my home, never mind vote for.
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p>I suggest that questions about how a person achieves wealth and power are just as important as their attainment — especially when considering that person as a candidate for public office.