Yes, there’s a carefully-crafted laundry list of progressive positions in every TV ad, but then there are three good candidates in the race already, each with bona fide progressive credentials.
The only discernible reason for Steve Pagliuca to run is to tip the balance of power even further towards the already-wealthy and already-powerful in any any future Congressional battles over the rights and interests of workers, consumers, small businesses, etc.
Pagliuca told the AP that Kennedy was wrong to focus on Ampad and ignore the total number of jobs that Romney created through other deals.
is just another version of “Nothing personal, just business”, combined with an arrogant hyper-capitalist worldview that holds jobs hostage to profits. Does he really believe either that this is a fitting tribute to Ted Kennedy’s legacy or that this will generate votes among likely primary voters?
What you stand for is not what you say in an expensive ad campaign, it’s what you do and whose interests you side with when push comes to shove. Keeping corporate power in check is one of the core jobs of Congress, not to mention a principle held dear by the late Senator Kennedy and most — if not all — of the current delegation. It’s clear Pagliuca has no idea how out-of-step with working people these comments make him seem, and that’s revealing.
The best case is that this candidate has an extremely tin ear when it comes to progressive politics, and the worst case is that this candidacy is driven by extreme cynicism, born of the opinion that being rich makes you an expert at everything, and the realization that even an imitation of Romney’s success at pretending to be a moderate would not be enough to elect him as a Republican this time around.
Sorry, Mr. Pagliuca; your past support of Republicans, your acknowledgment of Mitt Romney’s mentorship, your way of making a living, your apparent disdain for working Americans, and the possibility that electing you would replace the country’s greatest champion of universal, affordable health care with another foot-dragging, Blue Dog, insurance-industry apologist, have all been determined to be preexisting conditions that disqualify you from receiving Democratic-vote coverage.
It would be a “win-win” for the Commonwealth to send one of three honest, progressive candidates to Washington, while Steve Pagliuca continues to focus on his excellent stewardship of the Boston Celtics, for which he deserves our gratitude, and through which he can provide far more benefit to the citizens of Massachusetts than he would — we now know, if we didn’t before — as a U.S. Senator.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ….
compared to Governor Patrick, who built his fortune at CocaCola, Texaco, Aneriquest and United Airlines. His wife is a big wig at the white shoe lawfirm of Ropes and Gray. With all of his recent decisions I think that his candidacy was the Trojan horse and we are the Trojans.
Governor Patrick is no doubt comfortable, but he’s worth only a tiny fraction of Pagliuca’s estimated $400 million. That kind of money is simply not available to lawyers, even the ones who work for Coca-Cola etc. Lawyers can make a very nice living, but it doesn’t compare to what successful higher-ups at a place like Bain can pull down.
Deval got his dough from corporate America, from the board rooms. Pags got his from mergers, acquistions, etc. . .
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p>He is better described as a corporate raider, not a tool of the corporations. Deval though, he has proved time and time again that he will belly up to the bar with corporate America.
At least Deval did work to earn the money, rather than more or less “creating” it by moving stuff around. It’s a more honest way to make a living…
I think of his time at those corporations as window dressing. When a problem arose such as the racist banter at Texaco board meetings, Governor Patrick was hired at a very high salary to smooth feathers.
You are surely not suggesting that he was an “affirmative action” hire, are you?
Let’s not forgot how Ted Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and John F. Kennedy all bought their Senate seats with Joseph P. Kennedy’s money.
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p>”Isn’t it showing a little too much hubris to run for an office as powerful as U.S. Senator with absolutely no political experience?”
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p>Ted and John had absolutely no “experience” when they made their first runs for political office. Robert’s experience was serving as his brother’s Attorney General.
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p>But, I agree with you. I think it was wrong for Pagliuca AND the Kennedys to buy Senate seats. This is why need we need to bring the Clean Elections law back and publicly fund campaigns from the local level to the federal level. This would allow people from all walks of life, not just the Kennedy-Pagliuca super rich, to run and be elected to political office.
1) Your use of the term ‘corporatist’
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p>Corporatism is another word for Mussolini style fascism, which combines the trade unions with corporations under complete state authority. While I am sure you did not intend this moniker either as an allusion to Pagliuca holding fascist viewpoints or as an attack on his Italian heritage, by careful with word choice. ‘Corporate candidate’ or ‘Corporation candidate’ or ‘pro-business’ candidate would have sufficed.
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p>2)Attacking venture capitalists as ‘useless’ to the economy
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p>I am pretty sure the Clinton era boom can be attributed to the sound fiscal management of Alan Greenspan, Summers, and Rubin as much as those three are maligned now. Obviously regulations should have been put in place after the boom period, but the internet era was full of venture capitalists that created a whole new sector of the economy. Microsoft, Google, Amazon.com, and other internet based service providers employ far more people than unionized industrial workers and pay them better too. Also is the purpose of a company to make profit or to act as a charity? I am sorry but America profits far more from its creative class than it does from Fordist industries. Just ask GM. If Romney hadn’t outsourced someone else would have, its the inevitable byproduct of the global economy.
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p>3) Attacking him for positions he has not taken
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p>Again just because he is a business man does not mean he opposes progressive economics, his platform in my view is indistinguishable from that of his rivals.
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p>Now can we attack Pags for refusing to do anything regarding job training, relocating workers, or having an innovative economic plan that builds on his business experience? Certainly. Can we attack him for being a conservative cum lately to progressive politics-definitely. Can we say he is a friend of scum (Romney) and therefore scum himself? You bet your ass.
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p>But attacking him for being a fascist, being successful, or for positions he is not advocating, seems to be counter productive. But thats just my two cents.
I was just about to say that about the word “corporatism”.
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p>See also: national syndicalism.
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p>nerd nerd nerd
Your also a Burke fan too. Hey remember Nerds rule the world now so its not entirely a bad thing.
Is seriously troubling. Why don’t progressives call for reforms in campaign financing and lobbying reform as a central part of a progressive platform?
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p>I’ve been surprised at the apologies for the money coursing thru our political system. It seems a no-brainer to me, but maybe that’s the trouble (no brain)
There is no way consistent with the First Amendment that money can be separated from electoral politics. In any case, full disclosure will do the trick (assuming an interested and informed electorate).
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p>Note that every reform since the Seventies made the problem worse, because there is no way to create “campaign finance and lobbying reform” that a first-year law student can’t legally evade; and such evasion is a source of political humor among operatives across the political spectrum.
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p>The problem is that, particularly for national Democrats, expensive media-driven campaigns replaced methodical organizing on the ground, and astroturf replaced grassroots.
The first amendment says nothing about money. Furthermore, if giving someone money was really considered a form of protected speech, then that would pretty much rule out taxation of any type of monetary transfer. There is no Constitutional reason we cannot outlaw political contributions if we really wanted to.
Buckley v Veleo
Yes, it probably would be hard to entirely outlaw campaign contributions (although one wonders if the current conservative members of the current court might see this differently), but the court did not rule that campaign contributions and spending cannot be limited, so it is not quite true that it is quite the same thing as protected free speech. It is likely that further campaign spending and contribution limits could be passed that would be found to be constitutional.
My response was to this:
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p>I don’t doubt that further regulation is legally possible; I don’t,however consider campaign finance restrictions to be a political Holy Grail. IMHO it’s often a means of avoiding asking the hard questions and doing the boring work necessary to win. In addition, such restrictions are easy to legally evade.
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p>On the national level, for example, the Republicans are far less dependent on large donations than Democrats, because they’ve been refining small-donor fundraising for three decades.
…how money equals speech in the United States, but money doesn’t equal speech in Canada, which has the same regard (arguably a higher regard) for rights and freedoms.
…mean differently worded constitutions and different courts and legal precedents.
Although this is an aside I completely disagree with your assertion that Canada is a country that respects freedom more than we do. Canada clearly has a lot of nanny state regulations that I certainly don’t envy regarding peoples freedom of choice on a number of issues-public health laws run rampant that regulate individual behavior, the english-french requirement, strict regulation on businesses, incredibly stringent environmental regulations that are often draconian, bueracratic agencies given incredibly large amounts of power with no checks or balances.
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p>Canada has no Bill of Rights, no written Constitution, and tomorrow the Queen could essentially rule in a totalitarian fashion if she so chose to without it being illegal in anyway. Its Senate is not elected. It has an official established Church. Its Prime Minister has the sole authority to declare war and does not need any kind of authorization from any elected body to do so-and can only be stopped by the Queen. The British Parliament can override the Canadian provision that allows it to stay out of British wars if it deems the situation ‘an emergency’. Also the UN can force Canada to go to war since they have signed a lot of international conventions we would find unconstitutional. The old Canadian flag is banned and flying it is illegal. It is illegal to use English in Quebec. The Catholic Church is the established Church of Quebec, crucifixes hang in its Provincial Parliament, and a Priest gives a daily convocation. Sharia law is tolerated in Canada (at least in Ontario) allowing a Muslim father to go free for brutally killing his daughter. Established church’s and Sharia law aside religion is severely curtailed in the Public Square. Scientology could be banned and in many cases its illegal for that faith to evangelize, as it is also for Mormon’s. They have nationalized railroads, airlines, and banks. It is illegal to practice medicine privately in Canada. It is illegal to defame the First Nation (native Canadians) in any way, shape, or form, and this is a crime punishable by jail time.
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p>In short Canada’s government is significantly less democratic or republican than ours, they have weird and quirky regulations banning speech that might offend certain groups and might inflame sectarian tensions, Quebec has a lot of freedom curtailing laws to protect its ‘cultural heritage’, religion is curtailed in some instances and allowed to be oppressive in other cases.
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p>Basically they got a non-interventionist foreign policy and universal healthcare on us-I’d take American freedoms-in spite of its limitations-over that any day of the week.
First, medicine IS privatized practice; just insurance is public.
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p>As for the Constitution, yes Canada has one and it doesn’t go as far as the UK in parliamentary supremacy. Text of the Constitution Acts is here. Background is here. The analysis by Freedom House is here.
Pags lost me in his first commercial.
Big Al’s CO2 carbon trading scam, globalizing poverty.
Gun control when we need more ammo
Health care? Meh, I’m not taking the shot, ever.
I had a really bad case of the flu a few years back and after it had passed I developed a nasty bacterial pneumonia that almost sent me to the distant shores. I appreciate your largesse lasthorseman.