Her conclusion:
Whether you agree with Capuano or not, he is undeniably himself out there. He is the most un-managed serious candidate we have seen in years, and certainly in this Senate race.
We used to have a lot of politicians like him around here – imperfect, scrappy, passionate – and we celebrated them. We should celebrate them still.
Weiss writes about what I was feeling as I watched the debate:
MIKE CAPUANO spent much of the debate with a look of frustration on his face, as if he were an air conditioning repairman who had just stepped into a symposium on the philosophical underpinnings of the air conditioner.
I didn’t even need to see the frustration on his face to know this was happening. I only had to listen to the other candidates.
While his opponents spun theoretical answers over the need to curb health care costs, Capuano raised the less-palatable truth that most people, faced with the illness of a child or parent, want to spend whatever it takes on whatever cure is possible.
As evidenced by the recent outrage over the mammogram study. This is probably one of the toughest nuts to crack to reduce health care costs, but it was only Mike who saw fit to mention it.
It’s a tricky thing to run as the insider. Most campaigns assume every voter is dying for hope, change, and the chance to send the bums home.
But then, this is a race to fill the seat of the consummate insider, a man whose understanding of the Senate helped him accomplish his goals, and whom Massachusetts voters sent back to Washington time after time.
It’s finally good to see in print some of the arguments I’ve been using for weeks in support of Mike. Hopefully it’s not too little, too late.
My skeptical question remains whether the media coverage – of the GOTV field teams – will carry the day. Would anybody be shocked if the election results varied widely from the poll numbers we’ve seen to date?
I would not be shocked if the results were widely different or somewhat consistent with the polling we have all seen to date. The makeup of the electorate is just too hard to pin down to know how it will unfold. The better the pollster the better the data. If any of the campaigns are tracking each week, that is the data that would be more conclusive.
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p>Trying to figure out turnout for a race like this is not an exact science. Even Bill Galvin would not give an estimate (which he almost always does) because of unique nature of this election.
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p>It is why Capuano can and my estimation will win, and Coakley will lose. I also believe it can give a glimmer of hope to Khazei supporters. Let me repeat glimmer.
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p>The media always has meaningful impact to a candidate and a campaign win or lose.
As long as we’re still cleaning up the assault on the Constituion and civil rights joined by Cheney, Addington, and Bush including the Patriot Act and the suspension of habeas corpus, and as long as we’re paying the price for Bush tax cuts, and as long as we’re paying the price for reckless unregulated “free market” financial econmony and as long as we’re paying for the manufactured consent of the Iraq War, there is plenty to right. I trust the guy who shows some passion and has a record.
As “passion”.
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p>I just don’t get the love affair with this guy by people I have worked with on other campaigns and respect. Anyone who would threaten someone in a park with a baseball bat, as Capuano did, has an anger management problem, not a healthy passion.
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p>I can only deeply and sincerely hope he loses the primary. I do not want to be represented by him.
We’re electing a Senator, not looking for a significant other.
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p>Regarding the Rottweiler incident…
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p>When my first daughter was a toddler, I was with her in a park in Arlington. We had just gotten off a swing set near a basketball court. There was a guy there who had been shooting and was now talking to a woman. While talking, he casually tossed the ball and then kicked it high into the air. He obviously had played some soccer. When the ball came down, it missed my daughter by about two feet.
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p>As the saying goes, I ripped the guy a new one. I don’t know if I’ve ever been angrier in my life. And as you know, I’m a really laid-back person. I don’t have an anger management problem by any means. But when something happens that threatens your kid, this is what happens. I don’t know what I would have done if by chance I had a baseball bat. I’m glad I didn’t.
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p>So, I understand why Mike reacted the way he did. Anyone who doesn’t have children might not be able to.
when they don’t, this can happen: pic
Whether you have kids or not.
so is failure to secure your dog with a leash. The Globe story says Capuano asked the dog owner to keep her Rottweiler away from where Mike and his son were playing catch. Even after that, the dog came over and Mike’s kid missed a pop fly which hit him in the head becuase he was concerned about the dog.
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p>Why the lady chose to ignore Mike’s request, which by the way, was a request to comply with the leash law, is beyond me. Mike should have called the cops instead. She clearly was not interested in anything he had to say. People like that make me angry too. I’ve learned to call the police when people violate the law in spite of my request to comply with the law for reasons that effect me.
However uncooperative the woman was or distracting/scary the dog, he should have called the cops or removed himself and his son from the scene. Picking up a baseball bat and threatening to kill her and the dog is an anger management problem; not healthy passion.
For the son.
He and his son were in compliance with the law, the dog owner was not. She made no effort to comply with the law by putting the dog on a leash after he requested that she keep the dog away.
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p>He and his son had every right to be there. She did too, as long as she kept her dog leashed. She did not. She did not even when he asked her to keep the dog away.
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p>He had the bat with him because they were there playing baseball. And he had every right to carry the bat as protection as he approached the master of the Rottweiller (or was it two Rottweillers?) If the dog attacked, he could rightfully protect himself with the bat.
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p>Dog are not just “distracting/scary” they can be dangerous, which is not a chance I would take for myself or my kid.
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p>Picking up a baseball bat and threatening to kill her and the dog …
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p>You think he walked over and threatened to kill her? That just doesn’t add up at all. She claims its true. He says it is not. She’s the one who acts as though laws don’t apply to her. She the one who does not have the decency to comply with a civil request out of respect for other people who are using the “park”.
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p>I think you have a flawed witness cousilor. In addition, she dropped the charges. Talk a walk over there sometime, see if she still has the same disregard for complying with laws that exist for other people’s safety.
The police clearly did not size it up as a problem with her. Perhaps the leash law does not apply on private property (this occurred on a field at Tufts) or they have a history of not enforcing it for that location. I think the point we’ve already both made is the key one here though: particularly for someone in public office, particularly for someone with a young child with him, no matter how uncooperative you find someone or how scary her dog (note: no allegation it was aggressive, just romping around), don’t pick up a bat and threaten them. Call the authorities or walk away. Threatening with a weapon is a big deal. He’s lucky it was a “he said- she said” and the police dropped the charges.
Tracey Brown, the woman who would not comply with a civil request to restrain her Rottweiler, went to the police to file a compaint.
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p>The police took her application for a criminal complaint. After they “sized it up” they dismissed it for lack of evidence.
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p>You say “The police clearly did not size it up as a problem with her” falsely implying the police sized it up as a problem with him which is untrue and misleading given the facts that the only “sizing up” they did was sizing up her complaint and arriving at the determination that her allegation of criminal charge was unsubstantiated, much like yours.
would protect the kid from the dog.
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p>
Unable to touch him on the issues.
Unable to touch him on connecting with the community.
Unable to touch him on the conduct of the campaign.
Unable to feature any respect from in-state media
Unable to stem the flood of supporters to other candidates.
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p>So we’re reduced to dredging up old stories (because yelling at a lady is way worse that being asleep at the switch during the Archdiocese scandal, to begin with) and attacking the character of the man.
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p>This desperation is sweet, sweet music to those of us who like Mike.
Capuano flip flopped on the key issue that’s come up during this race – how to address a healthcare bill with the Stupak amendment. No other meaningful differences on the issues (except in Sagan’s paranoid fantasies)
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p>Connecting with the community – hard to see him leading there, he hasn’t been ahead in any poll yet
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p>Conduct of the campaign? I’ll give him points for drive and energy, but heard on NPR that only Coakley had enough volunteers to complete signature gathering with volunteers; all of the others had to pay people to do it.
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p>You must mean the Herald. OK. I’m glad (in a sort of pitying way) that you’re proud.
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p>Flood of support? Undecideds are breaking now; but those with Coakley are with her; she has engendered tremendous loyalty in those who know her and have worked with her – witness just one example in Amberpaw
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p>I’m pissed at the old boy political network here in MA, but I’m sure hoping to see it handed a defeat on Tuesday.
Many of us don’t want to be represented by “him”, many of us don’t want to be represented by “her”.
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p>A week from now the primary will be over and we Democrats will have a candidate. I look forward to resuming more civil exchanges then.