OK, OK, the new governor held some community town halls, it’s true. But then, again, nothing. Patrick’s first signature battle was, wait for it, casino gambling. That’s right, fighting to institute a system for extracting cash from those (in large part) least likely to have it, in order to fund state priorities. Predictably, with no care and feeding, no inspiring cause to engage with, the Patrick organization withered.
But, why do I care? Isn’t it enough that Patrick has shown more leadership, done more legislating, for more humane causes, in the short time he’s been in office than the Republicans did for all of their years of political domination of the governor’s office? Isn’t this enough to justify his reelection? Please understand, I do not want to minimize, for a second, the importance of having people like Patrick and Obama in office rather than Kerry Healey or McCain, or the mediocrities on offer for the Republican nomination for governor this year. Nor do I want to minimize Patrick’s accomplishments during his term so far. As I said, he’s accomplished more in these four years than his predecessors together did in the 16(?) years they held office before him. Of course he should be reelected if the alternative is another mediocre or worse Republican. But for me, that’s just not enough to motivate me to get as involved as I was the first time around.
I think our system is deeply sick. As Chris Hayes of the Nation said in this brilliant essay, which he wrote before the disastrous Citizens United case came out, our country is on the verge of becoming an oligarchy, if it isn’t already, in that the institutions of power have become dominated by corporate power and corporatist thinking. Seriously, go read this essay. While I think Hayes is right, I think that the illness is deeper and corporatism is one of its symptoms. The illness, I think, is a commonly held value that concentration, or retention, of power in all of its manifestations in the hands of those who already have it is perfectly fine. In fact, it’s the normal order of things. It’s so normal, that people who believe it’s normal don’t even see that this value is a core feature of their belief system. This value, that power need not be shared as broadly as possible, while glaringly visible in some arenas, has become invisible to many. And this invisible belief can be found everywhere: in the workplace certainly, in political parties (“but, but, Clean Elections might make it easier for people to run against incumbents!“), and in organizations, even in those specifically dedicated to building progressive power. It’s a value that animates the iron law of oligarchy, and all of us are at risk of endorsing it, at least tacitly, from time to time.
There is an opposing value, one that animates democracy itself if you think about it, and as Hayes suggests, that holds that the more people with power, and the more power the people have, the better – that people having the maximum feasible amount of power to determine the directions of their lives and of society is a good in and of itself. This is why, as Hayes says, the process of struggle is an intrinsic good. Struggle is an expression of personal power while trying to redistribute it away from those who’ve concentrated it into their own hands. This value system, I have always believed but never quite been able to articulate before, is at the core of the progressive ethos.
So, that’s neat, but what does it have to do with working on the Patrick campaign? Well, I think it’s not enough anymore to talk a good game – what less polite people call that “hopey changey” stuff. I think it’s time that we start asking of ourselves and our candidates what we are about at a core level. Are we about keeping power for ourselves? Or spreading it around? And if we say it’s the latter, we have to start asking, what about our/your proposed agenda makes that happen, or at least creates the conditions so that it can happen? And then we have to ask us/you, what is your strategy for getting there? Are you/we willing to fight? Are you/we willing to take risks? How, for example, does casino gambling empower people or create the conditions for empowerment? How does raising the sales tax do that? How does cuts in state funding for the most vulnerable among us do that? How do refusing to pay state workers their contractually negotiated raises do that? Wouldn’t having an actually progressive income tax, that spreads the burden, isn’t regressive, doesn’t target the most vulnerable, the better strategy? The one actually consistent with progressive values? So why isn’t that the strategy we/you are fighting for? Isn’t that what a progressive ought to do, even if the possibility of immediate victory is remote, if for no other reason than to lay the groundwork for future victory?
Without a movement and an ethos that pays specific and explicit attention to these questions, compromises, accommodations to power and the powerful become much much easier. It becomes easier to abandon the Employee Free Choice Act, for example, which would have enabled a massive (but not sufficient) redistribution of power from management to workers, if you don’t see abandonment as a betrayal of your core beliefs, and if there aren’t people standing outside of Congress, but within the organization that elected you and who share those beliefs, pointing at you and telling you so. It becomes much easier to walk away from massive grassroots organizations that were set up to elect you, if you don’t have your volunteers who formed that organization saying: “wait, I thought this was about more than just getting you elected.”
So this time around, I want to see more than the rhetoric of change and inclusion that Patrick (and after him Obama) used. I want to be convinced that Patrick actually has a plan for making change real this time, and by “change” I mean broadening and strengthening people’s capacity and opportunity to be involved in the decisions that affect their lives. So I need to know: is he going to walk away from his organization again, or is he going to devote real resources to preserving and USING it once elected, by asking us to, for example, lobby legislators in support of a progressive agenda, even at the risk of cheesing some of them off? In other words, is he willing to ask us to fight with him, and give us the tools to do so? Does he have a plan to increase transparency, encourage participation in elections and policy making, and strengthen the way we do democracy here? Would he consider (gasp) resurrecting the Clean Elections law or doing something equally as radical? Does he intend to tackle any of the other really hard stuff, like fighting for (another gasp) a progressive income tax? (Really, I’ll take even one hard thing that shakes up the system).
I would suggest that our time is too precious, my time is too precious, to devote to working for just another Democratic politician who’s not really going to take on any of the increasingly oligarchical institutions that govern us and the values that animate them. My time would be better spent doing something else – picking up trash in our parks, rescuing puppies, sealing my gutters, or, more seriously, registering voters, building a third party, working on an initiative campaign, if all we’re going to get for our troubles is another politician whose biggest ambition is to tinker around the edges.
I think Patrick has the capacity to be much more than that. But I think he needs to show us that, now, before the campaign. If he does, I’m there!
Whatever criteria you set, now is not the time to look and see. Patrick has a real record now, almost a full term, and that can serve as an indicator of future performance far better than any campaign activity.
I have some strong words, so I’ll let them all rip.
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p>Deval Patrick won in 2006 because of his rhetoric of participatory change and people’s imaginative ability to project their own concerns and values into it. If Deval had been serious about change, we would have done just what you say Jim, sustain the grassroots part of his campaign into his term as Governor, pick the battles that would actually move the goal post in the direction of actual participatory society, and not be afraid to encourage progressives to primary dead weight Democrats in Massachusetts. He did not and he will not.
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p>His campaign at this point is too cowardly to stand up for progressive priorities, its all about fear and trepidation, about how much worse Baker would screw you than you are being screwed now. That and trumping cosmetic, lip service reforms that leave people as disempowered as ever. And the argument that because we had 16 years of absolute crap governance we should honor and cherish mediocrity is an insult to the idea that we ought to have any dignity and faith in ourselves.
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p>Any movement on his part toward progressive politics is going to come from pressure outside his circle, from an actual candidate who is proud of fighting for inclusive grassroots politics and policies that empower people as individuals and as members of their communities: Jill Stein.
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p>The politics of participation does not and will not end with her campaign, the entire movement is about empowering people to its core. She is the real deal, someone who is not a CEO, bureaucrat, or cradle to grave politician. Taking on the banks that foreclosure homes while grabbing public money, the large corporations with no fealty to the American people, the insurance industry that leeches off our sickness, the militarism and police state that arise from underinvestment in our communities and education, and so on and on with the entrenched interests who are happy to promote a disempowered, inactive, and unaware citizenry that they can prey on.
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p>And yes, to make this very clear, vote spoiling is bullshit. If Patrick can wave a magic wand to make people believe he is not a technocrat, I think Jill can manage to say “Look at the actual issues, the reality of facing you everyday, and tell me if you can swallow the lies and insincerity Cahill, Baker, and Patrick are feeding you and vote against your own deepest values and commitments”.
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p>
… and the Big Dig Culture:
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p>- Pension reform
– Transport reform: Top-down accountability; bye bye Turnpike Authority; no more Amorellos
– Ethics reform
– Corporate tax loopholes closed
– Ambitious proposal to take care of MBTA debt and take down tolls with gas tax increase; courageous, realistic solution, but unpopular
– Education reform, esp. addressing achievement gap
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p>I think in bad revenue times, a governor doesn’t have a lot of good news to spread around. But I would hold that given the times, the gov has a very decent resume of accomplishment on which to run.
Can’t talk now, working. But I guess my point is that yes, I agree with you that this is a very decent record of accomplishment, especially in bad times, and I would be happy to make the case that it’s far superior to anything the Republicans did or would do if they got back in. My question is: for progressives with limited time to spend on this stuff, is it enough? Do these changes alter, or at least make substantial chinks in the armor of, existing power structures and relationships? Or should we be spending our limited time on efforts that do? Frankly, I really would rather be spending my spare time getting people elected who will move the goalposts than spending it working outside the electoral system, because I think the former is more effective. What I’m saying is that I’d like Patrick to be the type of guy who’ll fight for fundamental change, and I’m just not sure that what he’s done to date moves any goalposts in that direction. [winces at appalling misuse of metaphors] Happy to be told how I’m wrong, though.
One of the best I’ve read in a while.
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p>I understand your frustration but also understand the mentality of incremental politicians who would say “if I can’t get elected, I can’t make change. and if I make too much change, I can’t get elected.
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p>I’ve been thinking more about third parties. I’m actually hoping the Tea Baggers get a little something together and that Progressives can mount a similar movement on the other end.
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p>It’s an either/or proposition right now, so sitting out leads to the question of whether you’d be helping things go backwards because you don’t think they’d go forward enough.
Thanks for the kind words. I’m not saying I, or anyone else, should sit this one out. I’m just suggesting that as a progressive with limited time to do stuff, I have to decide whether becoming heavily involved in the Patrick campaign is a good use of my limited progressive-time-capital or whether I should use it somewhere else, say in working on the Hodes campaign in New Hampshire, or working with some progressive state rep campaign, or not doing electoral politics at all, but getting involved with some 501(c)(3) group bent on institutional change. I would never not vote for Patrick, if he were the nominee, nor advocate that anyone else not vote for him. That’s just silly.
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p>On the incremental-type politician, I understand ’em, I just don’t agree with ’em. A spokesperson for Congressperson Tom Perreillo from Virginia, a progressive guy from a very conservative district, when asked why he was taking such a risky move as to to vote for the health care reform bill, said “he didn’t come to Congress to get re-elected.” That’s the kind of politician progressives should get behind, in my opinion.
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p>The governor does have a day job. He has two kids. He has a wife he loves and a house he lov– er, likes a lot…
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p>Congratulations, you’ve just walked a mile in his shoes. Oh, wait… maybe he’s walked a mile in yours… I dunno, fer sure, which it is, but I do know that you’ve got more in common than in disagreement.
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p>I’m not being flippant here, but entirely earnest: there is the ‘hopey-changey’ stuff, and there is the daily grind of being governor. I think the one only comes at the expense of the other, and that slowly, oh so slowly… To be honest, a lot of people here, perhaps yourself included (only you can answer for sure) confuse campaigning for the job with the actual job itself. This is the signature failure of every one of the past 4 Republican Governors: the heat and flash and light of the campaign is quickly dissipated into the boring grind of meetings and paperwork and actual governance. Weld, Celluci, Swift and Romney simply couldn’t hack an honest days labor. End of story. I think that this was the failure of all recent GOP presidents, and Bill Clinton, also: to run the actual job exactly like you run the campaign for the job, when in fact they are two vastly different things. Dubya ran an extended 9 year long campaign whose purpose morphed from getting the job, in the beginning, to keeping the people from realizing how poor a job he was doing at the end… Karl Roves’ competence lies in masking how incompetent Dubya was. I’m totally serious. The electorate is so used to being spoonfed the constant campaign that actual critical analysis and evaluation of a Governors efforts is becoming a lost art.
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p>To be further honest, a lot of people here kinda expected wand-waving and unicorns farting rainbows or something. If it took 16 years of Republican hole-digging and State Legislature corruption to put us where we are (and it did) we’re not going to get out of it in just 3. I think the invitation to despair and cynicism is both ever-present but entirely unwarranted.
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p>I think Governor Patrick has overcome this hurdle. I think that he can indeed hack the daily grind. I think there was some missteps. I think the Governor, like his wife, went through a period of depression and frustration when the slogging, and slugging, threatened to get really out of hand. But I think he’s honest-to-gosh serious about the job. He works at it. He’s engaged. That alone is going to get my vote. And I see signs: the center of gravity is with Patrick and no longer with the either the Speaker of the House of the Senate President. Almost everything he wanted, with the exception of casinos, he got: perhaps not in the exact form he wanted… for example, he recognized the need for some tax increases and pushed for the gas tax. In a fit of pique the lege passive aggressively voted a sales tax instead, but it was a signature failing on their part to, at first, obstruct, and a success on his part to get the thing past.
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p>I think he’s been pretty good on handling the economic crisis: we’ve been limited in choices and the Governor has done a good job of giving us better choices than we otherwise would have. We may be eating only ham sandwiches, but without the Governor in charge the choice would be between a shit sandwich and a shit sandwich with mustard…
As Mario Cuomo used to say. I hear what you’re saying. It IS a lot harder to govern than campaign. I know, because I once worked for a legislator in another life. And, as I said above, I REALLY didn’t write this in order to minimize the many accomplishments he’s achieved. As I also said, there’s no doubt that the governor’s head and shoulders above anything the Republicans could offer. I agree that they were fundamentally unserious about the job, they looked at it as a hobby, and when it got hard, they lost interest. I also agree that Deval Patrick is the opposite of all that.
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p>BUT, if what you’re also saying is that there must necessarily be, or inevitably is, a sharp distinction between campaigning and governing, I have to disagree. I think it’s a very destructive fiction that, as such dualism implies, campaign promises must always be treated as things you say just to get elected (and that people should understand this and be ok with it) — this merely confirms the cynicism that so many voters have that politicians lie to you and nothing makes any difference. I don’t think it’s expecting unicorns to fart magic wands to think that if you’re going to run an explicitly progressive campaign, full of sweeping rhetoric about comprehensive change, built from the bottom up, then by god you should fight to govern that way. You should go big at least on one or two issues, ones that really will change the power structure, and you should use every resource at your disposal, including your kickass grassroots campaign organization, and fight for it because it’s right, regardless of whether it’s safe. If you win, great. If you lose, or have to compromise, that’s ok too, because people saw you fighting for them, and they got a chance to participate in the battle.
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p>On the other hand, if you don’t intend to govern like the progressive campaign you ran, or have already decided that governing that way is impossible, then you shouldn’t campaign like you do intend to govern that way, or that you actually believe it is possible. Mind you, I’m not saying Patrick is guilty of this, I’m just saying that progressives (and other denominations) should take the position that it’s not ok to make promises you don’t intend to fight like hell to keep.
Any distinction betwixt the campaign and the actual job lies in the focus one has and the time one takes to do it. In the campaign you may be focused on the voters on behalf of the job, whereas in the doing of it, you are focused on the job on behalf of the voters. This distinction is crucial: constantly stroking the voters, in essence the continual ‘sell’, must, of a necessity, cost one’s focus on the job. You simply can’t do both. My point, such as it is, isn’t that Deval campaigned one way and has governed another… quite the opposite, if you ask me… but that the voters have lost the ability to distinguish how well he governs because they are so used to slick and constant campaigners. Apparently, if there isn’t constant cheerleading, photo-ops and the ever-present ‘campaign-mode’, the default assumption is that your governance is poor.
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p>Obama understands this all to well: on the night of his election victory, in what I still regard as his best speech yet, he said, quite directly, “This is NOT the change we seek. This is only the chance to make that change.” Too many people have made that mistake: thinking that, well, since we elected him, it’s all going to be champagne and caviar…
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p>Trying to see it from the other side (though, to be sure, I’ve never been a governor, nor elected to anything…) the voters might just seem as fickle to the politicians as the politicians do to the voters… One of the more frustrating aspects of modern Democratic politics is how quickly your base will turn on you. (Republicans don’t have this problem. They never turn on each other… It’s downright pathological, if you ask me, and the sole reason they haven’t long since been booted outta office, en masse) Devals rhetoric in the campaign of ’06 was about ‘we’… and too many people have since gone all cynical on the ‘together we can’, without first stopping to think about who it was that may have broken the covenant first. Your entire post elides this very crucial question.
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p>A word about campaign promises: There is a facility to them because circumstances change. Here again, critical analysis on the part of the voter is important: no sane person would blame Deval Patrick for the global financial crisis and so he can’t be faulted for the sheer impossibility of doing now what he thought could be done in ’06. But there’s a larger meta-promise given that shouldn’t be broken. And, in the case of Deval Patrick, I believe that it hasn’t: that they will be earnest and honest in the job. Governor Patrick acknowledged from day one that he would make mistakes. And he has. I don’t like the casinos, either. I think that was a huge misstep. But I don’t think that he took on the legislature over casinos in the same way he did over transportation, pension and ethics reform. I think you can decide on which issues he cares about, and therefore how progressive he is, on how hard he fights for which items.
petr:
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p>Deval Patrick made the following statement in the 2006 capaign. “We have a funding mechanism that is starving both the charter schools and the district schools.”
In 2009 Deval Patrick sat back and watched Paul Reville et al make a mockery of the charter application process. The local Gloucester officials appropriately voiced concern that a charter in that district draws millions of dollars away from the “traditional school” budget. In other words, candidate Deval’s above statement was not considered in the Gloucester approval process. It has been said that the approval process for charters does not allow for the consideration of damage caused to “traditional school” budgets. If that is the case, then Deval Patrick failed in not proposing legislation that would have fixed a glaring problem relative to the charter application process.
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p>Reconcile that with what you said, ” My point, such as it is, isn’t that Deval campaigned one way and has governed another… quite the opposite, if you ask me..”
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p>I would agrue that the Gloucester matter renders your statement to be factually incorrect.
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p>David Whelan,
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p>I would argue that your statements have no legs upon which to stand, but that would be giving them the credit of having a spine as well, or at least some sort of form, at the least. Tenuous, at best, is the link and the line you draw, one towards the other, takes more turns, loops and switchbacks than a beheaded turkey on Thanksgiving Day.
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p>The relationship between what the governor said during the campaign, and what happened in Gloucester bears no more closer relations than the statements “Massachusetts gets a lot of rain” and “it will be high-tide twice daily” does: both deal with water and natural phenomena, but not together.
In a similar way, your distaste for both charter schools and Governor Patrick, as well as the messier, more collaborative parts of education funding, are the only links in your tenuous chain.
but what has happened around this proposed school has a great deal of bearing on how the Patrick Administartion should be evaluated – and it has nothing to do with whether charter schools are good or bad.
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p>An evaluation mechanism that is a key component of a decision making process that leads to spending millions of dollars and disrupting a school district was subverted in an effort to play what Secretary Reville imagines to be political chess. He and Commissioner Chester have been caught playing this game, and nobody seems to know how to clean up the mess.
I think I get what you were saying — that people (presumably including me) have come to expect elected officials to govern as if they were still campaigning, and if they don’t, ipso facto they’re bad at their jobs. I think there’s something to that for sure. But that isn’t what I was saying. I think I had two points, neither of which asserted or implied that the Governor’s failure to keep campaigning makes him a bad governor. Rather, my points were: (1) I believe his progressive, inclusive, empowering style of campaign, the progressive, inclusive, empowering rhetoric he used, and the progressive, inclusive, empowering structures he built, could have, and should have, been used as a tool for a different style of governance, i.e. one that encourages and uses citizen participation to further the aims of that governance; and (2) that progressives should support candidates that promise, and at least fight for once in office, initiatives that offer systemic change in existing structures of power so as to shift the trend away from the increasing concentration of power in the elites. My critique of the Governor is not that he hasn’t been a good governor, he has, but that he hasn’t, from what I can see, done either (1) or (2). As I say, I stand ready to be convinced that I’m misreading the record, or that things will be different this time around.
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p>You obviously have a rather clear idea of what that would look like. I’ve met and blogged with countless persons such as yourself who’ve come, each on their own, to a clear view of what they think the above ‘citizen participation’ means. And your word ‘different’, describes them all. I’m as interested in the concept(s) as you are, but am, I believe, rather more clear-eyed on the complete lack of consensus: when the rubber meets the road here, it’s a thousand different tires on two-thousand different roads. The governor and the people have entered into a pact to do this, without ever really putting down the details… And your critique is that the Governor ought not to have done this, which is fair enough, but he’s not the only party here. I don’t think, for my part, I’ve seen too much heavy lifting on the part of the people: they voted in Deval and kinda sat back and waited for him to do all the changing. I’m not sure it can work like that since, after all, implicit in the Governors request is that people will ‘step up.’ and be engaged citizens on a two way street. Only one way so far, as far as I can see…
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p>So, I’m not certain, given the circumstances, that Governor Deval Patrick, (or indeed any governor) absent walking on water and turning the Charles River into wine, could escape the criticism you have levelled at him. If he had pleased your vision, there’s a few thousand different visions out there he’d have displeased.
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p>In addition, some people have jobs, kids, houses, etc… that prevent them from being the entirely engaged citizens they wish to be. I can’t fault them for that, but neither will I then accept that any failure of the nebulous concept of ‘citizen participation’ is wholly the fault of Deval Patrick.
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p>
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p>I still fail to see where, or even how, Deval Patrick has not lived up to that… I mean, I don’t think he’s entirely succeeded in his efforts: the long hard slog is, after all, long and hard. But you are neither guaranteed an outcome, only the effort nor are you entitled to fire and brimstone progressive who’s going to grind the corrupt under his heel, which, don’t I know it, is the devout wish of most progressives.
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p> I do not think it’s accurate that Deval Patrick hasn’t ‘fought’ once in office. I think he’s gone toe-to-toe with the lege. But what did you think that was gonna look like? Did you think that Deval Patrick was going to personally frog-march Sal DiMasi into the sheriffs office? As aggrandizing a photo-op as that would be, it would still represent only a distraction. I think the same can be said of Barack Obama: many would love to see him personally escort Dubya and Cheney into the Hague. And as much as I’d like to see it, I think that Obama has a better read on how and/or when to pander to our baser natures (i.e. ‘never’).
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p>
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p>Well, I think that if the whole thing had gone according to how it was (loosely) planned we wouldn’t be talking in terms of ‘this time around’ or ‘Governor hasn’t been..’. I think that we would be using terms like ‘before and after’ or ‘not how it used to be..’
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p>I’m willing to believe that your critique of Deval Patrick is a fair one. But I don’t think at all complete, nor encompassing enough of who, exactly is at fault. My question to you, as it has been all along, is simply, “what did you think it would look like?” I’ve asked that question of myself many times. I’ve tried to ask it of others, with varying degrees of success. At heart, it’s a question less about Deval Patrick and more about you: “what did you think it would look like?” The answer that I’ve come up with, not entirely without regret, is that a truly progressive actor, in a state that can still elevate someone like Scott Brown to the Senate, might not be able to induct all that many progressive acts. Sad, but true. Perhaps you’ll come up with a different answer… but I doubt it. In short, I think it would look pretty much exactly like it does now. We would see a progressive actor in a regressive politick; straining against the tide; his allies powerful but feckless; his critics both gleeful and nasty; and a citizenry confused about their role and angry about their confusion.
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p>Deval Patrick is the best you’re going to get. From where I sit, I think that’s pretty good.
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p>
Can’t respond now, working again, but thanks for that. I really want to respond, but it may take a few days.
Patrick (whom I supported from the start in ’06) does have a decent record of accomplishment under the circumstances, but he’s going to have trouble cashing in on it.
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p>First off, “under the circumstances.” He’s had to abandon (or defer)some of his most interesting priorities. His initial budgets (House 1-2) have been unrealistic, and while his subsequent cuts have been well done, they certainly haven’t been popular. And his economic strategy is utterly implausible.
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p>Second, parts of his touted record aren’t really that good. The new ethics law, for example, is a disaster — a mishmash of elements that were variously bans, regulated activities, disclosure,and tax reporting rules, now torn from their original purposes in ways that potentially make almost all citizen political activity illegal. (There’s a reason the ACLU opposed it, you know.)
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p>Third, he’s a reform Democrat running as an incumbent. This is very tough, especially as “reform” in Massachusetts basically tends to mean “giving the Governor more control.” I’m all in favor of transportation reform, but eliminating the Pike board and vesting power in a regularpolitical appointee is hard to sell as reform.
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p>Fourth, casinos. This is a position that turns off his core constituency — it’s like Tipper on song lyrics in ’88. If it’s still an issue in November, it hurts him; if a bill passes, it’ll make a lot of voters more disaffected.
and to piggyback onto Mr. Punch I would agree that the record of success is a mixed bag.
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p>Charlie touts Ed reform. Really? You live in Medford; how is Charter School reform working out for you? Gloucester, yeah that was handled well. Race to the Top…rushed through to meet a federal deadline, was that real reform?
For me, there has been a troubling disconnect between the ideology stated and the plan stated during the campaign, and the style of governance actually exercised.
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p>Perhaps I was unrealistic, or over optimistic. Very possible.
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p>I expected to see a small “d” democratic style of governance supported.
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p>Instead, I see consolidated line items that further consolidate executive and managerial power, and weaken oversight. This seems to be universal, deliberate, and basic to the Patrick Administrations philosophy, even though where I first noticed it, and became concerned was in the judicial line items such as 0330-0300 and 0321-1500 & 0321-1510. Consolidated line items increase the power of the “CEO” and decrease light and air as to where the money goes. In my view, this is not good, not small “d” democratic, and not what I expected from a Patrick Administration.
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p>In addition, at least in the public dialogue, it is the “owners” who appear to have access and are listened to, not the governed or those who use public structures.
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p>I will happily listen to, and review any posts, news stories, studies or links that show otherwise; I cannot provide any myself.
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p>And that doesn’t mean I think Baker or Cahill would be better, or different in this regard. In fact, both would behave in the same fashion I believe, based on their track records and probably “more so”.
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p>Just that the spread between what I anticipated/expected/thought was promised and the reality is great enough that I don’t feel enthusiastic, though I wish I did.
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p>I suppose the early heads up was, in retrospect, the Corporate support for and style of inaugural party…nothing “Jacksonian democrat” about those bashes (hope some folk enjoyed them, though I didn’t much like the cold, echoing, gigantic one I attended).
Deval Patrick has fallen short (in my eyes) of the lofty expectations he encouraged others to have of him. That doesn’t in and of itself make him a progressive failure.
…though I did have a sense even during the campaign, even as I was being genuinely moved by the “just words” speech (later borrowed by Obama), that these were expectations no mortal could fulfill. Despite having that moment of clarity, it has been disappointing to see the reality unfold, and I think your frame, Deborah, of a consolidation of power and the owners having access, not the governed, rings true.
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p>For me, the “education reform” bill exemplifies this, in the way it disempowers teachers, erodes democratic oversight over schools and consolidates power in the hands of superintendents and the secretary of education.
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p>Thanks to Jim for starting this with his thoughtful, resonant post.
Watch Basic Black live TONIGHT (Thursday, 2/4) at 7:30 p.m. on ‘GBH 2 or streaming online at http://www.basicblack.org. As always, there will be a live chat accompanying the show, so you can tell us what YOU think. We will also be addressing Scott Brown’s recent meeting with clergy of color, as well as the president’s new plans to aid small businesses.
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I’ve been intrigued in comparing the leadership styles of Patrick and Obama. They are both technocratic leaders who got elected by playing at being transformative leaders. Patrick’s promise was to bring into state government a cohort of progressives who would begin to change the stodgy, conservative, Beacon Hill Democrats. Obama’s promise was to re-draw the electoral map creating a permanent majority by adding Democrats in the West and near-South, and force the Republicans into the deep South. Neither of these transformations is likely to happen. Patrick and Obama can be applauded for their technocratic accomplishments, rearranging the pieces on the playing board, but that’s about it.
I think that’s a good question, Jim, and a tough one.
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p>I know that it’s difficult to work hard for a candidate in whom one doesn’t truly believe — and candidates like that are gold. I personally don’t have a high opinion of Deval Patrick’s record, and personally don’t think he did much more than could and would have been done by his vanquished primary rivals back in 2006. On a progessive ledger, I don’t see much more than a reorganized flowchart of government bureaucracies, promotion of gambling, a nonsensical revenue policy, and a disastrous concept of public education.
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p>But it’s not 2006. And the question is how much Deval Patrick “adds value” compared to Charlie Baker. The difference in value of that “value-added” compared to the value of spending time with your home and family makes the decision. Given the current climate, it is possible that a Republican governor would have his vetoes sustained in the Legislature — giving the party switch even more grievous consequences.
As I said in reply to noternie’s comment, I’m not suggesting anyone sit this one out and spend time instead sealing my gutters (well, if anyone wants to do that, they’re welcome to come over any time, but I digress), nor am I saying that Charlie Baker is in any way an acceptable alternative. I’m just saying that for me as a progressive, in order to get excited about helping Patrick, I need to know what, specifically, he intends to do to fight against insiderism and creeping oligarchy. (“Creeping Oligarchy” – shouldn’t that be a band of some sort?).
Not sure its a good title for a band, unless it’s backing up Patti, but it’s now in my grading book joining “Schadenfreude Alert”, and “P.S. Needs Work”.
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You articulate so well frustrations and questions that I hope are shared by many progressives, including me.
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p>I registered as a Democrat in 2004 after being unenrolled for many years. I hoped that I would have more influence from the inside than from the outside.
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p>I am not starry eyed about the Democratic party. It has plenty of corruption to go around at both the national level and at the state house. Hopefully the recently passed ethics reform will lead to more respectable behavior on Beacon Hill. I continue to participate because the organizational framework (not the same as the leaders) plus some progressives in the ranks seem to offer the best chance of finding our way again as a small-d democratic society.
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p>As long as money is so important in campaigns, all officials, even the best intended ones, are forced to play ball with big donors. A push for laws that overturn the recent Supreme Court decision and for reinstatement of the MA Clean Elections law would be a very worthy effort.
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p>I couldn’t agree with you more. This is why I expect to give some help (not yet sure how much) to Deval Patrick, based on the list articulated above by Charlie. I plan to not lift a finger for Obama in 2012, unless he does an about face from going to bat for the oligarchy. Also, any candidate who works for campaign finance reform gets special help from me.
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p>I see the best place for action to be the local and down-ballot races, e.g. state rep, state senate, state treasurer, etc. These people are the farm team for higher office. These races are less influenced by big ad campaigns and more by neighbor to neighbor contacts. Imagine if these offices were packed with progressives.
Yes, I know he or she has a fair amount of plenary authority to move budget dollars around and to install officials in the executive branch. But if the last three years have shown a damn thing it’s that his or her power is very limited to actually accomplish any real substantive change. The best he or she can hope for is a sort of “government by press conference” that shames the entrenched legislators on Beacon Hill to do something. I used to mock Mitt Romney for this, but now I’m rethinking my view on its merits. And even when that works, it’s less than half a loaf because the plan gets watered down with side deals to the interest groups. I think Patrick maybe had a small chance to change this right after his election — chiefly by trying to foster a pro-reform Democrat bloc in the legislature. But he surrounded himself with political amateurs and likely lacked the stones for it anyway.
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p>So what are we going to get with Baker if Patrick loses? Assuming there will still be emergency spending cuts, they will fall in areas of the budget that I would rather not see. You will also likely see the appointment of several unqualified Republican hacks by virtue of the reality that there simply is not a deep enough Republican bench in Mass., especially among people who know their ass from a hole in the ground about public policy (Matt Amorello, holla! Question for JohnD and others wingers: what % of sitting Republican legislators over the last 20 years spent time in six-figure jobs in the Weld-Cellucci-Romney administrations? And how many of them got a pension bump for it?). So yeah, I’m not excited to see lumenaries like Todd Smola and Vinny deMacedo put in positions of power.
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p>On the upside, I think Baker would be even more willing to target some of the abuses of the public employee unions. On the downside, they would be just as D.O.A. as the reforms that Gov. Patrick has put forth. I would also count as an upside of a Baker administration seeing the Herald lose its raison d’etre.
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p>But otherwise… I think it would be business as usual. The agenda of Beacon Hill would still largely be shaped by Murray Money, DeLeo Dollars, Vice Chair stipends, officespace, and other such frivolous bullshit. The interest groups would still have a hammerlock on any legislation that threatens to take a pound of their flesh. Nothing of any real importance will get done about big issues like reining in our high cost of living — in housing, in healthcare, in education (which is just housing again, but that’s another post).
If Mass. Republicans can win over 1/3 of either chamber, the Republican governor’s vetoes would be sustained. That would be a sea change.
Unfortunately, they are not off to a good start. They would need to pick up 9 senate seats (and hold their current 5) or pick up 50 in the state house (and hold their current 16). The state senate is likely the easier path, but they also now have two open seats to deal with (Brown and Tisei).
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p>The legislative Rep caucuses are part of the reason why the system is dysfunctional. They are perfectly willing to trade voice votes on tough issues to get in on the gazebo gravy train. Moreover, they truly see themselves as part of a permanent gubenatorial campaign apperatus rather than a true legislative opposition. And their reward for this, as noted above, is a ticket to a top political appointee job.
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p>When you think about the “reform” issues (education, pensions, lobbying/CFR, featherbedding, quasi-state agencies, etc.), one would think the views of elected Republicans would be closer to Gov Patrick than the legislative leadership. But how many times do you open the Herald to see Brad Jones taking a shot at Gov. Patrick versus Bob DeLeo? Nuff said.
I’m loving this conversation, appreciate it, and want to jump in, but can’t because I’m still working. I promise I’ll respond after I get home tonight and the above-mentioned kiddies are in bed! Just didn’t want you’uns to think I’m one of these post and run kind of people.
Jim,
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p>I think this is a really important conversation, and I want to thank you for sharing your perspective.
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p>Let me make one thing very clear: we need you. We need your ideas, your energy, and your passion. In 2006, Deval Patrick made a promise that he would confront tough issues head on, even if it meant taking the less politically expedient path. Time and time again, the Governor has kept that promise, and the results are all around us and articulated in many of the responses on this blog. At the same time, we acknowledge that there have been bumps in the road, and please know that during those times we have relied upon your help and input, and will continue to do so going forward.
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p>So please stay engaged. I’d love to talk with you and anyone else who wishes to discuss this in greater detail. Send me an email sasbury@devalpatrick.com, or call me at 617-367-2010.
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p>Sydney Asbury
Campaign Manager
Deval Patrick for Governor
http://www.devalpatrick.com
Follow me on Twitter DP_Sydney
I can vouch for the fact that Sydney means what she says about talking to her. She reads and answers her email; she’ll talk to you on the phone. She’s asking you to engage. Take her up on it.
And yes, I will be supporting Deval Patrick – not because I am 100% satisfied, but because of those candidates running, he is the best in terms of believing in the power of government to help people.
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p>That being said, there is much that I do not like in terms of the message, and certain decisions as to governance; I believe I have been open and clear as to some of my concerns and will continue to try and have those concerns addressed.
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p>To sum it up – best in field albeit not what I had hoped for. The purpose of government is to act as a fiduciary for the body politic. That fiduciary role means that the weak must be cared for as a matter of honor – not only the powerful catered to and accommodated.
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p>Finding and heeding the voices of the powerless and ill, the orphan and the ward of the state is more work then ushering in lobbyists who are on message and on topic; that is their job and they do it professionally and competently.
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p>I continue to urge that this strong minded, intelligent Governor will act as “my brother’s keeper” for legal orphans, the disabled and challenged, the homeless and unemployed. In my opinion, it is the duty of the strong to nurture and assist and heal the ill and the weak.
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p>I have no hope at all that either Baker or Cahill will do so.
Beautifully put. I’ve got to say that the near reflexive reliance on budget cuts rather than recognizing the problem of budget shortfalls for what they are — a revenue problem — is one of the most frustrating things about the last couple of years.
Sydney:
Today is the one year anniversary of the infamous Paul Reville email. What are we doing to straighten out the Gloucester mess?
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p>http://vps28478.inmotionhosting.com/~bluema24/d…
When Deval ran in 2006, I undertook working for his campaign as a 2nd full time job. My level of enthusiasm was incredible. I spent 30-40 hours per week on the campaign and I loved it because my heart was really in it. I just thought Deval was the real deal. Things transpired that made me markedly less enthusiastic. Some had to do with his choice of management business people to run departments in EOHHS. The other had to do with what appeared to be a hands off level of involvement (he appointed secretaries and they made the decisions for each of their departments, case closed) Then there were just plain stupid things like Marian Walsh mess. Then there were the cuts in state government and how ineptly they have been handled. All these “reforms” that are touted, transportation, education, ethics, pension, how much real impact do they have? But what has really changed for me is the man himself, who I viewed as a tireless driven person dedicated to his beliefs. he does not come across that way anymore. Sadly for me, he comes across with the same old worn speeches lacking in the passion they once had.
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p>Despite my disappointment, I will work for the campaign, but not with the vigor and relish I did in 2006. Charlie Baker will slash and burn state services, particularly in EOHHS since that is the place so much of the budget goes. Tim Cahill is just unacceptable. So, Deval is my fall back position. That saddens me most of all.
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p>See you on the campaign trail. There won’t be any lilt in my step. I’ll be the one pushing myself.
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p>Rhonda
and we’re pretty much still 100 percent behind Deval. Our group tends towards a weird combo of pragmatic progressive, so we’ve not really internalized the disappointment others seem to have. The administration reversal on Chapter 71 was HUGE–I can’t even begin to describe the immense relief–and renewed faith–that engendered.
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p>Our town is pretty conservative, so I’m not all that hopeful there, but given the field and the way I think it’ll split, I’m optimistic. Deval has done a good job under the worse of circumstances. I’m fine with him and so are the rest of my committee members.
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p>Deval has our support–no reservations.
Perhaps my problem is that I know too much about some things.
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p>You can see it in some of my old posts, like this one old post but anyway, the consolidation of power in the hands of Robert Mulligan, the Chief Justice for Administration and Management, line item 0330-0300 and the lack of support for the private counsel sixth amendment bar – line item 0321-1510 is personally painful to me, as is the lack of support for the judicial branch generally.
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p>But, anyway, thanks for this discussion. I do not feel alone.
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p>I will support our party’s nominee dutifully.
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p>I admit, without that joyful enthusiasm I had based on expectations that were, in retrospect, not realistic.
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p>My support will be measured, reasonable, reality based, and based on firm boundaries without the zeal of a crusader. The issues that I care most about, and that are “personal” with me are still orphaned under this administration.
is the shelf-life on “joyful enthusiasm” in politics. I certainly understand and empathize with your disappointments–and we all internalize those things in our own way to find our personal peace with the process. This is sobering stuff; the giddiness wears off quickly enough after the election high. Conversely, the anguish wears off just as quickly after the election loss. Equilibrium, it appears, does its thing, and that’s okay.
There are a lot of disappointed progressives. As many have said above we have no place to go, but that doesn’t make us any less disappointed. And it will affect how hard people work on the campaign. In the current climate, that could have real consequences.
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p>Your post identifies the real problem: Deval campaigned like someone who really believed in changing the balance of power in the world. But when things got tough – the recession, push-back from the legislature – that seemed to disappear.
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p>There’s a limit to what a Governor can do; recessions make that clear. That’s why I believe that working to build organizations of people on the bottom end of society (such as labor unions) is more important than working for particular political candidates.
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p>We need strong, militant membership based organizations that can push whoever is in power in progressive directions.