As you probably know by now, Charlie Baker and his minions succeeded in denying Christy Mihos the 15% of delegates he needed to get on the ballot. As a result, Baker will run unopposed in the Republican primary for Governor, and can spend all his time between now and November attacking Deval Patrick Tim Cahill.
My question is: who is helped the most by this? Personally, I like primaries – I think they are good for the process, and also good for the successful candidate. Remember 2006? Kerry Healey was unopposed on the Republican side; there was a hotly-contested three-way Democratic primary race; and there was an independent candidate (named Christy Mihos, in an odd coincidence). For months, Healey couldn’t get the media to give her the time of day, whereas all the goings-on among the Dems were closely covered. As a result, when the general election rolled around, it was “Kerry who?”
I don’t think Baker will suffer quite that badly; after all, the local newsies love him a lot more than they loved Kerry Healey. And this year’s Democratic primary doesn’t show any signs of being quite the knock-down drag-out affair that we had in 2006. Still, methinks Baker should perhaps have been a bit more careful what he wished for.
In other news, I thoroughly enjoyed FOX25’s Joe Battenfeld’s hilarious tweets from the GOP convention. Specifically:
Now it’s official. Worst. Convention. Ever. GOP you owe me one day of my life. #fox 25
Am coining a new term for someone giving a horrible speech. “Politoed” As in, she “politoed” it. #fox25
I retweeted those, and then got this amusing reply:
@bluemass group be careful. This is worst convention only because Dems haven’t had theirs yet. Grace Ross will speak, remember?
Touché, Mr. Battenfeld, touché!
Good to see we have an objective journalist tweeting BMG. I was at the convention and enjoyed every minute of it. Maybe Mr B needs to find another job that does not require his objectivity.
Did the owner of this blog breach the trust of Mr Battenfeld by posting what may have been intended to be private discourse? If not Mr Battenfeld should be more careful with his tweets.
to visit Battenfeld’s twitter page. You will find the answer there.
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p>You don’t seem to know very much about twitter. No disrespect intended; just a straightforward observation.
I forgot I am in the presence of a genius.
and it’s clear that when in the presence of you and David, we’re only in the presence of one genius.
that Deval v. Grace Ross in the primary was good for Deval.
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p>He’ll win, and he won’t have to go ugly to do it. Grace Ross supporters will get active, and hopefully GR will convince them to get behind Deval when Patrick wins. In the mean time, it means more press for Patrick throughout the spring.
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p>Sure, the press likes Baker more than Healey, and this isn’t the shootout of 2006, but I do think it means more mileage for Patrick than he’d get otherwise.
He’s going to ignore her to the best of his ability from here until the convention or primary, depending on how far she gets.
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p>As far as the press is concerned, the general election is already on.
but I do think he would do well to schedule a debate with Grace Ross, fairly early. If he does well, schedule another.
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p>Spend all spring and summer talking about how cleaning up after 16 years of Republican governance takes time, but that he’s
* reformed pensions with the lege
* reformed police packages w.r.t. flaggers, Quinn Bill
* worked with lege and as executive on enviro issues like climate change
* helped generate jobs in MA — they’re on the upswing
* protected civil rights
* reformed transportation, including eliminating the 23-and-out MBTA deal (it’s now 25 years of service and 55 years of age to retire) and streamlining agencies with MassDOT
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p>The work isn’t over. Each of these items still need work; reforms often take a number of iterations. I’m sure pension work remains, the flag detail reform and Quincy are only partial solutions, there’ll always be more enviro issues and civil rights to protect, and the MBTA 25/55 is better, but it’s not good enough and 21st century transit will take substantially more time.
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p>The point is that every time he gets a platform he gets to point these things out. Free media is good media, especially with the sound-bite nature of paid media. Getting in the good graces of Patrick ’06 supporters will make a big difference in the ’10 election; he needs to remind people that he’s made tangible progress on issues.
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p>The more Grace Ross generates media coverage of the Democratic primary, the more opportunities Patrick has to remind supporters that he’s made that tangible progress.
He’s had kind words for her and expressed the idea that he’s not entitled to renomination and that a contest is good for democracy. I’m sure Ross will address the convention; don’t understand the idea in the original diary that that would be a bad thing. She’s not the choice of many of us, but she articulates our values well and isn’t an embarassment in anyway.
Wherever and whenever Grace Ross gets the chance to speak with groups of Democrats and labor activists, magic happens. The Democratic Convention will be no exception. She will have the delegates on their feet roaring. Grace is impossible to categorize, because there is no one else in Massachusetts quite like her. If you have her pigeon-holed, that only proves you don’t understand who she is and what is going down.
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p>As for the press, they always ignore insurgents who are on the side of the people. Look at what happened with Ed O’Reilley’s challenge to John Kerry. O’Reilley got almost zero press coverage. It was so bad that when the primary was over and I heard that he had gotten 38% if the primary vote, I had to go to the official state website to confirm it – because our dear old Boston Globe didn’t see fit to print it! Their whole story was “Kerry Wins”!
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p>But Grace – among other things – is one of the best organizers in Massachusetts, and it is foreseeable that she will do a masterful job of building a grass roots movement throughout the state that can communicate with and mobilize the voters, without big bucks for advertising and without the help of the networks and the big metro dailies, if necessary.
you’re suggesting that she might accomplish roughly what Deval Patrick accomplished last time. Maybe you’re right. But Deval started nearly two years before primary day, and he wasn’t running against an incumbent. Grace had better get moving.
there is no time for supporters to be sitting on their hands. Anyone who understands how much trouble we could be in this November without this campaign, anyone who sees what a huge opportunity it presents for reframing the terms of the political conversation, needs to act now.
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p>This may require people acting on faith, without waiting for all the evidence. Each person who does so becomes the evidence they seek.
Um, I think you’ve missed my point. This is what I said:
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p>To that, you responded along the lines of “people other than Grace had better get moving.” And that is precisely wrong. Grace is not well known in this state, so the number of “supporters” she has right now is almost trivially small. That is where Deval Patrick was in early 2005. About 19 months later, he won the primary. He did it by working his butt off throughout that time to bring people on board.
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p>No one is going to “act on faith” in this election, and it’s unreasonable to ask people to do so. If Grace and her core supporters don’t do the hard work of delivering the “evidence” people need before switching allegiances, I’m afraid the fault is theirs.
Grace – among other things – is one of the best organizers in Massachusetts
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p>I have nothing but respect for Ms. Ross and I am looking forward to meeting her in person next week, but I have trouble believing this claim. She was unable to secure a seat on the Worcester City Council. In addition, the caucus day organizing effort on her behalf — from what I’ve heard, read and directly experienced — was minimal in most of the state.