Today’s Globe has an interesting interview with Governor Patrick – the whole thing is worth reading. Of particular interest to BMGers, I thought, is this bit:
[In 2007, legislative leaders] didn’t like Patrick supporters trying to lobby them on his agenda, and they told the governor to knock it off. Patrick, a State House rookie among legislative graybeards, did, and the organization atrophied. But that was then.
Newly elected to a second term, Patrick is brimming with seasoned confidence, determined to avoid the mistakes he made last time and expressly unwilling to be cowed again by House and Senate leaders if they object to his backers’ activism.
“I’m not going to listen to that. That’s democracy,” Patrick said. “And if that’s a problem for people, get over it.”
That’s great to hear. My question for you is: what do you think that means? So far, as far as I know, nobody has really figured out how to keep a grassroots campaign organization energized and vibrant post-election. It didn’t happen here in 2007, and I don’t think it’s really happened in 2009-10 with OFA either.
So how should it work? What use should Deval 2.0 make of his campaign organization, which if anything was more impressive than the organization in 2006? How can an organization devoted to a single goal – winning an election – remain effective when it comes to advancing policy goals over time?
I’d really like to hear everyone’s thoughts on this. I think the Governor means what he says, and I think BMG can have a real role to play in this going forward.
Other noteworthy tidbits from the article are the Governor’s apparent lack of interest in two things: putting a lot of energy into casinos, and asking Charlie Baker to advise or otherwise participate in his second administration. Both good calls, IMHO.
Deval needs to get more folks involved in active, positive, productive governing and politics.
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p>That means figuring out how to get more of his supporters to show up at open town meeting, to run for representative town meeting, and to show up at city hall. That means more folks showing up at open meetings and hearings, more people working for a better local government.
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p>That means more people reading — and writing to — both the Globe and the Herald (as well as everything from the free weeklies to the national magazines), and writing positive and productive letters to the editors. That means people clamoring for more better news reporting.
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p>That means more people communicating their wishes to their state reps and senators more often. Let ’em know. Same goes for their federal officials.
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p>That means more folks showing up to rallies, marches, or other public events. That means more folks joining a “friends of” group or other civic group. That means more folks showing up to help at food banks, shelters, tutoring sessions, and volunteering at senior centers.
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p>Really. I think he needs to give Alan Khazei a call.
Let’s reach for that. (To coin a phrase!)
This link gives 256 letters to the Editor links and I ought to know, I use them.
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p>Sometimes a link is down, but not mostly – also USA Today (etc.) are included.
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p>Sometime I could give a brief workshop or pointers or practice session on writing letters that get published, from length, to the “tone” of a publication – to “hooks” and how to use them from current events.
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p>I do get published – frequently. Of course, I fact check, contact the reporters who have written stories with additional background or thank you (when I really mean it only)…etc.
It aint gonna happen, Deval will go back to the way he governed the last two years, a little less naive about politics, a little less focused on progressive politics. He didn’t need progressives to win, he ended up winning over the independents, partly because Baker and Cahill alienated them by veering to the right, and partly because he ran away from the liberal and progressive label and as a centrist manager competently keeping the economy stable.
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p>If the revenues come in if the economy gets better, we might see some of the 2006 promises. But I doubt it. He needs the hacks more than he needs us. The bigger problem for progressives is creating an organization like OFA and the Patrick group that is not attached to a candidate or party. Only then will it have the independence to take on entrenched incumbents and change the lege-which is where the real power is.
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p>Patrick backed Wilkerson over Chang-Diaz, Obama backed Specter and Lincoln over Halter and Sestak. They are pragmatists first and that made sense in the short term, but in the long run the change they actually want and their supporters want requires new blood, new leadership, and new ideas. You won’t get it from Patrick, he has no incentive to do so.
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p>And Khazei? A third place Senate primary candidate is really the guy to turn to? Give me a break
but I doubt it.
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p>As for Khazei, when you’ve accomplished as much as he has, why don’t you get back to me.
I’m only 22 and I’ve already accomplished a lot and can’t wait to accomplish a whole lot more, way to put down the ambitions of the youth David. I busted my ass to get this President elected in Iowa, busted my butt to get Deval elected in 06, worked to secure this country at the State Department, worked to improve education at the Mayors Office and Chicago Public Schools. And it really isn’t my fault I’m currently at a dead end job now, this economy is terrible especially for those that want to make a difference. Your sarcasm is not appreciated. If Khazei bothered to use some of his millions to feed his workers I’d have been down to join City Year, but the horror stories I heard from alumnus made me pause.
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p>Not by you, perhaps. đŸ˜‰
I think all of us get that you are 22.
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p>Wisdom is something that we haven’t yet learned how to teach, and it generally takes something approaching 30-40 years to acquire. The closest substitute we’ve discovered — and it is woefully inadequate — is respect for your elders, combined with an insatiable appetite for real history (the kind that does NOT get taught in schools and churches).
Dude,
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p>I think it’s great that you’ve worked on campaigns and in some interesting places, but taking a swipe at Alan Khazei as a “third place Senate primary candidate” is just unnecessary. Nobody wants to turn to Alan because of his cutting-edge political skills – it’s his commitment to idealism, civic engagement and an elevated public discourse that they’re interested in. That section of your post was a cheap shot and you got a cheap shot in return (which you tried to rebut by pointing out your campaign experience and jobs at public agencies, all of which are laudable but hardly qualify as “accomplishments” in the sense David used the term).
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p>PS – City Year’s pay is terrible, that’s not the point. Did you know every year as many as two City Year alumni can 50% of a Northeastern University MBA paid for in addition to the education award they receive for service? The stipend is part of the culture of the organization, not a deliberate short from Mr. Khazei.
Did he listen to us on casinos? Did he listen to us on charter schools? Did he listen to use on revisiting and reforming Romneycare? The tax code? Getting Cape Wind off the ground? When Deval stops taking you for granted get back to me.
with the idea that it should not be centered around a particular candidate. I am thrilled that Deval won and stand ready to do whatever I can to help advance his agenda, to the extent that his agenda is a liberal/progressive one. Stomv is right, we need to get more people actively engaged in governing through things like attending open town meeting or going to city council and selectmen meetings.
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p>It cannot be something that is top-down in structure that is attached to a candidate because then what happens when that person pushes for something like casinos, that is by and large hugely unpopular with those grassroots supporters? I know that there are people who are much smarter than me and can probably articulate it better than I can but whatever shape this organization takes it should obviously support the Governor and put pressure on the institutions to bring about the change we would like to see but also independent so that it is able to hold the Governor or other Democratic party leaders accountable when they need to be.
might be a little cracked, but that’s the great thing about making predictions: most of the time, no one really remembers you made a prediction to begin with. So there’s no accountability.
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p>Logically, making predictions uses tomorrow as support for the today’s assertions. It’s fun, but heuristically not particularly useful.
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p>Also I know the Governor and President are friends, but why are they comparable? And even if they are comparable in some ways, why is the comparison appropriate here?
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p>Governor Patrick will certainly be hamstrung by the economy; however, there have been indications that this will be his last term. If that’s the case, he’s as likely to want to leave a legacy as he is to play it safe.
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p>If Patrick’s truly progressive, (unlike Obama who was never really a progressive), the next four years represent an opportunity to push his agenda.
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p>If he has national ambitions–senator, perhaps–, he’ll also want to build a record to run on. Playing it safe isn’t likely to do that.
He didn’t need progressives to win
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p>Didn’t I read somewhere that there was a massive volunteer get out the vote effort that came together in the last few weeks of the campaign? If true, I would imagine that one or two progressives would have managed to get involved with that.
you’re muddying everything up with inconvenient facts. Cut it out, willya? đŸ˜‰
I think that you are truly onto something but I think there needs to be a team of representative grassroots leaders not just the ones with privilege and means (education and economic) along with (undoubtedly) hard work who have learned to “talk the talk”, to be out front.
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p>Those working class folks who were the lunch-pail Democrats do not relate to the Khazeis, Huffingtons, Kennedys, Kerrys of the world and apparently not the Obamas and Patricks either.
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p>We need a political advertising/media campaign off-election season. Just like the phones, people tune out during the saturation weeks.
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p>Lets get Tim Murray out front now to be positioned for Governor in 2014….setting the stage and face of the average kid who worked his way up the ranks. Lets get the faces of women, working class and people of color to re-define the Democratic Party in Massachusetts…. and not just as a target group for votes at election time, but the core and the leadership of the party.
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p>Let’s get serious about choosing the best US Senate candidate early in – as in really soon. A bloody Democratic primary will leave no resources for the real election. My advice to any potential US Senate candidate is run against the Republican from jump-street and do not even glance sideways. You can bet the Republicans are counting on us to be splintered six ways to Sunday for the US Senate primary.
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p>If we are not focused on 2012 and 2014 now, we are too late.
My solemn prayer for His Excellency Governor Deval L. Patrick is that he govern from his deepest sense of justice and truth listening to his “roots”. Whatever comes, if that is the path, he will serve us well.
I ask the following questions, not too different from what I was asking back in 2006:
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p>-What’s the strategy? If Legislator X opposes Deval, are you going to find a primary opponent for him/her in 2012? A lot of angry emails from Cambridge, Amherst, or Fall River aren’t going to mean much to somebody in Kingston. Either go against fellow Democrats or not…landing in the middle just makes you seem all talk, no action.
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p>-What’s the range of opinion? It’s easy to unite behind Deval when he speaks in general terms, and the alternatives suck. However, when an activist and Deval are on different sides of an issue (gas tax, gambling), what then? Bombarding a member of an organization with emails directing him/her to “take action” in support of something they oppose will winnow the list quickly.
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p>-What’s the purpose? To tap into an easy network if/when somebody runs for something else? What would Deval 2.0 offer on, say, housing, that pressure groups already extant in the Commonwealth don’t? What’s the risk of further division of the progressive movement?
You haven’t accomplished anything Sabutai and can’t question the great Wizard of Milton.
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p>Deval lucked out with really inept opponents, a base that did not turn on him like it did on Obama, and the fact that moderates and independents aren’t afraid of him like they are of Obama, mainly because he has managed our economy a lot better. The comparisons are apt because they both ran as transformational leaders using the same campaign manager, same campaign slogans, same young idealists as volunteers (rubes like me), and are now both forced to scale back significantly from their bold promises, partly because of economic realities but also because of inability to legislate effectively and move insiders to get anything done. They both could have used outside pressure from their organizations to get things done and didn’t. And actually OFA was a lot better IMO, they called me to join meetups to pressure local legislators to vote for health care reform, and it wasn’t just in Hyde Park, friends in Maryland and the Cambridge OFA called me too. I’ve heard nothing from Deval unless he wants campaign cash or volunteer time. Its all about him, not about policy at all.
Its not entirely the candidates faults either, its very difficult to train a political campaign into a governing movement. Very very hard and the skill set required is vastly different. Its a lot easier to get someone to vote for a candidate than it is to convince them to support a policy. A candidate has a face, a message, and a deeper personal connection to someone than a cause. Anyone whose worked on environmental campaigns can back me up, its a lot harder to campaign for policies and lobby legislators than it is to campaign.
I was starting to wonder why such the chip on your shoulder. I’ve given several of your comments 4s tonight, as much for tone as anything else.
The communication to legislators obviously to me have to come from their own constituents. That’s why you need a base of support distributed throughout the state. I’d primary only if the legislator consistently opposes the agenda.
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p>If the Governor asks for help on something like casinos, his supporters are free to say no thanks, I’ll sit this fight out. Ideally there would be a forum for feedback to tell the Governor he does not have his base’s support on this issue.
I just finished talking about this in @jkleschinsky’s An open letter to the Democratic Party here: http://vps28478.inmotionhosting.com/~bluema24/showC…
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p>But, I thought it bares repeating here…
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p>There are some positive things I think the party can and must do to inform and activate members, and there are some things the Deval Patrick Committee and Governor’s Office can and should do with the the lists they can respectively access. But, with one exception, advocacy shouldn’t be one of them.
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p>The only exception is urging members to contact Senator Brown when he’s towing the Republican Party line and voting against the rest of the delegation. And only when you’re prepared to make the case that he’s doing the wrong thing for MA. If ever there were something that all Democrats in both chambers of Beacon Hill supported and all the Republicans opposed, we should highlight that as well.
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p>But, it is a mistake to assume that everyone will support the Governor’s agenda just because the people supported his candidacy. And even if they do, I’m not sure using the campaign apparatus to take it to the people will yield productive results in continuing to have a productive legislative body.
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p>To skip a few bullet points and summarize, I would like to see the Gov’s campaign and the party help connect supporters to organizations they are partnering with to push legislation. This gives supporters an opportunity to stay involved in between elections, helps build organizations that are supportive of their agenda, and strengthens the organizing aperaptus that can help advance the Gov’s agenda without him having to be in the middle of it.
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p>There were a few other thoughts I hope will be considered included in the comment here: http://vps28478.inmotionhosting.com/~bluema24/showC…