I’d like to see Elizabeth Warren win the Democratic primary. But it doesn’t make me happy to see the other candidates start to drop out. Bob Massie states that the race has changed such that he doesn’t think he can win, and perhaps he’s right. I don’t begrudge him this decision; campaigning is very hard work and if he thinks he doesn’t have a shot, dropping out is a very sane move. But it saddens me, coming on the heels of Setti Warren’s exit from the race, and makes me worry that we’ll soon see others drop out.
I want to see Elizabeth Warren win the primary.
I want to see her win a real, contested primary.
I want to see televised debates between Democratic candidates.
I want to see the press cover them all.
I want people to register to vote in a primary that they can see really matters.
I want to help the Warren campaign draw people out to vote for a primary they know will make a difference.
I want us to be prepared for the general election, with the best candidate we can have, and a real primary is possibly the best tool we have to make that happen.
And if one of the other candidates beats her, well, they’ll have had to have gotten really good to do that, because it’s going to be hard to beat her. So if one of them does it, they’ll be great. If they’re not great, they won’t beat her. It’s a win-win situation.
What do I mean by “behaving differently” if what is desired is a vigorous, meaningful, interesting primary ?
Well, avoiding early, gushing endorsements before a single debate has happened.
Covering multiple issues, not just one issue.
Equal media coverage – not just debates. Equal sound bites, and equal event coverage.
Oh – and why not give $50.00 to each candidate followed by “wait and see”??
As it is, getting covers on the front pages of both papers JUST FOR ENTERING THE RACE sends a certain message that, in fact, has been a major turnoff to the 20-35 age group involved in the Occupy Movement.
How about avoiding huge out of state PAC donations from anonymous out of state donors at the same time having donations dry up for all other candidates – that is no way to convince an electorate that the primary “matters” – it makes the primary look like a done deal orchestrated by power brokers. The theater is bad, the script is bad, and the result is that a good statesman knows when to “fold them” due to good reality contact. A compassionate statesman will avoid bleeding supporters of modest means who are donating more than they can actually afford to remain in a race that has all the look and feel of an orchestrated attempt to anoint the preferred candidate of those big money PACs. I hope that Alan Khazei can stay the course, and Tom Conroy too; and I think Marisa DeFranco is one tough cookie and won’t bow out, but she will do that in part by not having paid staff and running on a shoestring.
For now, count me in the undecided colume – as well as the unimpressed column.
I agree with your sentiments that our job as a politically plugged-in electorate is to generate as thorough a vetting as possible, and that early endorsements and early campaign work may not help. In fact, it is in a large part your comments which have resulted in my *not* picking a horse just yet, although I do have my favorites.
I agree with your sentiments that the media doesn’t do a great job of balancing the press coverage of candidates, although in part that is their perception of their readers’ interests… it’s a hell of a lot easier to be a candidate than to be a viable candidate, and some candidates will never ever be viable.
However, I disagree with your sentiments toward the candidates. It is the job of each of them to win the general election, and each of them should maximize chances of winning that election, subject to legal and ethical boundaries.
we’ve learned what great talent Massachusetts has in political leaders. It’s a very competitive field of accomplished, intelligent and articulate candidates.
Elizabeth Warren has drawn national respect as a fighter for the middleclass during a period of crisis, when too much of the attention has been focused on helping those who are too big too fail. She is not some come out of nowhere candidate with manufactured support. She is the dream candidate of those around the nation who have been searching for someone willing to risk speaking truth to power.
These are great activists running and I can see looking at all the candidates and choosing anyone of them.
But, if you are unimpressed with Elizabeth Warren you have not done your due diligence.
Sorry, but you don’t speak for “the 20-35 age group involved in the Occupy Movement.” Just speaking for me personally: a woman who’s campaign is based around fighting Wall Street is basically the last thing I’m worried about.
I’m offended by the presumption that you know what is a major turnoff to the 20-35 age group. As an actual member of that age group, I wasn’t turned off by the media coverage at all. I saw it as a recognition of reality. The other candidates haven’t done anything to demonstrate they could be viable against Scott Brown.The biggest factor in media coverage is the candidate’s campaign skills. If the candidates don’t know how to get themselves favorable media coverage now, they won’t in general. Don’t blame the Warren campaign or the media because the other candidates don’t know what they’re doing.
As a member of the Massie campaign, I don’t blame Warren for the media blitz surrounding her campaign; she certainly didn’t force them to write anything. But to chalk up the barrage to “superior campaign skills” is a little much. The wave started before she even declared, while she was still up for the CFPB slot. Once the rush started, Warren became the dominant storyline without saying a single thing.
Setti assembled one of the best media and field teams out of the gate, with many of the Governor’s staff on board. Yet despite both their and his campaign savvy, he was never able to shake the “lightweight” label which unfortunately afflicted the entire field from the get go.
Has E. Warren used this advantage effectively? Absolutely, and good for her. And everything I’ve seen so far tells me she’ll be a great campaigner, candidate, and (probably/hopefully) Senator. But realize that this was not a storm entirely of her making; it was the product of name recognition, and forces outside the control of any candidate.
We are 13 months out from the general election, yet it seems like this senate race has been going on forever.
In that context, I have to say that the current field of non-Elizabethans in the race have considerable time to inspire the base. The fact is, nobody caught fire and you could tell that people were sitting around waiting for something to happen to change the dynamic. That’s why Elizabeth Warren took off.
Alan Khazei should read the tea leaves, because they are stirring the tea cup with a fork. In 2009, Khazei got 13% of the vote. Out of 351 towns in the Commonwealth, Khazei won Alford. Khazei beat Coakley by 12 votes in Alford. Khazei got 37 votes total in Alford.
Alford is one of the most beautiful towns on the Commonwealth, but Khazei hasn’t been able to build on that bucolic base. Khazei had a year to build on that base, but he hasn’t. I don’t see many people who had a different candidate in 2009 running to Khazei. I haven’t seen much traffic at BMG where people said, “I was with someone else in 2009 but I was really impressed by Khazei and I am going to be for him in 2012.” If Khazei doubles his support from 2009, he will be buried in the primary, and I don’t see that doubling happening.
Conroy and DeFranco have a reason for staying in the race, raising name recognition and making friends for the future. However, every time I see Khazei i see the fork that has been visibly sticking in him for several months. He’s done.
If we can’t speak for people other than ourselves, traffic is going to get really light.
The ROI by spent by every municipality is not worth the turnout for a process that is antiquated and does not nothing but narrow choices for the voters.
It is an archaic vestige of the past when partisan party politics were robust. With the majority of voters Unenrolled, primaries should be eliminated. Those served are only those who cling to the status-quo.
Drop the primary.
I don’t think the rise of the unenrolled is the reason for dumping the primary. The decline of the GOP is why we should change the system.
How about a preliminary election instead of a primary? Top two vote-getters move on to the general, regardless of party affiliation. We could have two Democrats, two Republicans, a Democrat and a Green, a Republican and an unenrolled, lots of interesting and meaningful choices that will provide a choice in the most partisan of districts.
AKA nonpartisan blanket primaries, Cajun primaries, top-two primaries, etc. They’re TERRIBLE.
Consider: 5 candidates:
GOP: 26%
TEA: 19%
DEM1: 18%
DEM2: 15%
DEM3: 14%
GR: 5%
other(s): 3%
With four liberal candidates and two conservative candidates, the liberal vote (52%) gets no finalist, whereas the conservative vote (45%) gets both finalists. The problem is that, fundamentally, the outcome is in a substantial part determined by how many candidates of each persuasion get in the race. In that sense, you’re creating an inverse relationship between the number of candidates of a given persuasion who think they can win and the likelihood of any of those candidates of that persuasion winning. It’s a terrible setup.
Now, this can be changed. One way is to allow each person to select as many candidates as they like; the top two are finalists. This isn’t great either if there are more than two candidates from a party though, because it again invites strange strategic voting. Of DEM1, DEM2, and DEM3, if I vote them all then I don’t get to influence which of the two are finalists; if I only vote for two then there’s a chance that the third, which I like a little bit less, gets edged out of a final two spot by one of the other three candidates.
Methinks that you keep the primaries, but you also should allow fusion voting. That’s where a single candidate can represent more than one party. For example, a Democratic candidate could also run for the G-R primary. If she wins both primaries, she’s on the ballot twice — as a Dem and as a G-R [votes get added together]. If she only wins one of those primaries, she’s on the ballot representing that party. This preserves the possibility of a multi-person race in the general [not just a top-two], is supportive of minor parties because it allows them to work with the major parties, and recognizes that not every political issue is a simple Dem vs. GOP.
Fusion voting and same day registration. ‘Twould be a much better system than MA uses now.
Top two with an instant runoff is fine with me.
I am only reporting what I heard. You can choose to believe that report, or not. I assure you, “Long”, comments like those you made at 1:04 AM today are GUARENTEED to offend people – at least you offended me. Such comments are likely to ensure that folks like me take a “wait and see” until after the primary stance with regard to EW. Such derogatory, hostile, offensive statements do not help your candidate at all.
I assure you, I and many, many, many others WERE “turned off”, “annoyed”, “grossed out” and otherwise NOT favorably impressed by the immediate media swoon. Just the truth. Take it or leave it.
As to a “recognition of reality” – NAH – a manipulation used to create an appearance and thereby form reality, IMHO. Sadly, the manipulation (for so I see it) worked.
Yes, it is the “job” of a candidate to win the nomination, but going about winning the nomination in a way that alienates large enough blocks of voters loses the election later – Silber’s run for the Governorship is a clear case in point.
As a liberal Democrat, I am not about to endorse a candidate that has taken no position at all on several vital issues. EW has a very brief “Priorities” page on her web site that mentions renewable energy but takes no position on the reality of global warming and does not mention civil liberties. My candidate Tom Conroy, OTOH, has several pages of detailed positions on the issues (the same was true of Bob Massie). In addition, Tom as a legislator has voted for marriage equality, against the death penalty, and against predatory gambling; these are just a few examples of progressive votes he has taken.
Don’t get me wrong. EW has fought a great fight for middle class families vs. Wall Street and the banks, and I will certainly vote for her against Scott Brown if she is the nominee. But these are not the only issues.
Scott Brown is going to quit just because Warren is in the race. She needs to practice against real opposition.
Lots of candidates look good on paper, or for one debate. I hope Khazei and Conroy stay in there in case Warren isn’t the best candidate for the post, we won’t be stuck with her.
I fully “get” that as a consumer advocate, and in a certain area of economic professorial research, and later in the Obama administration she is a well-known expert on a particular issue. Just as Sabutai said, “Scott Brown is NOT going to quit because Elizabeth Warren is in the race” and I might add, soaking up donations from the Democratic upper crust – but Elizabeth Warren needs to earn her chops on other issues than the “middle class” – as a practical matter, the so-called “middle class” may be at most 10-15% of the electorate (college educated professionals and employees of nonprofits who do tend to vote Democratic) – it is the other 60-70% of the voters who don’t follow economic academics, or who, like me, have other issues that are higher up in our priorities. None of the candidates, to date, for example have addressed these issues: 1) Access to justice; 2) Separation of powers; 3) independence of the judiciary. I could go on. Being a senator is not just about advocacy for one economic group.
As a practical matter, the best laws in the world are no more than window dressing if the very people the laws were supposedly enacted to protect are not protected because the courts are closed to them, or the laws are not actually enforced or there is at best selective enforcement.
In a perfect world, I would love to know the candidates positions on the issues you enumerate and several others as well (transportation infrastructure, human rights, etc). It seems to me that ONE issue will trump all of these for the foreseeable future: class warfare.
In my view, the Occupy-XXX movement is MUCH more than a momentary collection of protests. I think that it is a left-wing populist movement, truly emerging from real people, that finally challenges the class warfare that the GOP has been waging (aided and abetted by the mainstream media and the Democrats) for decades.
I think that Scott Brown was elected because of this upwelling of anger against “the establishment” (to use a trite phrase from the sixties). I think Martha Coakley was a TERRIBLE candidate because she was completely tone-deaf to what was really going on. Scott Brown pandered to it with his pickup truck and won. The tea party has pandered to it and surged because the Democrats have (for whatever reasons) been as tone-deaf to what’s really going on as Martha Coakley.
So, I think the ONLY question that matters in the upcoming general election against Scott Brown is whether or not the Democratic candidate can peel away the Occupy-XXX energy from Scott Brown. I think the Democratic candidate MUST be the candidate who can best expose the economic lies of the GOP, the tea party, and Scott Brown.
I think the Democratic candidate MUST be the candidate who is most effective at leading the public to SEE and ADMIT the class warfare that the GOP — in the service of Wall Street and corporatist America — has waged for decades, and who is most effective at FIGHTING BACK.
I have great admiration for each of the other candidates. In another time and another election, I would eagerly support any of them (well, maybe not Herb Robinson).
In THIS time and THIS election, of the candidates who put themselves forward for 2012, the candidate who can best fight the class war that MUST be fought is Elizabeth Warren.
–on Occupy Boston’s resolution to make common cause with indigenous peoples? How does her childhood in the Indian Nation inform this?
… hearing are the issues that people really care about, I feel I have to point out the following:
“1) Access to justice;” – not going to swing an election.
“2) Separation of powers;”- not going to swing an election
“3) independence of the judiciary.” – not going to swing an election
“I could go on.” – I’d hate for us go deep into the weeds to find other pet issues, however important, and consequently forget the lesson that G. H. W. Bush learned the hard way.
Now more than ever, it’s the economy and that will swing the election. It’s going to be about who you feel is more on your side in this era of the economic divide. However much of the electorate is middle class or know about economic academics, they all feel the pinch of this economy.
The thing that I like about what Warren brings is this: her message is clear, it’s salient toward the major issue of the election, she has a long long track record of being on the right side of this issue since long long long before she ever thought she’d run for anything. The front she brings to the Brown fight is a tough one for him to assail. The best he can bring is ‘elitist’ and MA voters will see through that as soon as the details become part of the ad campaigns.
My 2 cents.
(Note to editors: Lately when I click reply under a comment the box comes out all skewed and it will not let me click the submit button, hence my putting this comment at the end of the thread.)
Why is it OK for you to have picked a candidate very early (not that I’m complaining on the merits – Bob Massie was one of my top choices) before there even were other candidates in the race, but it’s not OK for other people and organizations to do the same?
Primaries are good. – promoted by david
Not always.
Next year’s Senate and state legislative primary will be September 18, 2012. Election day is November 6, 2012. The winner of the primary has 49 days to unify the party, refill a depleted campaign warchest, and redirect the campaign against the opposing party’s candidate.
I am undecided (but leaning Warren at this point), and I agree that Elizabeth Warren needs competition within the Democratic Party if she is going to run a successful campaign against Scott
WalkerBrown.I need to see her in a few more debates, I need to see her tested in a friendly environment, before I let my heart wrap itself around another statewide campaign.
However, I want this settled way before September 18, 2012. I want everything settled by the second week in June. Everyone has the summer to recover from the primary, take a vacation, and we can come back happy and unified on Labor Day. We should go into September unified, ready to elect a Democratic president, Democratic senator, Democratic governor, Democratic legislature, and not frittering away a third of the fall campaign season with intra-party competition.
There’s too much at stake to play process games in September. For that reason, I hope we have other candidates competing for delegates and campaigning into February. If Elizabeth Warren does well leading up to the caucuses, then a candidate with no real chance of winning should do the right thing and find the dignified exit.
Meanwhile, let’s get some real election reform and move our state primary out of late September, and I will find the prospect of running spirited primaries a lot more attractive.
David is right. Primaries are always good.
You could make a case that the primary is too close to the general, but you can’t argue against having a primary. It’s un-democratic, and I think you’d agree if the field was more even. But the field will most likely get more even.
It approaches obvious that any assertion about politics with the qualifier “always” is false. Politics differs in this way from the axioms from plane geometry.
The challenge is to answer pablo’s very concrete objections rather than to invoke a questionably universal principle.
Answer the following question, while singing the Beach Boys 1965 hit song, Help Me Rhombus.
1. A rhombus is a square.
(a) always
(b) sometimes
(c) never
2. A rhombus is a parallelogram.
(a) always
(b) sometimes
(c) never
3. A square is a rhombus.
(a) always
(b) sometimes
(c) never
4. A primary is a good thing.
(a) always
(b) sometimes
(c) never
answers: 1 (b), 2 (a), 3 (a), 4 (b)
This is a participatory democracy.
Granted, that may be less obvious at times.
This is an argument against a primary:
Sorry to hear that democracy is now a questionably universal principle. At least we still have convenience.
This is an argument against a weak candidate, not a primary.
The over-arching purpose of a primary is to select the candidate most likely to prevail in the general election. When a candidate “with no real chance of winning” stays in, it only distracts the voters, the media, and the nominee. Yes, some candidates may benefit from “sparring partners” — but that is a fringe benefit, not a reason to sustain a failed candidacy.
The objection here is to a September primary.
Nobody is challenging “democracy”, your final sentence is over the top. A more constructive response might be to offer your enthusiasm towards moving the primary to, say, May or June.
Let’s be constructive then. Everyone went in to this knowing the date of the primary. I’ve not heard this issue raised before. Maybe it came up in 2006, and I’m forgetting.
I’d be willing to consider a May or June primary, but such timing would not always be beneficial. You’d give the nominee more time to make mistakes as the nominee (as opposed to making them as a potential nominee — see Edwards, John). And as they say, you don’t change the game in the middle of the rules. Or something.
I know, without doubt, that no one here is against democracy. But, sorry, saying “There’s too much at stake” and ergo candidates low in the polls should withdraw IS an anti-democratic argument. A lot can happen in 11 months.
Everyone went into the race knowing the date of the primary. That’s not the issue. The issue is that the date of the primary is bad for democracy, because it places the party with the primary (usually the Democrats) at a disadvantage.
A spring primary, I love it. It’s good for democracy. A late September primary hurts democracy, and hurts the party with the primary.
I didn’t downrate ST’s comment. Any progress on the ratings thing? Someone suggested disabling ratings altogether, a view I’m coming around to.
Tangentially, I know the editors are getting inundated with “suggestions,” but these drive-by downratings really do hinder the BMG experience. Thanks for listening.
…any chance of including the ratings on the ‘my comments page?
I generally ignore these ratings. I didn’t think it came from you, and I have no problem with our exchanges.
We should all make a practice of giving everyone on every thread a thumbs up so that the thumbs down signal is drowned out completely.
If you look at charts of the extremely slow public acceptance of inter-racial marriage, you might likewise doubt whether deciding everything in voting booths should be elevated into a universal principle. Hooray for the judiciary!
You’re arguing from slogans here, jimc. The world’s too complex for that.
*
That said, I wish you hadn’t been awarded with a thumbs down. Sort of unpleasant. Even though I disagree with you, I’m tempted to balance it.
I’m not sure why this discussion of candidates in an election has to expand to include court cases.
pablo said, if the candidates can’t win (before the vote), they should withdraw. Maybe that’s not what he meant, and he did say he wanted an earlier primary, but if you look above he cited the caucuses, which are in February, three or four months earlier than his proposed primary.
That proposal, quite simply, violates the principle of voter choice, and implies that some notion of pragmatism should carry the day — because there’s too much at stake, pablo said.
So, in pointing this out, I’m arguing from slogans? Really? I don’t think so, but there we are.
I didn’t hear pablo say that primaries aren’t good.
Instead, I heard him say that the current September primary is bad, and I agree. I’d like to see us have a candidate selected much earlier than September — not just for this election, but for every election.
What more is there to say? This is how things are run in MA. Just check look at the legislative process.
First of all, the legislative process is totally off topic, the discussion here is primary elections.
Secondly, there are many examples of robustly contested primary elections on the Democratic side. For example: the 2010 Auditor race. Even facing concerns that having Mike Lake as a third candidate would have thrown the race to conservadem Glodis, we still got him through the convention nominating process. In the end, it turned out these concerns were irrelevant, as Mike Lake built his own base of support (many of whom may not have voted in a primary otherwise). Another example is the 2009 special primary for US Senate. So, don’t say that we arbitrarily kick people out of our nomination process.
That is what the GOP usually does, like Jane Swift getting pushed aside by Mitt Romney in 2002 & Christy Mihos being pushed aside by Charlie Baker in 2010.
Elizabeth Warren has personally done nothing to deserve disdain from the left other than accept the challenge that some believe she’s the best shot the Dems have of defeating Scott Brown. Yes, it would be great to see her take positions on more issues. She’s been in the race a month. It’ll happen. I’m not saying anyone should just support her because of what’s happened so far. A robust primary process is mostly good (though very fair points about the difficulty in booking ads and putting together a unity campaign in 6 weeks… maybe we should be looking at that process more carefully).
It is frustrating that this campaign came from DC. Definitely a reason for pause, a reason to question her, but for me that comes second to what she actually has to say. It is not the media that is creating excitement about Warren in the liberal base. It’s the house parties they’ve attended.
It seems like she tapped into the #occupy movement before it even happened. Her advocacy for consumers, her taking the fight to banks and Wall Street, her being enemy #1 in their eyes, her fighting to create an agency against powerful forces, her putting herself in the line of fire of the GOP Congress … that’s what made her a folk hero. The issues she talks about are the #occupy issues: that the bargain our middle class has had for generations has been rescinded. The power of the 1% has overwhelmed the power of the 99%. Does she have all the answers for the 99%? Surely not enough. Does anyone? But we know she’s fought for the 99%, and we know who she’ll be for in the Senate.
A primary is good. But what isn’t reasonable is people complaining about media coverage. Coverage is never granted, it is earned? The press wants nothing more than competition to sell papers. They don’t see it. So far, neither do I. I’ve been waiting to get excited about someone besides EW. It just hasn’t happened. The five remaining and two previous candidates are good people, good politicians, and well-meaning. But they haven’t electrified the public.
If they had, Elizabeth Warren wouldn’t be in this race.
And complaining about people complaining, y’know what, “that is over the top” – but whomever you are, really, welcome. We all feel what we feel, think what we think, and fortunately as John Walsh so wisely says, “The Democratic Party is a a Big Tent.”
…but I’m far from new
It looked like you were new, and unless there is a glitch, like you had zero posts. I also don’t remember having a prior dialogue with you.
But I’ve written on here many times before. No posts, plenty of comments. I’ve read you many times, and you do a great service on BMG. I do disagree with your anger towards Warren. But certainly respect your need to see more before deciding who to support. I think if you look through my previous comments, you’ll see I was an early skeptic as well.
Far more complex than that – but for many reasons I am “taking a break from the US Senate primary” here in Massachusetts. The world has so much going on, as does my law practice, I am quite busy enough without this primary. I consider it is time to observe all of the candidates as a truly undecided voter and activist.