Our friends over at RMG may be plotting a Republican strategy to elect John Connolly as Boston’s next Mayor. This from RMG regular Karl Marx:
A detailed analysis would suggest that Connolly would reap the few Republican votes in the city based on the councilor’s education and tech tax positions and Walsh’s unearthly ties to organized labor. In a tight race that matters. If Connolly wins, the city GOP should boast that it was kingmaker.
http://www.redmassgroup.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=17346
With Marty Walsh clearly the progressive candidate for Mayor (a strong pro-equal marriage, pro-choice voting record as a State Representative) are the city’s Republicans quietly lining up behind John Connolly as the conservative choice?
If Connolly wins, the city GOP should boast that it was kingmaker
How did EB3 miss this one?
Maybe Republicans will favor Connolly because he is less obviously pro-union, but he also has had good relations with unions and has polled favorably with union members. I don’t really seen much evidence that there is much to like from either candidate from Republicans.
I think it is kind of slimy to try to paint Connolly as the darling of Republicans. He is not.
It is also slimy to imply by omission that Connolly is not also strongly pro-equal marriage and pro-choice.
Link, both candidates are progressive.
This sort of snark won’t win your candidate any friends, striker57.
“With Walsh the clear progressive candidate…” Huh?
Not if this is how he campaigns against a fellow progressive like Connolly.
Trying to make teachers work extra hours without pay is not progressive. It’s indentured servitude. I want an extended school day, but we need to pay for it, not abuse the teachers.
Taking more funding away from public schools to give to charter schools is not progressive.
Ding legal work for major developers while serving on the council that may have to vote on their proposals is not progressive.
Connolly’s only “accomplishment” on the Council was finding some frozen food that was past its sell-by date. But as anyone who doesn’t have their own personal chef to do all the cooking knows, food is fine if you keep it frozen. So either he’s so vapid he can’t see the real issues, or he staged a dumb publicity stunt specifically intending to distract from the real issues. All hat, no cattle. Sure sounds like someone the GOP would go for.
some brain cells reading your comment.
Since you’ve just offered a snarky comment and not substantive disagreement.
Yup, he’s a Republican in disguise. Thanks for your input.
He’s just an empty suit.
I know that Connolly suggested that we should extend the school day, but I don’t recall him demanding that it be done without compensation. In any case, I doubt that the mayor really has the power to force a longer school day on teachers against the wishes of the union. I also don’t get the impression that he is especially wed to the idea in any case. Your reaction is really hyperbolic.
I also don’t think we should expand charters, but don’t forget that Walsh is also for expanding charter schools, so if you think that is not progressive then Walsh has to get dinged for that as well.
I don’t know anything about Connolly’s legal work, but I am confused as to what you are claiming is not progressive. Is it doing legal work for developers or having conflicts of interest?
Unfortunately, since the mayor is so powerful relative to the council, I don’t think anyone really accomplishes much on the City Council other than to deliver constituent services, and I think he did a good job of that.
But in any case, there is absolutely no question that this post is an attempt to smear Connolly by associating it with the Republicans. You give the appearance of endorsing this tactic.
Connolly said he wants to extend the school day, but he’s not “demanding that it be done without compensation,” and of course the mayor probably doesn’t “really ha[ve] the power to force a longer school day on teachers against the wishes of the union” which won’t happen without additional compensation. But that’s ok because Connolly isn’t “especially wed to the idea in any case”
Is there a better definition of empty suit?
The BTU is on board with extending the school day, but not if they’re asked to do more work for the same pay.
It’s just clear Connolly wanted to extend the day with no extra pay. Connolly has made much of the fact that he voted against the last teachers’ contract because it didn’t extend the school day. It didn’t extend the school day because BPS insisted on extending it without any additional compensation and the BTU wouldn’t agree.
Since that vote Connolly has said dozens of times (including at the debate) that, rather than omit a term the parties couldn’t agree on, BPS should have just implemented the superintendent’s “last, best offer” whether BTU liked it or not. That “last, best offer” was extended school day, no additional pay.
For all of this Connolly won the enduring love of Scot Lehigh. That alone tells me pretty much all I need to know.
…what are “unearthly ties” to organized labor. Are they more heavenly than mere “earthly ties”?:)
Has become a bit of a useless term. These days it basically means “not a and not a social conservative” which neither candidate purports to be. If Bloomberg, Booker, and Hillary can be called progressive in media outlets it’s a bit of a stretch to say it means a leader who is reliably liberal.
In the post-Obama era there will be a real fissure between self-identifying progressives on a host of issues. The Quinn-De Blasio fight, the Connolly Walsh fight, Holt-Booker fight, and to a lesser extent the Markey-Lynch fight illustrates some of these differences. And it will come down to money.
Do you view corporate money as a necessary evil or something that should be strongly regulated? Do you want banks and big businesses to have more or less regulation? Do you favor Ravitch or Rhee on education? Are unions fundamentally good for the economy and America? Free trade or fair trade? Rust belt or Silicon Valley?
And how you answer these questions will determine where you fall when the battle starts. I think far too many cultural liberals identify too strongly with libertarian economics, particularly amongst my friends in Silicon Valley who voted against the 1% tax that CA enacted last fall. The ‘Rockefeller Republican’ wing of the Democratic party or the “Democratic” wing.
The days of Ray Flynn and busing and cultural fissures are over. In an increasingly post-racial, gender equal, orientation equal, post-theist secular society it will come down to money. And in many ways this is a good thing. My grandpa voted against plenty of progressive Republicans (Salty, Sarge, Brooke, Weld) since he was a labor man through and through. Is Connolly a Ted Cruz Republican? Hardly. Is he a Bloomberg or Baker Republican? Sure.
I realize this is off-topic (but that would not be the first time for me) but I am hoping I am not confusing you with someone else, but at some point, did you say you were on the State Committee? If you are and if I had a question about the filling vacancy process, would you be in a position to answer them?
Email address is in my profile.
but I have found how to open my own profile, but how do you open the profile of someone else?
I thought others had previously refered people to profiles. It’s jenkins at gwu dot edu. Note to hrs-kevin – the email address written as I just did reduces spam, and thank you for pointing out the profile issue.
And good thing that they aren’t. I sure don’t want my address to be public. The last time I used a public e-mail address on a forum the account became unusable from the spam.
If you want to leave contact info, you can put it in the “Biographical info” section of your profile and it will show up on your public page.
It would be nice if there was a mechanism for sending private messages to other users without having to expose your e-mail publicly.