Looks like she’s got some splaining to do according to the Globe
Despite all those expenditures, Coakley’s federal accounts are replete with inaccurate numbers. The result is an accounting nightmare that makes it unclear whether the committee is now running a substantial deficit or has cash on hand, according to its quarterly FEC reports.
After the committee paid off all its debts in 2010, it started 2011 with $70,012. Its reports since then show the committee took in $9,355 in reimbursements and other money owed, but collected no contributions. During that same period, the campaign spent $182,125, well more than it had in cash. Despite that, the committee claimed on its latest campaign finance report to have an ending balance of $6,053.
Meanwhile, Coakley’s federal committee failed to respond to repeated requests from federal campaign finance regulators to straighten out a series of error-riddled reports that it submitted over the last several years.
~ tblade Wed, Jan 20, 2010 6:37 AM EST on BMG, the day after the special election loss to Scott Brown.
And yes, I’m sticking by that.
These campaign finance “mistakes” made by the person who is supposed to enforce our election laws would likely have led the politically ambitious AG to at least initiate an investigation, if not file charges, had they been done by another politician.
Whether intentional or not, Martha Coakley gives every indication of being one of those politicians for whom the primary function of the law is to enable her personal agenda.
When it benefits Ms. Coakley, she is aggressive and rigorous in her interpretation of whatever law she can find to advance her agenda. When it does not, she carelessly flouts it. It was this way when staffers of Mr. Menino destroyed public records to hide their involvement in the pay-for-licenses scam being run by City Hall — Ms. Coakley’s reaction was to make cynical jokes (because at that time she wanted the support of Mr. Menino).
Martha Coakley’s problem in her 2010 loss to Senator Brown was not just that she ran an abysmal campaign. More importantly, she is fundamentally unsuited to hold the higher office she seeks.
I join tblade in asserting that I will never again cast a vote for Martha Coakley for ANY office, ever.
I remain convinced that the only thing that Martha Coakley genuinely cares about is Martha Coakley.
I understand that there will be questions about the Globe story, and I appreciate the chance to respond to them here on BMG.
Martha Coakley, like many former federal candidates, has maintained a federal account after her election was over. That account allows her to make federal expenditures and support the federal activities of the Democratic Party and other federal candidates. For example, Martha was pleased to offer financial support to Congressman Ed Markey during the special election for the United States Senate this year. After the Senate race in 2010, the campaign committee made the decision to keep the federal account open to support other federal candidates and keep other options open.
At some point after the end of the Senate election, the FEC began sending notices about the Coakley federal account to an invalid email address. The Committee was not aware of the issues with the reports because they did not receive the email notices. Once we were made aware of the issues, the campaign moved immediately to contact the FEC and address the issues. We are working to fix the problems and file amended reports to the FEC.
Upon reviewing the expenditures from the federal committee, it appears that a $1,200 ad placed in the state convention was incorrectly paid for from that account instead of her state account. We regret the error and will reimburse the funds. The Coakley Committee is working with the FEC to file amended reports, and once that is complete will be taking steps to close the federal account by the end of the year.
(Full Disclosure – I am working for the Coakley campaign for Governor.)
Your excuse is the FCC emailed the wrong account? And nobody checked it for months?
This response just raises more questions than it answers. I’m not here to cast stones (honest – we all make mistakes and it doesn’t sound malicious to me), but I don’t really understand this response.
Why didn’t Martha Coakley’s committee give the FEC an updated email address (or multiple addresses)? If the Committee is still open after 2010, then there should be a way for the FEC to be in touch with the Committee. For those who don’t understand how FEC regulations work – the regular voters – that seems like a kind of major oversight.
The Globe story is much less about the $1,200 ad than about poor accounting in general. I know how sending a check from the wrong committee can happen – honestly that’s no big deal in my mind and your response is totally right on. But this response doesn’t address the core issue:
How does that happen? The math doesn’t add up. And even if voters believe and forgive a — years long — email snafu, what’s going on with this accounting? I’m sure that the Committee is working to resolve the issues with haste, but the core issues is that there were some fairly important accounting errors in the first place–similar to errors which the Attorney General has herself pounced on in others.
I – like many voters – am totally willing to give the Coakley Committee the benefit of the doubt. But this response to the story just adds to the story because even the folks who are generally sympathetic to Coakley and to her causes are left even more puzzled. So, again, I am sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this. It’s a shame we haven’t heard it.
Is a candidate willing to admit they were wrong. Period. All she needs to say is she lost an easy election by making stupid mistakes and she promises never to do so again. Instead, she blamed Scott Brown’s election on Obama coming in to late (and really he was rightly embarrassed he had to do that in Massachusetts), on the DSCC, on the media, and on Obamacare. Notice she never took responsibility. Now the states top law enforcement official is blaming a regulatory agency for doing it’s job, even if it sent it’s requests to the wrong email (!), and taking no responsibility for failing to do hers as a candidate and one would hope, with the same responsibility she would have as Attorney General. If this is the way they want to run their campaign that is totally fine by me, but this Democrat doesn’t want to lose another winnable election because of it.
She was asked the question at every stop on her three day announcement tour across the state, and answered it each time by saying that she made mistakes during the Senate campaign and has learned from them. If I was technically more proficient I would include links to some of the stories that include her direct quotes – I’m sure you can easily find them if you look.
The difference is that Martha Coakley picked herself up after the loss, got right back to work standing up for people on issues like helping people stay in their homes when banks wanted to foreclose on their properties, and didn’t let the setback stand in the way of the work she cares deeply about.
I don’t have any doubt that Martha cares more about the voters and the interests of Massachusetts than her own personal ambition. And I am sure that she is working hard to show people that she has the fire in her belly this time around.
So I’d just urge the folks who are quick to pounce to hold back until after you or she gives a more thorough explanation for all these accounting errors. Your side deserves to be heard.
…that the apologist for Coakley bemoans his lack of technical proficiency to defend a controversy engendered by a lack of technical competency in record keepign and response by her campaign.
I realize this is just another Democrat crying that the rules shouldn’t apply to them anyway, becasue their hearts are pure, but it’s still an interesting excuse.
Carry on.
… will do.
Dont let this drag out for one minute more. Martha has to get this story straight. She has to own it. She has to put in place a watertight plan for corrective action detailed for press and public to see that makes clear this will never happen again. She should appoint some good housekeeping accountant to the job and get rid of having her sister on the payroll forever. She should declare a new age of ultimate transparency around her campaign finances and challenge all others to meet this new higher standard. Maybe, just maybe she contains the damage. Her support in the electorate was based on integrity, and this runs a truck right through that. Among the Democratic base, many are still pissed about the loss to Brown but were open to her because she had rebounded and seemed a solid, committed AG. Of course her poll numbers were the biggest attraction, showing her having the best chance of keeping the Gov’s office blue. Now, the door is opened for the skeptics to question her and for her opponents to point to another kink in her armor – first Brown, now this crap, how can we afford to put her up against Prince Charles, when he will rip her for all this? So you all got to shut the door tight, Martha has to be contrite, and show she will do everything to put things right… Juliette Kayem and Steve Grossman are probably happy tonight!!!
When your candidate is getting press, even if its bad press, best to say nothing. As I have heard you say, if they are coming after you, it’s probably because you are winning, or perceived to be winning. For me, your explanations are really weak and raise more concerns than they settle. Martha hopefully learned that you campaign until the last vote is cast and yes, you do stand out in the cold shaking hands with voters. No one is guaranteed a vote. You have to work for it. Hopefully she gets that you don’t push away the advice and assistance of candidates/campaigns who lose to you in the primary.
Doug,
It is Martha herself who should respond, not her campaign workers, with all due respect to you.
The numbers on her federal report don’t add up. When she’ll be Mass Governor, will the state budget end up in the same disarray as her federal campaign account?
Also, how about the voter/volunteer/contributor database expenditures from the federal account – $35,000 paid to the same company, apparently, who is managing the database for the state governor run?
I don’t buy this explanation. .
I gave the maximum to Martha Coakley’s federal account. I gave my money to help her win her senate election. She’s used part of my money to give money to her sister and advance her ambition to become governor. I didn’t donate to her for that reason.
So, Doug, can I get a refund? Since Martha Coakley is using her federal campaign account inappropriately, will she give refunds to any donor who requests it?
Not looking to exploit the article as a see we told you so but, as reult is this just more evidence that a given politician has a ceiling to their career. It now is clear that Martha failed to manage the campain against Scott Brown and the fall out from that is obviously dogging her still. Has any Politician a limit ? Not of their willingness or ego o reach for higher office but, the ability to manage the process. I like Martha, I like her as AG, even when I would disagree with some of her decisions. As far as running for governor the fact that she did not make sure her records were 100% is one huge continuation of her inabilitty to manage a political career beyond the level of AG. If she had asked I would have said sit tight now s not your time, look to preparing for the future. Just my thoughts and opinion.
Ultimately it’s the voters, not the candidate, who draw the line.
that they have reached the limits of their ability and accept reality or is there no reality in Politics. Martha Coakley’s rise to AG was a fairly smooth one with a few questionable stumbles but nothing that would seem out of the ordinary. Yet since the race for Senate she has had a number of major miss-steps not the least of which was her campaign. This is not a slam piece on her but more a discussion is does a Candidate/ Politician have a limit no matter what their hope is and is it a vision of the voters or the inability of the candidate to run effectively. Be message, miss-steps, paperwork? Do we brush it all under the rug when a new campaign starts and hope for a change. In this case I see a failed US Senate campaign that is still haunting a candidate and the inability of those around her to perform competently. I see a candidate with a host of self inflicted wounds and I have to wonder knowing what a wonderful person she is. Is that really enough? ultimately voters will decide but as an activist I have to ask these questions before I am willing to commit time and money. Maybe we will see the answer what this FEC issue is resolved and hopefully soon.
I suggest that NO individual can succeed at higher office by themselves.
Success, then, requires the kind of person who surrounds themselves with competent, smart, wise, and effective staff (and perhaps friends) and advisors, and then listens to them.
I read Martha Coakley as a different kind of person — I read her as one of those people who is threatened by having staff people who are better or more skilled or more persuasive, rather than happy to have their support. I read Ms. Coakley as one of those people who frames every issue and topic through the lens of how Martha Coakley will benefit — and in so doing, neutralizes the benefit of whatever staff and organization they attempt to build.
This is an aspect of what I mean by “fundamentally unsuited for” the office she seeks. She was fundamentally unsuited for the office of “Senator”, and she is similarly unsuited to be Governor.
Like Romney and Kerry before her, I really see no overall narrative to answer the question ‘Why Coakley?’. It seems they just wanted the office because they wanted the office, and ran negative comparisons to unpopular incumbents in the hope they could get in. I would argue there is no unpopular incumbent in this round, though the average urbanite is angry that the MBTA sucks, that we aren’t making investments in our cities while the average suburbanite probably does not want to pay Devals ‘tax hike’*.
The Democrat should be defending the record of this administration and making a strong appeal to Millenials like me, people of color, and working people. Deval brought that coalition together, so did the Duke 20 years ago, and I see Martha making the exact same mistake. Hoping running the table among women is enough, and it may very well be to win a primary, but it won’t be for the general. And amateur night mistakes over basic campaign finance law doesn’t make the state’s top lawyer look that sharp, and the campaign manager blaming an email error doesn’t look too sharp either.
I appreciate your perspective and enjoy your posts on BMG. However, I respectfully disagree.
I can only speak from my experience with Martha. I was not involved in the Senate campaign or any of her previous campaigns. But since I have joined her campaign for Governor, I have found her open to ideas and advice, and more concerned about what is in the interests of the people of Massachusetts than her own political career. She has a strong understanding of why she wants to run and what she would like to do as Governor, but has been very willing and engaged in talking with people who will bring different perspectives and new ideas to the campaign.
We have.
And appreciate you’ve come on here many times and subjected yourself to fair and unfair criticism alike. I would argue you are being a far better spokesmen for your candidate than she has been. She should come here and settle this question, cop up to the mistakes she has made as AG and as a Senate candidate and then outline the reasons she wants to be Governor. I’d respect her a whole lot more if she was willing to take questions and talk about issues here like you have.
While we have you here, what’s your elevator pitch for Martha, why Martha why now why Governor?
…but I am happy to tell you why I personally support Martha. I believe in the vision and progressive values that drive Deval Patrick, Elizabeth Warren and many other great candidates in our state. I want to see the progress we have made under Governor Patrick continue. I believe Martha Coakley, based on the work she has done as AG and her vision for the Commonwealth as Governor, is best prepared to build upon that progress, continue to improve our public schools, support efforts to create good jobs and a growing middle class, and invest in our infrastructure. I am deeply concerned that Charlie Baker will lead us in the opposite direction, and reverse the gains we have made in the last 7 years. We have a number of good candidates on the Democratic side, but Martha’s experience fighting for issues I care about as AG, and her vision for the future of the Commonwealth are why I support her for Governor.
I think you and I still have disagreements over aspects of her record, her rationale as a candidate, and why she is the most electable and capable among the current crop of candidates. But that’s what a primary is for. I appreciate the follow up, your work on other candidates we both supported, and your willingness to engage here. If Martha was willing to come on here and take questions like Brownsberger and Winslow have in the past, I think it would be a productive exchange and could go a long way to winning over her critics. I for one would welcome it and would be tough but civil in my questions.
It’s telling that for AG Coakley, you say that she’ll be like Warren or like Patrick – not a bad thing to say – and take on these fights. I just remember that when you were on BMG during the Warren or Patrick campaigns, they had their own unique, authentic, and compelling reasons to run for Senate and Governor — Warren to take on the big banks, Patrick to revitalize our civic life. Coakley’s raison d’etre isn’t bad (I certainly agree with continuing to fight for improving public schools and infrastructure, etc.), but it’s rather … standard. Do you think Grossman or Berwick or Kayyem wouldn’t say they want to continue what Patrick started? For me, as a genuinely undecided voter, I have to ask–what’s Coakley “about”? Deval was about a call to ask us to start acting as “citizens.” Warren was about economic justice and taking on the Big Banks. I have no idea what Coakley is really “about,” other than generic Democratic talking points.
That’s why it’s so hard, I think, for people to let the 2010 stuff go – because the 2010 memories are a lot more compelling and vivid than standard Democratic language about growing the economy. I’m certainly willing to let 2010 go and look at Coakley on the merits. But I bet if more people trusted that AG Coakley has a unique, compelling vision of where to take the Commonwealth, there would be a lot more people willing to cut her slack when her campaign committee messes up.
I don’t see a raison d’etre to answer the question Why Coakley? compared to other candidates in the field. On policy questions she and Grossman look identical. But Grossman hasn’t had a controversial tenure in his statewide office or a bungled 2010 campaign in his recent resume. The liability with Grossman v Baker is we have two white plutocrats going toe to toe. But I am not sure the galvanize women strategy is really a more viable path for her, particularly since it failed so miserably the last time.
I’d like to hear passion from her, particularly passion regarding the policies she wants to implement and a strategy for dealing with the legislature.
I get the sense from the mistakes of this campaign, from what defense attorneys and prosecutors who I know who’ve dealt with her, and from the controversies in her tenure that she is a real go it alone leader who doesn’t like to broker dissent. Pretty easy to do as an AG. We haven’t had a Republican in that office since Elliot Richardson, easy statewide office to win and to keep, pretty easy to accomplish everything when you are the sole person in charge. Governor is a much more difficult beast and I’d like to hear how she would tackle that, I’d like to see her personally own up to her mistakes and grapple with them, and she needs to show that passion and have a sense of humor about herself. I haven’t seen that so far and this is why I remain deeply skeptical of her drive and viability.
I donated the maximum to Martha’s federal account for Senate, but I’ve never donated to her state AG campaign.
And, I am now receiving letters and automatic emails from Coakley’s governors campaign. And, I even received a phone call from Martha asking for a donation.
So, is Martha using a federal campaign database to help her state election? It sure looks that way to me!
Is that illegal?
bluewatch, sounds like you should complain to the Attorney General, who is the chief enforcement officer for state election campaign finance.
…the people are already threatening to not vote for her even if she is our nominee. If you honestly believe Baker will be better that is your perogative, but not voting or voting for a Green candidate if there is one still statistically helps him. My candidate is Grossman, but I’ve never understood what’s wrong with Coakley. Is there a particular issue people hold against her or some unforgivable sin she has committed that I’m missing?
The grudge that I personally hold against Martha Coakley is that she ran one of the most embarrassing campaigns that I can remember in the 2010 special election. She acted entitled, her work ethic was poor, her ad strategy sucked (I mean sucked!), and her laziness/complacency prevented her from adapting and adjusting in the final weeks. The ONLY pitch that I could give my “undecided” friends in the final days of the race was “she’s not a Republican”. I voted for AG Coakley, but I walked out of the booth not feeling good about my vote. I promised myself that I will never cast a vote in the future that I don’t feel good about – this includes withholding my vote for Martha.
And while I think she’s done some really solid work in the AGs office, I don’t believe that AG skill sets automatically transfer to the Corner Office. Also, the whole obsession with Tim Cahill left a bad taste in my mouth. Investigate Tim, sure. But even to a layman like me, the case against him looked embarrassingly thin. Let it go, Martha.
I’m not saying that I will vote for a Republican for governor, but if blanking the ballot/write in wasn’t possible, as of right now I would vote for Charlie Baker over Martha Coakley. (If I had to.)
…is a valid point in the primary to gauge how the candidate might fare in the general, but once we are in the general the question is whom do you want in the office.
An important aspect of her failed campaign, for me, was her refusal to engage (or her engagement on the wrong side of) virtually ANY issue of substance.
Which of the following significant issues did Martha Coakley emphasize in her failed campaign:
1. The collapsing middle class economy while the top one percent acquired even more wealth
2. The collapsing and decaying transportation infrastructure of Massachusetts and the US
3. The relentless GOP war against women and minorities
4. The devastating condition of health care in Massachusetts and the US, and the leadership Barack Obama demonstrated in addressing that.
5. The withering assault against virtually every Democratic principle from the GOP and the right wing, especially targeted against Barack Obama.
6. The already impossible and worsening plight facing young men and women graduating from college — staggering debt burdens and bleak prospects for employment.
7. The declining state of public education in the US and Massachusetts, along with the incessant demands for yet more funding cuts.
8. The steadfast refusal to raise taxes — on somebody — in order to reverse the steady and relentless dismantling of essential government services.
I don’t remember her emphasizing any of those issues. I remember ads about “protecting our children”, and I think I remember something about the “Kennedy legacy”. It was such a lackluster campaign that I literally don’t remember ANY issue of substance that she advocated.
In my view, THAT is a very relevant question to whether or not I want Martha Coakley to hold the office she currently seeks.
Not Martha Coakley. I will not vote for a candidate I don’t feel good about voting for. Like I said above, I would vote Baker over Coakley.
Poor campaign and poor candidate. Have you ever listened to Martha Coakley speak publicly? It’s not a fun experience.
if we end up spending four years (or more) bitching about Baker’s vetos of anything remotely decent we can push through the legislature. It’s like saying Romney was preferable to Shannon O’Brien.
It is laughable that my one non-vote for a hypothetical (and hopefully unlikely) nominee should place the burden of blame for all of Baker’s poor governance. I actually find this sentiment funny.
I think the O’Brien analogy to be off-base as well. Granted, it was 13 years ago, but I remember that Shannon was a decent candidate who didn’t match up with Romney in one debate, not a heavily flawed, lazy candidate who was looking for a second chance.
Martha Coakley: fool me once…Once.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKgPY1adc0A
🙂
Tom’s list is entirely accurate and I agree with it 100%. That said, I would still vote for her over Baker. I wrote in Capuano over Coakley on my absentee general election ballot out of spite and regretted that call three weeks later when Brown won. Granted, my vote would have made no impact, but I’d take a Generic D over Brown anyday and she is about as close as you can get to Generic D without being named John Kerry or Terry McAuliffe
The AG’s office has done tremendous work on civil rights, foreclosures, and healthcare over the past few years. If we’re bashing Martha Coakley for Tom’s list, I’d give her credit for that list as well.
At this point I’m inclined to Grossman in the primary, but if Coakley’s the nominee I’ll surely work for her election rather than vote for Charlie Baker because I’m sulking that she ran a poor campaign five years earlier. If you’re not keen on Coakley, you should be happy she lost. It’s what gave us Senator Warren.
I can see not being enthusiastic enough to volunteer or donate money. If you’d prefer put your energies into the AG or TRG race in the general, or for that matter the re-election campaigns of Markey, Bump, Galvin, your US Representative or even a state legislative race. After all, those races will be looking for help too and I’m sure are hoping the Governor’s race doesn’t suck out ALL the oxygen among activists.
Martha Coakley is a
. She has used her office in an arbitrary way for prosecutions that give her publicity. As an example, just look at what she did with the case involving Berdovsky and Stevens. They were two young people who placed marketing devices in the city that used flashing lights. They clearly had no intention to harm anybody, but the police over-reacted. Martha Coakley charged them with trying to incite panic, which was a ridiculous charge. She used the threat of a felony charge to get them to a plea bargain.
Shame on you, Martha Coakley!
1. Her utterly inappropriate response to the apparent destruction of incriminating emails by Michael Kineavy (see http://www.bettnet.com/senate_wannabe_ag_pooh-poohs_menino_computer_flap/ as well).
2. Her subsequent non-investigation “investigation”.
3. Her abysmal campaign for the senate, especially her careful avoidance of virtually every issue of substance.
4. Her willingness to destroy the political career of Tim Murray, by arranging her “investigation” of Michael McLaughlin to ensure that Mr. Murray’s name was frequently mentioned as a willing participant — and the subsequent absence of any actual substance to those insinuations (never mind criminal charges).
5. Her willingness to studiously avoid mentioning any other names of the many Democratic office-holders that also benefited from Mr. McLaughlin’s corrupt practices — and the subsequent absence of any indictments.
6. Her eagerness to embrace a plea-bargain with Mr. McLaughlin, even though he apparently revealed no further information.
7. Her pronounced disinterest in who, in the prosecutors offices, benefited from the Annie Dookhan scandal during the many years that Ms. Dookhan abused her office and the rights of thousands of accused individuals.
8. Her eager embrace of most aspects of the various Patriot Act infringements on privacy.
9. Her similarly eager embrace of the several unconstitutional efforts to illegally restrict access of adults to adult material online, in the guise of “protecting children”.
10. Her current carelessness with campaign finance laws, even as she led prosecutions against multiple parties for violating those same laws.
11. Her long-standing inability to pursue serious charges against the flagrant corruption of multiple parties in the multibillion dollar Big Dig overruns and subsequent failures — all while grandstanding about miniscule hand-slaps applied against the handful of smalltime players who were more easily smacked. The taxpayers of the Commonwealth lost billions of dollars to BigDig corruption, innocent people died as a result of criminally negligent contractor behavior, and Ms. Coakley did essentially nothing about it.
I honestly believe that Martha Coakley epitomizes the old-school Beacon Hill Machine. I honestly believe casting a vote in her favor would betray any sense of integrity or intellectual honesty I attempt to bring to the world. I honestly cannot and will not do it.
While I won’t vote for him, I honestly think that Charlie Baker is likely to do less harm to the Massachusetts my children and grandchildren inherit than Governor Martha Coakley.
I really REALLY hope that Dan Wolf steps back in.
Like you, I will never vote for Martha Coakley. Like the way she’s used her federal elections account, Coakley has used the attorney general’s office in a political and self-serving way.
The AG office has been for a long time politicized in the state. All with the best of intentions, of course – to serve the greater good. That is the unfortunate reality.
…When Martha Coakley was the New Jesus. Now she’s the New Satan. Apparently Dan Wolf is now the new New Jesus. Doug Rubin used to be the new John The Baptist, now he’s the new Wormwood. it’s either pitchforks or genuflecting. I find this all so dizzying.
To be perfectly blunt: I think the hate says more about the haters than it does about the hated; Coakley never was Jesus and she’s not Satan now. Insistence upon this sort of framework indicates as certain fragility of psyche as well as a hunger that will never be sated. I don’t necessarily want to criticise it: the desire to vote for the best and brightest amongst us is a good thing… but beatification is an entirely different animal. On the other side of the coin, pointing out a candidates flaws and lapses is also a good thing, but it’s not, similarly, to be confused with a blanket condemnation.
People will let you down. How far down they let you is a function of how high the pedestal you put them upon in the first place.
Martha Coakley is not the New Jesus, and Martha Coakley is not Satan.
After all, neither Satan nor Jesus would ever pay their sister $28,254 using leftover money from an unsuccessful Senate campaign.
I don’t recall anyone anointing her as such, I do recall she had a small band of supporters here, but most of us were backing Khazei or Capuano. And obviously when it came down to her or Brown most of us were backing her over Brown. In my gut I knew he would win though, nearly predicted it to. My gut is telling me Baker will be incredibly hard to beat, and that none of the Democrats running are tough enough to go the distance. Grossman will continue to run a safe and bland campaign, which he no longer has the luxury of doing now that Coakley is in the race, and she will go negative against her opponents and hope to ride the woman vote to victory in both contests.
Like I said, she strikes me as someone who hasn’t learned from her mistakes. If Wolf gets back in he has my support, I will lean Grossman otherwise.
Yep. I remember when they had their New Jesus moment, also…
Everything I’ve seen ‘strikes me’ as tho’ she has learned from her mistakes. In addition, she’s said she’s learned from her mistakes. Doug Rubin has said she learned from her mistakes. She’s been asked again and again and has said again and again that she’s made mistakes.
Yet, still, you are not convinced.
Maybe you’re not convinced because you simply don’t want to be convinced. She has to ‘strike you’ in this way, else you’d not have the wiggle room to look for a newer, shinier, New Jesus.
I don’t even have a plastic Jesus riding on the dashboard of my car.
Deval Patrick was not “Jesus”. He was an immensely better candidate than Tom Reilly, and he has been an immensely better Governor than Tom Reilly ever could have been. Deval Patrick did not walk on water, heal the sick, or rise from the dead. He did, however, come from nowhere to defeat the sitting Attorney General who was widely believed to be the next Democratic nominee for Governor.
Similarly, I do not beautify Don Wolf. I have hopes that he can be a Deval Patrick to Martha Coakley’s Tom Reilly. That doesn’t strike me as such an extreme position.
I’m not sure who you are criticizing in your comment. I do not “hate” Martha Coakley. I have never elevated her, Doug Rubin, Dan Wolf, or any other politician to the heights or depths your comment describes. I responded to a very specific question, and I attempted very specific answers.
At 62, I’m pretty good at keeping candidates off pedestals — even candidates I like. Maybe jconway is not convinced for the very reasons he offered. In my view, each of us has a core being that defines who we are. No amount of “learning from mistakes” can change that core being from, example, a visionary to a bean counter or vice-versa.
Martha Coakley has been around long enough that I think I have a good enough read on her to make my choice. I respect Mr. Rubin and his opinion, and I sometimes have a different one. Mr. Rubin was a strong supporter of Steve Pagliuca. I was not. That’s politics. I would be astonished if Mr. Rubin said anything except “she learned from her mistakes”, what else is a professional campaign consultant going say about a current client?
Characterizations such as “hate”, “beatification”, and so on, are your own invention. I was asked my opinion, and I was asked my reasons for holding my opinion, and I answered. Nothing more, nothing less.
This is exactly right. She isn’t Satan, just someone I’m never voting for again (and I think she earned this eternal non-vote). Other than hoping she doesn’t win any more elections, I wish no ill will towards her personally.
Furthermore, I don’t apologize for not voting for her if she makes the general; I don’t give my vote to anyone just because there’s a (D) next to the candidate’s name. The attitude that “I like my candidate, but will support whoever wins the primary” is conditional on having a field of good candidates; I don’t give unconditional support to every Democrat. My vote must be earned since it is one of the few things in the political and governing processes that is wholly within my control.
Certainly not for Martha Coakley. I was never that fond of her.
And certainly not for Steve Grossman. His association with AIPAC totally disqualifies him. He was President of AIPIAC!!
Don is extremely competent. The Republicans promised to filibuster his appointment as head of Medicare/Medicaid, where he was a recess appointment for a little over a year.
And what does that have to do with his being Governor?
Some information about Steve Grossman’s work as AIPAC chair can be found here:
http://books.google.com/books?id=1B2es-ndAU0C&pg=PA57&lpg=PA57&dq=steve+grossman+aipac&source=bl&ots=zdcxJ83qkO&sig=IhGL-FTPV-HHFc32m2GfuMQ9d8o&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Ci55Uu7VM7LlsASP44GwBA&ved=0CEYQ6AEwBDgK#v=onepage&q=steve%20grossman%20aipac&f=false
This explains some of the internal struggles within the AIPAC leadership at the time. Grossman came in as a supporter of Yitzhak Rabin at a time when the older AIPAC leadership was leaning towards friendship with the Likud.