A couple of days ago I put up a post in defense of Michelle Wu. I purposefully stayed away from the comments and twitter until the next day, convinced I would wake up to ALL CAPS screeds calling me anything but a child of God. Thankfully, that didn’t happen. The comments on my post are largely thoughtful and well crafted and the twitter conversation has even been – by twitter standards – calm. Prof. Ubertaccio, of whom I am a big fan, even offered his expert-level analysis.
So, we’re talking about this instead of yelling at each other.
As the conversation continues, I want to throw out a question: How much do any of us really know about who supports who for city council president? For discussion, here are four different quotes from three Globe stories written over three days:
“Jackson eventually pulled out of the running and supported O’Malley.” [Globe, 12/11/13]
“On Wednesday afternoon, it looked as if Councilor Tito Jackson, backed by other minority and progressive councilors, was getting close to six votes of his own for president.” [Globe, 12/12/13]
“O’Malley began the week believing he had secured six votes – including his own – from current Councilors Jackson, Ayanna Pressley, Frank Baker, and new-elected Councilors Josh Zakim and Timothy McCarthy.” [Globe, 12/11/13]
“According to several city officials, Linehan had lined up five votes, and either O’Malley or Jackson — who each agreed to support the other in the event he could not amass enough votes — could have a five-vote coalition, leaving all three men vying for the support of council newcomers Wu and Timothy McCarthy to hit the seven-vote threshold needed to be elected council president.” [Globe, 12/13/13]
When the Globe went to print on Wednesday morning, Tito Jackson had pulled out of the running and supported Matt O’Malley. By that evening, the Globe tell us, Jackson almost had the votes he needs to win. In one story, O’Malley has six votes, but in another story it’s either O’Malley or Jackson who have five votes.
Just to be clear, this is all solid reporting. These three journalists have double-checked their sources and reported what they learned. Their reporting mirrors my own discussions with folks who all paint different pictures of the push and pull of this behind-the-scenes process.
So, what do we know?
