Full disclosure here: I have known Anthony for many years and admire him tremendously.
But beyond the personal, I would support Anthony in this race even if I had not known him. Why?
1. Anthony Guardia is the only home-grown progressive on the ballot.
2. Anthony Guardia is the only candidate who is canvassing the entire district door-to-door listening to the voters.
3. Anthony Guardia, like most of us, knows not just victory but also defeat, and his ability to come back from adversity is breathtaking.
4. Anthony Guardia supports single-payer health care.
5. Anthony Guardia’s money has been raised remarkably fast from the grass-roots – and transparently.
6. Anthony Guardia supported LGBTQ rights before it was fashionable.
7. Anthony Guardia has been transparent about his background.
8. Anthony Guardia is Christopher Fallon’s ideological opposite – but he is kind to him.
9. Anthony Guardia has shown grace and patience toward the progressive establishment, who quickly endorsed his opponent without having the time to know Anthony. He understands that established groups need to reward incumbents who are a known quantity and he accepts this.
10. Anthony Guardia is exactly the kind of candidate with strong roots in the working and middle-class that the Democratic Party needs to revitalize itself nationally.
11. Anthony Guardia is the only candidate on the March 4th ballot who is a long-time Katherine Clark supporter. He has been with her from the beginning.
12. Anthony Guardia has paid his dues in his community as the chair of the school committee and by fund-raising major dollars to build a new Boys and Girls Club to nuture our youth.
13. Anthony Guardia is running because, as he says, “Everything is not okay.” That makes him the quintessential non status quo progressive. Exactly what we need. He knows this because of his shoe-leather campaign.
14. Anthony Guardia will be a brilliant, and dynamic senator. Dynamic in the actual meaning of that word: he will be able to adapt and grow with policy challenges rather than being trapped by them.
15. I support Anthony Guardia for the same reason that I always supported Ted Kennedy: I know that he will pursue the progressive policies that I would pursue were I in his position because I am confident that his reason for entering this fight is his progressive heart. Not self-aggrandizement, not greed, not ever.
Terry McGinty
Alumni Public Service Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School, 2000-2002
Fmr. Legal Fellow, Sen. Ted Kennedy’s DC office
Fmr. Legal Fellow, State Senate Ways and Means Committee, Sen. Patricia McGovern, Chair
Fmr. Democratic State Committee Member
Great points all and I couldn’t have said it better myself.
I think all of these points also demonstrate why he is the most progressive candidate in the race as well as the most electable.
Fallon is anti-choice, anti-gay, and pro-Scott Brown making him the least progressive candidate. But I respect that Anthony disagrees with him agreeably.
As for Lewis, while his supporters may claim he is the most progressive there are votes I’ve pointed out-against the revenue package- that shows he will swim with the tide on Beacon Hill even if it needs to be challenged. Additionally, Anthony is knocking on doors personally in every community and is getting a ton of Clark and Festa veterans to join him. He is a veteran of a state rep race he nearly won and knows how shoe leather campaigns work. He found the issue of the race that all the candidates are talking about (local aid) and has the best perspective and plan to implement it.
Great points again. It’s rare we find a candidate who is the most progressive and most electable and Anthony is that candidate for the 5th!
…we should assign or detract quite so many points based on how many doors a candidate personally knocks. That is not every candidate’s strength or comfort zone, but doesn’t mean they cannot be good legislators.
People want to see their candidates working for the votes. It’s the same kind of thing that sunk Martha “not willing to work for it” Coakley.
Coakley got in trouble for mocking the concept, but I hope people vote on more than who shook their hand. Basically this means shy people can’t be good legislators, which would really be too bad for Thomas Jefferson.
I don’t have a “horse” in this race and I live far away from the district, but I’ve followed the BMG disputes on it a bit. It seems to me that a lot of these points are somewhat generic, and could be applied to any progressive, including to Rep. Lewis.
A few of them seem to be begging the question as well. Like number 7; who hasn’t been transparent about their background?
I can’t speak to 7, but it seems to dovetail with 5. Lewis is getting out of district and out of state donations. In terms of disclosure or transparency Terry can feel free to add to that. I do know that Anthony is getting his donations from the community and they are small donors. It’s a grassroots powered campaign which means lots of canvassing and small donors.
I’d say 10-15 are also areas where Guardia is going to be better than Lewis. Lewis is used to representing a wealthy community and has taken votes in line with his rep district, particularly on revenue and local aid, that while they advanced his community out others at a disadvantage. Guardia knows first hand how communities can get victimized when local aid is cut and how basic local services suffer. He is the only candidate who served in local government first, as Clark did, and the only candidate to have backed her his entire career which goes far in this district-particularly Melrose.
Lewis supporters,point 9 alludes to this, keep insisting it was his turn and that Guardia will win the election for Fallon. I’ve heard and had to answer this question multiple times. The thing is -Guardia is already a more well known quantity in Wakefield where he got his start, Malden where he grew up, and Melrose where he worked with their School Committee (along with it’s then Chair Katherine Clark) to restore local aid and lobby the statehouse to restore it. He knows a ton of people in those communities through his work with Clark’s campaigns at every level. He endorsed and campaigned for her while Lewis sat out on the sidelines and the people in those communities rember where Anthony stood.
And he isn’t giving up on Winchester, Stoneham or Reading. Only candidate to go door to door in every community in the district. He won’t put towns against each other on local aid but will deliver for all of them. Lewis is talking about reforming it now, but he wasn’t at the start of the campaign. The momentum is swinging to Guardia.
I won’t dispute specifics, because again I don’t live anywhere nearby. It would be impossible for those working the campaigns not to know more about the local issues than I do. But I just can’t help but see an element of “when did you stop beating your wife?” to the statements.
I wonder why Mr. Guardia didn’t feel it was worth filling out a Progressive Mass questionnaire.
Jason not only really showed what progressive values mean in terms of support, but I’m particularly impressed with his leadership on these same issues.
I also have to say I find the words “home grown” a little unfortunate. Anyone who has the audacity to move, to CHOOSE to live somewhere, should be thought less of than someone who was born there?
I will be volunteering my time helping Lewis.
If, as you say, Jason Lewis is really a ‘progressive leader’ why did he remain silent and sit passively on the sideline when he twice had the chance to speak up and endorse a true progressive leader…Katherine Clark ?
Anthony Guardia demonstrated the courage of his convictions by endorsing Katherine Clark when it wasn’t the popular thing to do but it was the right thing to do.
I know this to be true because I was there as Katherine’s first campaign manager and campaign chair.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
Campaign Chair,
Guardia for State Senate Committee
I know this appears to be Guardia’s best argument. That Lewis didn’t choose his ambition for Clark’s job over actually endorsing the best progressive in the prelim seems like an argument in favor of Lewis, not against him. There were many good progressives in the race. Clark was one of them. There were many good reasons to vote for Clark. But to claim she was the best progressive is obviously in question.
As for the claim that he didn’t support her in the general, that fairly irrelevant since it wasn’t a competitive general. I would think if this was a real issue or a real concern, groups like Planned Parenthood wouldn’t be with Jason.