Caucus season is upon us! With sixteen Democrats running for statewide office, some of the caucuses will be very well attended. There will be many first time caucus attendees. You can work hard for your candidates, while being welcoming to supporters of others. Take a few minutes to talk with folks who might be unfamiliar with the process.
Many readers of the Dispatch are planning to attend at least one local caucus. Voting at a local caucus and running for delegate are both important ways to have a voice in who is elected to state government. Find your caucus here. If you have never attended a caucus before consider going to one in another community before you go to your own. Caucusing is easy!
After you caucus or observe a caucus on Saturday, you can join other caucus goers from across the state for a post caucus gathering in Ashland. Or create your own celebration.
Some of you may get the Democratic Dispatch, my pretty much weekly newsletter on all things Democratic here in Massachusetts. You can subscribe to the Dispatch by sending an e-mail to DDemDispatch-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. You can read this week’s issue here. If you are a reader and didn’t get this week’s issue please let me know either here or offline. I think that it may have not gone to everyone on the list. I need to get off yahoogroups, I’m thinking sooner, rather than later.
Coming up this week we have a number of events:
Honoring Rep. O’Flaherty, Anthony Guardia Campaign Kick-off, Mansfield DTC Meeting with Suzanne Bump and Jonathan Edwards, Ashland DTC Post Caucus Reception. Alex Morash Campaign Kick-Off, Jason Lewis events, Men for Choice Event Honoring Carl Sciortino and Jim O’Day, Maura Healey in Grafton, Martha Coakely in Salem. Arena-DeRosa and Coakley in Westborough, YDM GLBT Event, Ayanna Pressley Birthday Party, Cheryl Tully Stoll Campaign Kick-Off, Cocktails and Conversation with Sen. Barry Finegold, Newton Dems Candidates Night. Details on these and other events in the Dispatch.
So tell us your caucus plans. Or what else you might be doing. What’s the word on the street in your community? Candidate slates? Unity slates? Town or Ward Committee slates? No interest? Are people fighting for spots? займ без отказа на карту срочно круглосуточно
just as a point of information.
I was hoping that at least one candidate would be progressive on education, but it looks like their all on the Corporate Ed Reform bandwagon.
Truly disappointing!
oopsa that should be “they’re” not “their”
I’ve been trying to figure out who is most movable on this.
From your recent post on education positions I didn’t see anything objectionable, or obviously either unprogressive or pro-corporate. I also appreciate the arts and humanities line you quoted. He is generally a solid progressive.
One ward is rumored to have had no one show up. My ward filled its slate, but that’s all — four people for four slots. I wasn’t going to run but now I’m a delegate.
I am looking forward to watching the Kayyem DVD though.
Why aren’t campaigns “flooding the zone” with their supporters?
We had a contested election, with 24 attendees voting for 6 delegates. We elected 4 for Kayyem, 2 for Berwick. Substantial enthusiasm for both; in general, candidates supporting one were very positive about the other. Among the the two who right now have highest name recognition, seemed like a strong preference for Grossman over Coakley. Didn’t get a sense that she has much support to speak of among those active.
Just enough eligible attendees to fill the slate, who until the last minute were outnumbered by guests.
As ever, the Gloucester caucus was impeccably organized, all five wards caucusing simultaneously at the local middle school. My sense was that turnout was only *meh* but I have nothing to which to compare that. Plenty of guests, though: Gubernatorial candidate Don Berwick showed up and shook hands with caucusers, and Seth Moulton (the Marblehead Democrat opposing Cong. John Tierney) had signage and a table, replete with coffee and donuts, and a full crew at the front door. Steve Grossman’s son was there as well, waving the flag for his dad. Virtually every candidate had at least one representative present with nomination papers. This not being my home caucus, I didn’t wait around to hear results.
Rockport Democrats gathered at the town library this morning. They were slow to in the start but strong in the last lap: by their cutoff time of 10:45 they had at least 35-40 people, a very decent showing for a town with three precincts. Not quite a full complement of guests, but there were signature gatherers there for at least a half-dozen campaigns, and just before the caucus was called to order Marisa DeFranco (Middleton Democrat opposing Cong, John Tierney) came in to greet caucusers. I left before the caucus ended, so no news on results.
For the first time that anyone in this city can remember we had a single site caucus with all six wards electing delegates at the same location. Five out of Six wards had contested elections and that last ward was able to elect a full slate. All of our local elected officials stopped by as well as Congressman Tierney, Don Berwick, Joe Avellone and Seth Moulton.
Don Berwick, as always, looked extremely confidant and was wonderfully personable. Not saying I will be supporting him but he is always great to talk with (by “always” I mean both times I have spoken with the man). Mr. Moulton had an army of energetic young folks collecting signatures which was great but he did look like he had second thoughts about bringing such a large show of support. He seemed a bit uncomfortable and declined a chance to speak to the group. There happened to be a lot of people wearing Tierney stickers so maybe that had something to do with it.
Just about every statewide campaign I can think of had staff collecting signatures and all in all it was a great day and a great turn out. We are all looking forward to the convention here in Peabody as well as the rest of what should be very busy year.
…to add that while we had no slates and the vast majority of delegates elected were officially uncommitted I think there is a good chance at least 20 delegates will be for Grossman with both Mayor Bettencourt and Councilman Tom Gould supporting the Treasurer. That number is a very rough estimate but looking over our delegate list I think it may even prove to be a low estimate. Will know more over the coming weeks.
Arlington had 163 enrolled Democrats in attendance in our caucus, which lasted four hours.
We elected 36 delegates out of 60 candidates nominated:
19 uncommitted delegates
15 Coakley delegates
1 Grossman delegate
1 Kayyem delegate
We elected 5 alternates out of 15 candidates nominated:
2 uncommitted alternates
2 Coakley alternates
1 Kayyem alternates
In Lexington, pretty heavy turnout to fill our 23 slots. There were partial slates for each of the gubernatorial candidates other than Coakley, and a slate of unpledged progressives organized by Progressive Dems of Mass. The entire unpledged progressive slate (11 delegates) was elected, along with 6 for Berwick, 4 for Grossman, and 2 others unpledged.
I’ve been told (but can’t confirm) that in Arlington, a majority of the elected delegates were unpledged, with most of the others for Coakley. And someone who was elected as part of the PDM unpledged progressive team at the Bourne caucus reports that the entire Bourne delegation is unpledged.
If you’re interested in working together with PDM’s statewide team of unpledged progressive delegates, please contact us at info@progressivedemsofmass.org.
Just look at the post above yours for the Arlington results.
Your post was submitted one minute before his — he almost certainly started writing his before yours was posted.
I didn’t look at the date, but it popped up on my browser much later than 6:39. Just the same, Peter Enrich is supposed to have superhuman progressive powers, able to read post before they are posted.
what the progressive delegates are looking for?
(Have hopes here for education…)
Things like adequately costing out the foundation budget, governance & the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, and charter school reform.
Thanks for filling us in.
Jimc reported on Waltham. Pablo reported on Arlington. In Brighton their ward slate won. It was contested but the community slate was well organized. I wasn’t there but I heard that Brookline elected:
5 Kayyem
6 Berwick
33 Grossman
By my count Berwick is 8 and Kayyem 8, and there are about five unpledged. That leaves roughly 23 for Grossman.
Note that, of the 44 delegate positions (22 men, 22 women) there were roughly 120 candidates. Well more than 200 people in the room.
Final count for Brookline:
Grossman: 23
Uncommitted: 7
Berwick: 8
Kayyem: 6
Some of the uncommitted were Grossmans by the time the caucus ended, but that’s not reflected in the numbers. Grossman also one 5/6 alternates with the last one uncommitted. Of the 200 or so voters in the room, only 5 supported Coakley and none were elected.
I think it would be easier to count the statewide candidates that didn’t show up than the ones that did at the Watertown caucus today. Turnout was about double what I expected. Lots of energy for hometown hero Warren Tolman!
I participated in Ward 10 today.
Coakley got 7 and Berwick 3
Next door at Ward 8 Kayyem took all 10 slots, as she did yesterday in Ward 3.
At one point, their were more candidates than voters here,, and a short visit by Sen. Warren (who was greeted like a rock star).
is where I used to live. (I left Cambridge in 1989). At that time it was one of the most liberal wards in Cambridge. I support Don Berwick, but Kayyem is my very strong second choice and I am delighted to see that she carried that ward. Ward 10, OTOH, was a fairly conservative ward; I’m not surprised that it would go for an establishment candidate.
Lots of volunteers and candidates in both places. To no one’s surprise Warren Tolman did well in Watertown. Voters had to walk the gauntlet of signature gatherers and candidates at both caucuses. The most interesting moment of the day was the woman who went into a defensive position with fists up as she walked into the caucus to protect herself from the hordes.
Good turnout, contested races all around. Personal appearances by Avellone, Grossman, Kayyem, Kerrigan, Lake, and Finegold. It’s the first caucus I have attended where candidates for delegate gave speeches. Delegates were unanimous for Finegold, not surprising given that he lives there. From what I could tell Grossman got a plurality of the delegates who had made up their minds, but plenty of delegates were uncommitted too.
I was also in Andover. Since I was there for an LG candidate, Mike Lake, I was focussng more on signatures than delegate tracking. As Christopher said most people seemed to be uncommitted. Someone from a campaign told me that the eight male delegates were:
5 – uncommitted
2 – Grossman
1 – Coakley
Someone else said that there were no Coakley delegates.
…who indicated he was leaning Coakley, and I believe he was elected.
That sounds like what I remember. Kate
Just enough attendees to fill their slots. Another interesting thing is that people only seemed to want to sign papers for candidates they supported.
I can see not signing a ballot question or some other issue based petition. But to not sign for a Democrat trying to get on the ballot? Bah. I’ll sign. I like little ‘d’ democracy.
I know a couple of people who don’t. Reasons I’ve been given:
-It’s better to see if a candidate can get the requisite number of signatures from supporters alone, as a gauge of support. This doesn’t make sense to me because it only works if everyone refuses to sign for people whose candidacy they’re not supporting.
-Prefer not to have too many candidates in the primary, if they feel like their preferred candidate could take the main rival in a 2-person race, but that additional candidates will split the anti- vote.
at our Caucus, the only candidate for Governor who ask me to sign was the volunteer for Martha C. but since I am leaning towards both Grossman and Berwick and since only the first signature recorded will count, I would like my signature to help one of the two candidates I am more likely to support. Personally, I would like to see the rule changed so that you could sign the papers of more than one candidate for the same office, and if that rule was in place, I would sign any candidate’s form on the “little d’ democracy” basis. Since I believe Martha C will get enough with or without me, I respectfully declined.
…about only the first of your signatures recorded counting. I’ve heard that may have been the case years ago, and I think I heard that might have been the rule for the Boston Mayoral, but you can sign all the papers you want for legislative, statewide, congressional, and county races and they will all count.
…but Dems and unenrolleds can sign for as many Democratic candidates per office as they want in State, county, and federal elections.
Of course the signers must remember to only sign papers reserved for their town of residence.
because I raised this issue, and no one corrected me while the papers were in front of me.
They’re probably confused because of what happened in the mayor’s race
About only the first one counting. We were constantly telling people that they could sign as many as they want. It seemed like more than usual, I’m thinking that it was indeed because of the Mayor’s race.
It’s not just Boston Mayoral race – afaik, that’s the general rule for muni elections throughout the Commonweath. (At least it certainly is here in Cambridge, where dozens of at-large municipal candidates scramble to get the first signatures in on July 1st of every odd-numbered year!)
Nonetheless, while most activists know this, a lot of once-every-2-or-4 years voters need to be reminded.
It was not an issue when I ran for Moderator of Dracut. Honestly, I think it’s a dumb rule. The logic that you’re just letting people run without regard for your own preference seems healthier to democracy, IMO.
person who wants to be a delegate for Coakley. Our chair and her husband are supporting Don Berwick. If I run, I won’t be committing to anyone and I’ll have a strong bias toward the MTA’s pick. Another voter will run as an MTA delegate as well. The MTA is trying to get 500 members as delegates, though there’s been no talk of committing to a particular candidate at this point.
Malden caucus was lively this morning, with signature-gatherers and sign-holders every bit as plentiful as participants (significant overlap, of course). I signed papers for around 15 people. Several candidates (various statewide offices) spoke BRIEFLY to introduce themselves and their candidacy. Maura Healey is a GREAT speaker. All 3 candidates running in the March 4 special election primary for state senate showed up, but only Lewis and Fallon stayed to say a few words. Our ward table had no contention for slots — just enough people — a core of enthusiastic and knowledgeable citizens — didn’t hear much support for Coakley (though her supporters were gathering sigs) or any for Avellone, though I give him credit for showing up.
do in Malden as far as you could tell?
Dominant at our table were Grossman and Undecided, with one strong Kayyem advocate. The undecideds were positive on Grossman but also liking things about Berwick or Kayyem. Many people are open-minded and still learning about the candidates, especially in the offices beyond Governor.
From what I could see there were a lot of uncommitted delegates in Leominster and Fitchburg. In Worcester there were a number of Grossman and Avellone delegates. Lots of staff and volunteers both places.
Contested on the male side, slate for Coakley.
Can we get this thread bumped again for this weekend?
18 delegates up for grabs. 43 registered attendees. 14 ran for male slots (4 Coakley, 4 Berwick, 6 uncommitted) and 17 ran for female slots (7 Coakley, 2 Berwick, 1 Avellone, and 7 uncommitted). Elected delegate results (based on my rough recollection of 2 minute speeches): 5 Coakley, 1 Berwick, 12 uncommitted (most of the uncommitteds were local ward committee members). All three elected Alternates were for Coakley. Our Ward will also be sending 8 ex-officio delegates, including 6 state committee members.
There was no real mention of downballot races, although expect strong support here for Mike Lake as it is his home ward and he is well known among the regular ward committee members.
No statewide candidates attended the caucus.
Contested for women – the two elected are for Kayyem – but between the either gender and alternate spots ultimately everyone who wished got put on the slate somehow.
I have a very faint idea on how state caucuses and conventions work, what’s the difference and how one gets to be a delegate and what candidates need to do. Forgive me if there are past posts or links explaining these things, but I’d love to be pointed in that direction so I can educate myself.
Seems fascinating and a great way for the activists in the party to have a say.
If you can give me a call or let me know the best way to reach you, I’m happy to chat. I think this needs to be more of a dialogue, rather than an explanation. Your comment is a good reminder that we need to explain this process on an ongoing basis. I can be reached at 508-404-8531 or e-mail me at katedonaghue AT aol DOT com. Talk soon. Kate
Will definitely arrange a time via email and I appreciate the outreach!
….caucuses are local meetings to elect delegates to the convention. You need to attend yours to run and be elected and it is advisable to bring friends to vote for you, but everyone involved must be a Dem by January 31st. If you are elected you attend convention and can vote for one candidate who will get on the primary ballot if he or she receives 15% of the vote at convention.
Well attended caucuses in Somerville. I networked, collected signatures, heard some of the speeches and them moved on to Ward 22. There were supporters of a number of candidates in the room. There was a community slate that did well.
All seven wards together, but I don’t know if any were contested. All gubernatorial candidates save Coakley showed up and spoke briefly. I got the sense Berwick did well.
41 participants, very contested elections in all cases, but no decisive victor among statewide candidates. They even had to go to a second ballot for men because there was a 4-way tie for the last slot. Marian Ryan, Mike Lake, Tom Conroy, and Don Berwick showed up personally. Almost three hours from opening of registration until adjournment.
Editors, there is one more weekend of caucuses; please rebump this post to the top.
As Christopher suggested? Inquiring minds want to know about the final caucus weekend. According to Mass. Dems website, there were caucuses in the past few days in several dozen communities. Anyone have any info?