As promised here are the results of the straw poll I conducted here on BMG and elsewhere. To review the methodology, everyone had two votes in each race. People could vote either here on BMG, on facebook on my personal page or send me an e-mail. Total people voting was 128. I did the best I could to interpret what people were saying if they didn’t specify number of votes. If someone said “leaning” then I counted it as one vote. If someone voted but didn’t specify numbers I would count it as two for each person for whom that person voted. I did allow write-ins.
Governor:
Joe Avellone – 3
Don Berwick – 54
Martha Coakley – 50
Steve Grossman – 46
Juliette Kayyem – 22
Write-ins: Dan Wolf-4 and Lisa Wong-2.
Lieutenant Governor:
James Arena DeRosa – 5
Leland Cheung – 19
Jonathan Edwards – 4
Steve Kerrigan – 22
Mike Lake – 69
Write-ins: Ayanna Pressley-2 and Mike Ross-2.
Attorney General:
Maura Healey – 88
Hank Naughton – 14
Warren Tolman – 56
Treasurer:
Tom Conroy – 44
Barry Finegold – 18
Deb Goldberg – 62
Consistent with what I have been hearing across to state there has been a lot of vote splitting. One thing that I have also consistently seen is that Mike Lake has won every straw poll I have taken.
I think that I will leave the analysis for others. Remember, it is just a straw poll! долгосрочные займы на карту с ежемесячной оплатой без отказа под низкий процент
These are interesting results.
Heartened to see Mike Lake get support all across the state. A lot of the Cambridge activists who helped deliver that part of the 5th for Clark are now backing Kayyem and Cheung, but good to see the BMG based grassroots back a thoughtful policy leader like Lake. He is our best chance to build on what Murray did with that office as a liaison to municipalities and governing partner with the Governor. He won’t be a mere placeholder, ticket balancer, or ladder climber in that office but will make it his own.
I also feel the same way about Tolman, but it appears Maura Healy has deeper support than I expected. He will have to do more to reach out beyond his natural constituency.
As for Governor I wonder what the second choice might be for those, I know I put in a vote apiece for Berwick and Grossman, but will likely pull for Grossman in the primary.
Kate Donaghue – 100%
You’re very kind.
I am glad to see that activists are intrigued by Berwick.
I have seen him at a couple of campaign stops including the Lexington debate, and he makes a forceful case for a progressive agenda.
Lake’s grassroots support seems to be strong. Should be an exciting race.
It is infinitely easier to attach to candidates who hold your policy beliefs. However it is another to assess if they will be effective campaigner. Even at the early stages, Elizabeth Warren was enough of an unknown quantity that then Sen Brown could plant whatever political spit ball against her he could dream up. However this was countered by fundraising, effective political work, and using the public media(print, internet, and TV) to push her candidacy. She is an example of what any of these well qualified candidates must demonstrate to gain Convention and Primary wins. This talent will be even more important when the contest is joined with Charlie Baker. So yes find a candidate you agree with, but also be aware of their political IQ.
The more I see of ‘politics’ the more I see a negative correlation of ‘political IQ’ and actual ability to govern. I think the CommonWealths best campaigners of the past 30 years have been Bill Weld, Paul Cellucci, Mitt Romney and Scott Brown. Great when campaigning for the office and horrible when actually in it. I think this is true, also, of the Presidency: Both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush were peerless campaigners… as presidents, however, not so much…
I think the Dems who have succeeded, like Mike Dukakis, Barney Frank, John Kerry, Deval Patrick and Elizabeth Warren did so by making up for any ‘political IQ` deficit by sheer, unstoppable and just plain IQ.
you think Deval Patrick and Elizabeth Warren lack “political IQ”?
was “great when campaigning for the office” in 2009-10, but not that great in 2012. I thought his campaign made any number of mistakes.
… In fact, I’ll double down and (using my previous examples as a backdrop) state categorically that the artifice, duplicity, well-studied vagueries and self-deceptions necessary to be considered ‘poliitical IQ’ are anathema to truly earnest candidates. And the Deval Patrick and Elizabeth Warren are truly earnest candidates. At one point this earnestness was ground wholly occupied by the moderate wing of the Republican party…
Since Nixon, the Republican party has run on a twofold platform: A) Dishonesty is the second best policy and 2) There is no first best policy…. And this has dominated our political discourse, and media, ever since. And it is what has come to be defined as ‘political IQ.’
Patrick and Warren are real dynamos that friends in other states are jealous I got to campaign for, vote for, and be governed by. Deval Patrick, despite some missteps as Governor, always impressed me as a more passionate and substantial orator than Barack Obama and he learned how to be a more competent statesmen than Barack Obama. Elizabeth Warren may end up accomplishing more in the Senate than Ted Kennedy and that is a hard act to follow.
Brown and Romney were always ” stuffed shirts” as my dad would say, while Weld actually loved politicking he hated governing. Kerry is the opposite of Weld which is one of the many reasons theirs was such a good race.
… that winning or losing is, or ought to be, the sole arbiters of ‘political IQ’… and that, because candidate X emerged victorious, therefore He/She has a higher ‘political IQ’ than Candidate Y. Apparently, oetkb, believes this also, which is why I replied with a ‘meh’ to that. I think people took a flyer on Deval Patrick not because they thought he was the second coming of LBJ but because they thought he was earnest. Elizabeth Warren also. I suppose the alternative is to believe that Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown really are simply peers and the contest rode upon who had more ‘political IQ’. I don’t believe that. I don’t think that Scott Brown, either intellectually or morally, is the equivalent of either Elizabeth Warren or Martha Coakley… but he defeated the one and was defeated by the other… and maybe the lizard brain wants to see that as some sort of ranking of ‘political IQ’. I don’t.
I once met Ray Flynn in person. I was about 20 or so. It must have been the mid to late 80’s. He was the Mayor. We were at a community center in Dorchester. He was introduced to me and, without even smiling, gave me a rather limp handshake and moved on. I didn’t get the impression that he didn’t like me… I just got the impression that he had immediately sized me up and decided I could do absolutely nothing for him. The next guy, my friend Mike, who was from Dorchester, got a hearty smile and a strong handshake and a few words. I asked Mike if he ever met the Mayor before and he said ‘nope’. I watched Flynn go down the rest of the line and the two differing scenes, complete indifference and hearty welcome, were repeated over the course of the 15 or 20 people he met. He worked the room and commanded the conversation… without much time to let people say something or ask a question. It was uncanny how he could tell who was helpful to him (a voter) and who was not.. and uncanny how actually transparent he was about it. Those whom he was charming were too busy being charmed. Those he didn’t just sorta moved on… I guess. But the point is that Ray Flynn was the ‘real dynamo’ when campaigning and very few could match him. He was shit as mayor, tho…
Again, however, in both intellect and moral weight, Bill Weld (and George Bush for that matter) aren’t even in the same league as John Kerry. So I reject the notion that it was equal but opposite ‘political IQ’s’ slugging it out…
I met John Kerry in similar circumstances as when i met Ray Flynn. It was the dedication of the Picower Center at MIT in 2005. Everybody he talked with got a steady look in the eye, a strong handshake and an attentive listen if they had a question or something to say. He didn’t work the room in the same way Flynn did but he did hold most of the rooms gravity. Nobody every really got that excited about John Kerry but he was a terrific Senator and I hope to say the same about his time as Sec’y of State.
I’ve met various other politicians here and there and have studied them from afar and they fall somewhere along the spectrum of the two exremes of campaigner I’ve described above: transparent phony or earnest listener. In my estimation, transparent phony is the one people talk about when they talk about ‘political IQ’ and the people I’ve mentioned, Bill Weld, Mitt Romney, etc…. were all transparent phonies. And the converse is also true: everybody is all to willing to criticize Dukakis or Coakley or Kerry or whomever for whatever slip they make and are too too quick to jump on that as some indication of low ‘political IQ’. I reject that. Utterly.
I don’t always think that the earnest listener is guaranteed to be a good governor or senator or whatever… plenty have tried and won and turned out to be their own version of ‘meh’… Barack Obama might be the examplar here… And for all I’ve said here I still can’t figure out where on the spectrum to place Bill Clinton. But I do know, across the board, that the transparent phonies are, without a shred of doubt in my mind, guaranteed to be not just a poor office holder but often disastrous.
I guess the long and the short of it is that ‘political IQ’ isn’t guarantee to win the race (and therefore those who win aren’t, automatically, possessed of some magical ‘political IQ’) and, based upon previous rankings of ‘political IQ’ it isn’t guaranteed to produce a good public servant while in office. Quite the opposite, as I’ve tried to argue.
I met Michael Dukakis in the Coolidge Corner Stop And Shop in 1999, long after his last campaign. I thanked him for all he’d done, and mentioned my long-standing love of trains. We conversed (while walking the aisles), and I told him my name *once*.
Months later, I ran into him again at the same store. He recognized me, stepped forward with a smile and a warm handshake, and said “Good to see you again, Tom”. Amazing. Mike Dukakis was (and is) a star.
I also met Bill Clinton in Harvard Square, in a “rope line” after an appearance he made at the JFK school. A hostile female graduate student at the front of the line asked him, as he was passing by shaking hands, “What about Rowanda, Mr. President”. He stopped short, turned to face her, and said “I am GLAD you asked me that question. I made a serious mistake in Rowanda, and here’s why …”. He proceeded to conduct a 20-minute conversation with her — filled with facts, logic, compassion, and history. When the exchange finished (I think with a hug, if I recall), she turned to me and said “Wow!”. Bill Clinton made a convert that afternoon, and he wasn’t even running for office. Bill Clinton was (and is) a star.
I’ve met Ray Flynn. I’ve met Tom Menino. I’ve met John Kerry. None of them meet my threshold of “star”.
I’ve also met, and had more extended exchanges with, Deval Patrick. Deval Patrick is a star. He is smart, articulate, warm, and has great instincts.
I want to cast my vote for a star. That doesn’t mean I won’t settle for less, but it does mean that — especially at this stage of the race — I want a candidate who is more like Deval Patrick or Mike Dukakis.
Of course nobody good has any “political IQ” if you define it as phony and duplicitous. But defining the term that way seems like scarring from seeing too many phony, duplicitous candidates win, more than identifying any meaningful measure of political acumen.
How can a Deval Patrick not have high political IQ? He burst forth out of obscurity to beat the sitting AG 2-to-1 in delegates and primary voters, then beat the sitting Lieutenant Governor (who’d been running for six months while he battled through caucuses, conventions, and primaries) by over 20 points.
… “win”.
I’m not the one using “win” as arbitration of “political IQ”. This sub-thread was started when I replied to oetkb who asserted that any candidate had to have ‘political IQ’ to win. I reject that. I, further, replied that I’ve seen a negative correlation between ‘political IQ’ and actual ability and willingness to govern. I stand by that.
Furthermore, I also stated that I think just plain IQ is sufficient and backed that up with examples of Deval Patrick and Elizabeth Warren, among others. A measure of acumen is my meaningful measure of political acumen. The term “Political IQ” makes differentiation between a person of substance who runs on substance and somebody for whom the political landscape is malleable and fungible and for whom manipulation and deceit are mere tools available.
I think basic ‘politics’ is pretty simple: “I’m candidate X and I’m asking for your vote. Here’s what I stand for…” That’s it.
I think it gets complex when it becomes “I’m candidate X and I’m morally superior to Candidate Y”
I think it gets even more complex when the above example of Candidate X belittling Candidate Y represents a reversal of reality as when, on behalf of George Bush, it was posited that John Kerry was a lesser human being and that Kerry wouldn’t be able to protect against Terrorist Z. If you think about it, all of that was done so that people wouldn’t have to take too hard a look at George W. Bush and to find some perception of that for which he truly stands. If they did, I contend, he’d never have made it in any political office whatsoever, never mind the presidency. I suppose it takes a particular form of IQ to construct and model that kind of bizarro world… and duct tape the seams (seems?) continuously and Karl Rove is still employed exactly because of that… But at some point the campaign ends and the world has to be governed as it is, not as we have constructed our narrative to be.
I think Deval Patrick, as I stated previously, has high IQ. I think, also, he has a strong work ethic. If you think those are insufficient and require something more that you label “political IQ’, I guess I have to ask you what you think that is? I’ve seen people with lower IQ’s and lesser work ethics shade into puffery about themselves, deception about any/all opponents and generalized anxiety amongst the rabble in order to push the plebiscite in a particular direction. I’ve rarely seen people of lesser IQ and weaker wills win without resorting to such tactics. And I’ve never seen anyone of low IQ and lower character survive actual extended scrutiny… and so “political IQ” is some form of mask and misdirection… how can it not be so?
I don’t, in the end, define “political IQ” the way you do.
Sure, you could say there’s a “political IQ” involved in Rove’s ability to fool people into thinking up was down or dry was wet. But I believe knowing how to organize, to inspire activists and volunteers to help your campaign, to present ideas to the public well instead of badly, or to deploy campaign resources wisely all should fall under “political IQ” even though they don’t involve Rovian deception. They all go beyond simple “high IQ” and work ethic, both of which people like Ralph Nader or John Silber certainly had, into a realm of aptitude for electoral politics.
Even if earnest and honest, can you win without this sort of political IQ? Maybe, if the structural situation favors you that much (an overwhelming party registration advantage, a scandal in the other party, a three-way race), or if you’re blessed with a truly unappealing opponent. But it’s pretty hard, just as it’s hard for a fraud to win without deceit and slick evasion of scrutiny.
… that you’ve missed the point.
Any jackass can ‘win’ a political campaign. Indeed, from where I sit the more of a jackass you are the easier to win the campaign. And, again from where I sit, whether or no you win is fast becoming the sole metric by which we measure political leaders. Perhaps that’s true… but I rather think it’s just a defense mechanism to shield oneself from the ‘liberal shellshock syndrome’ of losing righteously. After all, if your candidate sucked you don’t have to examine exactly how uphill your struggle is…
The point is whether or no you can be a good, effective, impactful and righteous leader AFTER you’ve won the election. Furthermore, the question is begged: is that which got you in the seat (the so called “political IQ”) actually, and truly, ANTITHETICAL to actual use of the power of the seat? I say it is. I say the divergence between running for the seat and running the seat is extreme and extremely damaging to the democracy and the republic.
The alternative is to think that Scott Brown is more or less equal in stature, morality, intellect and acumen to Elizabeth Warren and the resulting electoral defeat was merely a question of having, more or less arbitrarily, chosen the wrong strategy. If that’s the case why don’t we just roll dice next time…?
Here’s my disconnect. You wrote: “I still can’t figure out where on the spectrum to place Bill Clinton.”
I have doubt whatsoever. Whether we call it “political chops”, “political skill”, or “political IQ”, Bill Clinton is to politicians what Jimi Hendrix is to guitarists or The Beatles were to rock groups.
I am quite certain that we have seen many, many politicians who have the same or higher IQ than Bill Clinton. We have similarly seen many politicians noted for their work ethic.
In my lifetime, nobody has come close to matching the performance of Bill Clinton either during his eight years in office or, for that matter, in the more than ten years since leaving office. My parents say that FDR had this quality, but that was before I was born and the grainy clips and audio recordings lessen the impact he must have had.
I’m not talking about whether I agree or disagree with his message or programs. I’m talking about the sheer deftness and skill of his conduct of the office. He makes Ronald Reagan look like, well, Jimmy Page of Led Zepplin (to stay with my earlier metaphor). Good, even very good, perhaps. Nothing approaching “great”, though. IMHO.
Your mileage may vary. 🙂