Why Don Berwick Deserves Our Support

Don Berwick often gets the loudest and longest applause at Candidates’ Forums because his positions on key issues are clear, thoughtful, and grounded in progressive values.

 

As he demonstrated in his stint as President Obama’s Director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (an $800 billion agency with 5,500 employees) — and in every speech and interview — Don doesn’t shy away from tough challenges or “the details.”  Instead, his years of dedicated work as a pediatrician and founder and director for 20 years of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, and his thoughtful issues platform demonstrate tenacity, integrity, vision and commitment to social justice. Don is:

·      The only Democrat for repeal of the Mass. Casino Gambling law, because casinos will cannibalize small businesses and the Lottery, use addictive slot machine technology to exploit customers and harm families, and will generate a lot more revenue for their corporate owners than for the State.

·      The only candidate committed to giving Single Payer health coverage a real chance.

·      The most articulate candidate on criminal justice sentencing reform, including rolling back the mandatory sentencing laws, decriminalizing minor offenses, and increasing the focus on rehab and access to substance abuse & mental health care

·      The only candidate willing to talk about a more progressive income tax.

·      Strongly committed to a woman’s right to choose and full access to reproductive health services.

·      Committed to affordable housing and addressing homelessness (and his institute for Healthcare Improvement was a co-founder of the 100,000 Homes Campaign to end chronic homelessness).

·      Committed to fairly funding the deferred maintenance of our transportation infrastructure and to promoting the use of public transit, “clean” (low emission) vehicles, and bicycles.   

·      Committed to an energy policy centered on expanding the use of renewable energy sources and investment in energy efficiency, to end our addiction to fossil fuels

·      Committed to universal access to pre-K, a stronger system of training, certification, mentoring, and overall support for elementary and secondary teachers, a smart, nuanced policy on charter schools, and a more adequately financed community college system that both improves access (e.g., in-state tuition rates regardless of immigration status) and enables college completion by low income students… an approach that invests in making Mass. schools “world class, across the board, and accessible to all.”

 

Is Don Berwick just a “spoiler”?   Absolutely not. Because he isn’t as well known as candidates who currently hold statewide office, some folks who think he’d be the best governor are concerned that he might not be able to win the nomination and beat Charlie Baker. Don Berwick is no more a “spoiler” than Barack Obama was when he came out of the blue to capture the nomination and win the election…  or Deval Patrick, when he came out of nowhere to win the nomination and become Governor.

 

Moving the electorate in a progressive direction calls for politicians with courage to use their soapbox to articulately frame the issues.  Too often, candidates abandon their principles and run for middle ground and play it safe.  Don Berwick won’t do that.  Getting Don Berwick on the ballot ensures that progressives will have an articulate spokesperson for the issues we care about in the debates and political run-up to the Primary this Fall.   

 

We all want to make sure that there’s a Democrat in the corner office.  Let’s trust Massachusetts Democrats to vote strategically in the primary to elect that candidate.  Let’s not preempt the possibility of a real discussion about the issues, just because a February straw poll tells us that statewide office-holders have better early-stage name recognition than a first-time candidate — Don Berwick — who truly deserves a place on the ballot and our support for his campaign.