I’ve been annoyed by the comments of some posters on here (not to mention direct mailings) making charges that the Jason Lewis campaign is being dishonest, misrepresenting facts, or going negative. I live in the district and I am volunteering with Jason Lewis, and I have seen absolutely nothing of the kind. Ironically, these charges themselves seem to be the only dishonesty going on in the race.
The Chris Fallon campaign has sent mail and posted on Facebook direct accusations that Lewis has misrepresented his record. However, he has refused to provide even one example of a misrepresentation that the Lewis campaign has made, despite multiple requests to do so. That seems odd, especially since he has repeated the claim numerous times.
At the same time, Fallon’s campaign has claimed he has been endorsed by more than 50 legislators. I also know that there have been repeated requests to furnish a list of those endorsements. I too would like to know who they are. I know that the many individuals and groups that have endorsed Lewis are on his website.
Anthony Guardia has also claimed that the other candidates are attacking him and each other, but I have yet to hear anyone “attacking” Guardia at all. I do know that the Lewis campaign has publicly stated that this is a close race between him and Chris Fallon.That assertion is based on polling, and it is an important point for many progressive primary voters because the differences between Lewis and Fallon are very stark.
People are rightly turned off by personal negative campaigning, but I just don’t see that going on in this case on the part of the Lewis campaign, and suggestions to the contrary are the only misrepresentations I’m seeing in this whole race. Considering there will be a general election against a Republican elected official on April 1st, I would hope that all the campaigns would tone down the rhetoric and accusations, honestly discuss their cases and differences among them, and get ready to come together after the primary.
On his Facebook and Twitter accounts he has stressed that not only won’t he go negative but also that he does not want his supporters doing so either. I have pointed out areas of contrast between the candidates on the issues but believe, as Anthony does, that Jason and Chris are good people , I just believe Anthony is better suited to address the needs of the whole district and deliver a new generation of leadership to the state . He has been clear about that in the debates and all his appearances and there are no negative mailings , no calls, and no attacks on his opponents. Period. It’s not what he believes or how he wants to run.
I will take issue not with Lewis, but with his argument that it’s a race between him and Fallon since the last minute momentum in terms of the AFT and NAGE endorsements and on the ground feeling is going Guardia’s way.
As someone who lives in the district, I haven’t observed any momentum towards Guardia whatsoever. These two late endorsements that you cite don’t really help him very much either, especially in light of the many strong, early endorsements Lewis has received from labor organizations, local leaders, and progressive organizations and legislators.
The numbers in the district just do not add up in Guardia’s favor. That is math, not negative campaigning.
What has amazed me, frankly, is how little Guardia and his supporters have felt any need to assess the 18 year record of Chris Fallon, his endorsement of Scott Brown, and his years-long endorsement by anti-choice groups. I understand the desire not to get personal or nasty but critiquing those points is hardly personal or nasty, but factual. Ironically, Guardia and his supporters have felt no similar qualms about criticizing Lewis, personally and politically, and often. But about Fallon, it’s been crickets from Guardia’s camp.
And I agree with smorris that pointing out the longstanding reality of the polling in this race is not negative campaigning.
That’s two references to the “reality of polling” in this thread. Is there an independent poll on this race? If so could a Lewis supporter please post the link – I’d be interested to see the poll being discussed.
The polls I’m referring to are internal. I don’t know if there have been independent polls in this race.
Just on BMG you’ve had me, Fred, Terry, and even Eleanor Roosevelt vigorously contest Fallon’s record in contrast to Guardia. Early on I made contracts to Lewis’ voting record and Guardia made contrast with both at the debates. Pretty hard to call your guy the labor candidate when Lu are calling the NAGE and AFT meaningless. That they endorsed this late and broke for Guardia is significant-even Striker (who is neutral AFAIK) conceded this.
Early in this race you accused me of negativity and said Lewis was the more progressive-now all I hear is how Guardia will somehow win the race for Fallon who has come across as nasty and alienated a lot of voters in the debates and only Lewis can keep the seat in a true Democrats hands. I’ve tried to keep this race from being too acrimonious, have apologized when I made errors (as has Fred) and my candidate has even told his supporters not to bash in their canvassing, conversations and to take the high road. It may be the road less traveled in this campaign but it may be the road to victory. We will see on Tuesday.
Vigorous would not be the word I would use to describe guardia or Guardia’s supporters’ comments on Fallon. There have been comments like well I don’t agree with him on everything, fairly bland statements. At the Winchester debate guardia said nothing about Fallon’s record and then talked about how his opponents were getting negative and he was above the fray. He has said next to nothing in his lit about one of the other two candidates. It’s not negative to be a strong candidate and critique one of your opponents on a lousy record. But that has often been the implication in Guardia’s critique of Lewis, in my opinion.
I didn’t say Lewis was *the* labor candidate. I said he had numerically a lot more labor endorsements than the other two, but the other two have union endorsements. Big deal, that is fact. I didn’t say guardia or Fallon’s union endorsements were meaningless, good grief.
I don’t recall accusing you of negativity. I did say I thought Lewis was more progressive based on what Lewis and guardia had put on the record at that point. I stand by that. You disagree. C’est la vie.
We shall definitely see on Tuesday.
The negative campaigning complaint always seems to me like a side effect of having a lazy media and low information voters. Lazy media, who don’t want to actually investigate policy questions or the truth or falsity of claims, get to comment on superficial matters and save themselves the expense of investigation. Making a to-do about negative campaigning is cost-effective.
Low information voters by and large hate controversy. They often seem to have a happy fantasy that, if everyone just “got along” and “did the right thing”, then everything would work out and we’d all be happy. Controversy prevents getting along. So it prevents happiness. That’s not how the world works, but low-information voters are too busy with the rest of their lives to come to or accept that conclusion.
The controversies can’t be wished away. They represent real issues. They represent real disagreements. They are worth some passion. A case against voting for Rep. Fallon sounds like an important case to be made.
Yes, it is negative.
So what?
Mr Fallon should do better than just whine. Mr Lewis’ organization should be unafraid of making that case — even if it is negative.
I agree that I have not seen personal attacks in this race, and any misrepresentations are coming from Chris Fallon’s campaign — misrepresenting Jason Lewis, in particular, as someone who is misleading voters. There is no evidence Lewis has done that. Fallon has run unopposed for so long he’s forgotten what it means to have to earn someone’s vote by being the best candidate in the field–not just the only name (or Democrat name) on the ballot. Lewis has run mainly on his own track record but also presented some facts about Fallon’s record in order to clarify the choice–to combat the usual unfortunate perception, especially in a primary special election, that no difference exists and voters might as well stay home. That clarification is helpful for voters, it’s good strategy, and it’s fair. Fallon’s strategy seems to be to erode support for Lewis by painting him as a bully, hoping no one will look too closely for real evidence of that.
To lump Anthony in with Fallon is disingenuous, to argue that in a Democratic primary we have to sink to defensive rather than affirmative voting sets the progressive record and grassroots spirit of our movement back. I don’t recall Katherine Clark making such arguments in her primary. And for what it’s worth I backed someone else but respected the way she ran that campaign and supported her as the nominee and expect her to do great things in Congress. There is still a credible Republican on the ballot in the general and Lewis shouldn’t be burning too many bridges in the primary.
Lastly this is a race that would’ve been well served by IRV. I’m starting to think all primaries would benefit from that, and I felt the same way about CD-5.
The reason Katherine Clark didn’t make an argument in her primary about splitting the progressive vote was because (1) there were half a dozen candidates, which split the vote that many ways to begin with and (2) none of those candidates were even remotely as conservative as Fallon. It would have been a nonsensical argument for her to make. It wasn’t in this race, and activists on the ground who were aware of Fallon’s record and concerned that he had the largest built in base of support of the candidates and so therefore might win this had every right to be concerned early on about splitting the progressive vote. But that ship sailed so moving on…
I absolutely agree with you on IRV. I would love to see it expand outside of Cambridge where it has worked incredibly well for a very long time. Bring it on! And in the CD5 race it would have been very valuable and probably would have given the winner much more of a mandate since I’m pretty sure a lot of Sciortino voters would have had Clark as their #2 choice, for example, because I spoke to a lot of people who flat out said that to me. Giving the winning candidate a stronger mandate is one of the things I really like about IRV, besides freeing voters from a feeling that they’re throwing their vote away, which is an awful thing to do to voters, regardless of their political persuasion, imo.
For the second comment, we will just have to agree to disagree on the first one. Cambridge is STV not IRV and it hasn’t worked as well as it could’ve since it makes less sense for an at large election. We had a recount this year and depending on the method used to calculate the fractional votes different candidates might’ve been elected. But for single seats, especially in primaries, I see no reason not to implement it. I gotta talk to Kate about caucuses and conventions at some point, maybe we can figure out a way to switch to IRV for our primaries.
For the second comment, we will just have to agree to disagree on the first one. Cambridge is STV not IRV and it hasn’t worked as well as it could’ve since it makes less sense for an at large election. We had a recount this year and depending on the method used to calculate the fractional votes different candidates might’ve been elected. But for single seats, especially in primaries, I see no reason not to implement it. I gotta talk to Kate about caucuses and conventions at some point, maybe we can figure out a way to switch to IRV for our primaries.
And for this primary it wouldn’t force us to argue over vote splitting and instead focus on the candidates records and issues.
Now that you’ve half-uprated twice?
You seem to presume that if not for the vote-spliting worry, Guardia would be getting more support. That may be so. But if Lewis and Guardia were the only candidates, we’d be talking instead about who is most likely to be effective advancing the progressive agenda in the senate. In that scenario, I see little difference between the candidates’ ideas, and Jason Lewis has the experience and track record. Alternatively, if Fallon and Guardia were the only candidates, I’d be out there knocking on doors for Guardia.
I’d be happy to talk about issues and experience and have been since I started posting about this race. Lewis supporters are the only ones who are mentioning vote splitting and it seems to be their main argument going into the primary, in the robo calls and in some of their lit. I was clear from the get to that the reverse was true for me, no Guardia in the race I’d be for Lewis. I might add I started posting on this race before Guardia got in and defended Lewis from baseless personal attacks from EB3.
The major issues I see it are that Guardia will be a slightly better vote on labor, immigrant rights, public education, and revenue. Lewis has votes for charter expansion, the pension ‘reform’, against public housing for immigrants, and against a comprehensive revenue package. Anthony would vote differently and would also make ending disparity in local aid a cornerstone of his tenure, along with continuing the fights against domestic violence that Clark fought for. He has direct experience working in non-profits and has great ideas about harnessing and supporting that community. He has fought homelessness and has made that and transit funding part of his campaign as well, in a suburban district no less. Youth and energy and a willingness to lead and take tough stances.
That’s where I see it, and I know that’s the positive case he is making going into the primary and the momentum seems to be swinging his way.
…I’d refer you to this article from the Stoneham Patch website presenting each candidates responses to a series of questions (interestingly, Rep. Fallon didn’t even bother to respond). Each seems to promise to work on a similar set of issues, but Rep. Lewis can cite an impressive list of specific legislative accomplishments that Mr. Guardia can’t match. The endorsement of Lewis by many of the progressive leaders in the legislature tells me he’ll be immediately effective in his new role as Senator.
One point that I haven’t seen mentioned in any of the recent posts on this race is that whoever wins tomorrow’s primary (and the general election in April) will have to turn around and defend the seat again in the fall. Based on fund raising numbers I saw published this morning I don’t believe the Republican who will be on the April ballot will be a serious challenge, but I have heard talk that there may be a more serious challenge in the fall when, at least in theory, the Republican challenger can take advantage of Charlie Baker’s coattails. Running two campaigns in this compressed time frame will be expensive and Lewis has shown the ability to raise the funds necessary to meet that challenge.
Best of luck to all tomorrow. Lewis will have my vote and my GOTV efforts.