It’s not exactly driving the money changers from the temple, but Martha Coakley wants outside cash out of the MA race for Governor. Today she called for a people’s pledge for the Dem candidates to eschew super PAC blind contributions. She’d found that competitor Steve Grossman (MA Treasurer and Receiver General) would benefit from a forming super PAC. She’s agin it and told me she was surprised and frankly disappointed.
She came by her view honestly, railing against Citizens United, to the point of getting other AG’s to start campaigns in their states for an amendment to overturn the SCOTUS decision. She also is trying to return the power to states to regulate campaign finance in their borders.
She joined Left Ahead today for a chat. By the bye, I did ask whether there was friction as both she and Grossman competed. She claims collegiality and that when they meet at debates and such they are pleasant and keep to issues.
Click below to listen in as we speak of the campaign and her particular issues. While having a solid law-enforcement/criminal-justice career, she is not running as the law-and-order candidate. Rather, her platform covers a wide range. We touched on many planks. For a few examples, we concurred on getting involved earlier and better with kids as well as adults to avoid incarceration, ensure real rehabilitation and enable reintegration into society. On the other hand, she has health-care proposals for reducing costs, emphasizing mental health and more, but does not share my love of single-payer, which she described as not in itself “a way to save costs.” We seemed to meet in the middle on fiber for internet speed. I am chagrined at how European and Asian nations skunk us with our feeble copper to their fiber. She agreed that we should be a leader in such technologies and as governor would work toward that…otherwise no promises.
While many of the planks she proposes are fundamental, progressive sorts, she is convinced she’d be able to realize them. She speaks of massive infrastructure improvements and maintenance in areas like transportation and telecommunications. She seems undaunted by the prospect of getting them legislated and funded. She compared these to health care, in that we didn’t ask whether it was possible, rather how to accomplish the reform. Listen in as she speaks of areas where she worked with the legislature on manifesting big goals.
~Mike
Words and actions…Coakley’s are not matching up…Kayyem calls her bluff on today’s PAC issue stunt:
magov14.com/kayyem-release-juliette-kayyem-responds-to-martha-coakleys-email-to-her-regarding-peoples-pledge/
Ugh. It’s got it all: needles posing: (“Thank you for your renewed interest in pursuing a People’s Pledge”), smug instruction on how to campaign (“discussions about such detailed issues are best done in a face-to-face meeting”) and even a needless slapdown (“in the future I would greatly appreciate if you refrain from using my personal email account”).
I get that Kayyem is trying to score points on this issue same as everyone else. But when you correct people publicly, the intent usually isn’t to change behavior but to claim higher ground. Why not identify by name and number the objectionable parts of Coakley’s proposal?
…went directly at Grossman, attributing to Avellone:
—
Sheila B. Lalwani
Communications Director
Press Secretary
Avellone for Governor
“Voters should determine who wins elections, not outside money!” – Steve Grossman.
http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2014/04/with_super_pac_support_steven_grossman_changing_tune
According to David S. Bernstein:
So, this is the same Martha Coakley who recently had to pay $24,000 in fines because of campaign finance violations!
And now, she’s acting holier than thou about campaign money.
What a hypocrite!
What a hypocrite!
So, Martha Coakley is the Attorney General responsible for enforcing campaign laws.
And, Martha Coakley was caught violating the laws she’s supposed to enforce.
And, Martha Coakley has Emily’s List and millionaire Barbara Lee.
And, Martha Coakley refused to sign a People’s Pledge.
Grossman is correct about who should determine elections, but Martha is using outside money and has violated the law. Steve Grossman deserves an equal playing field.
You realize that one can be disturbed by the Coakley campaigns’ issues with campaign finance and also simultaneously believe Coakley is our best choice for governor. One doesn’t have to reduce the world into a simple good/evil, black/white, for us/against us thing.
Is it motivated by greed? $45,000.00 in cash from the liquor industry, who Grossman supposedly “regulates,” and this:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/12/16/state-treasurer-grossman-wrestles-with-conflicts-over-family-firm/YNBWu2GsmgweqfN9H5Rn6I/story.html
And he’s too good to answer questions?
He’s exactly the kind of shady insider pol the GOP hopes we nominate.
…for an endorsement post for your candidate (Coakley?). Let’s not tear down other Dems, especially progressive ones. Don’t whine about what another candidate did to yours either. We can’t control that. What we can control is the content of BMG and THAT is where I call on things to stay positive.
reading recent posts here on BMG.
I think Juliette Kayyem is the most interesting candidate. I really like her background. She’s a candidate who can inspire and excite voters. She’ll make a terrific Governor.
I think Coakley won’t survive the Primary. She”ll be buried under Grossman’s negative campaigning. I know the intellectually lazy think that by objecting to Grossman’s attacks, and not buying into “the cops are Nazis” theme popular here, I “must be in Coakley’s camp,” but no. I just think she’s getting a raw deal from “fellow” Dems enjoying the group-think tear-her-down game.
I think Berwick is all pie-in-the-sky, and not a fighter. His “Medicare for All” is great, but hardly original. Jamie Eldridge’s bill of the same name was sent to committee months ago. Did Brewick support it? Did he know about it?
I think Grossman will win the nomination. And lose the general.
And, unlike many here, I’ll vote for our candidate in the general no matter who it is.
CentralMassDad-not a Democrat or a progressive I might add (though a great contributor here!)-is the only person pledged to that. And EB3 (again not a self-identified progressive or democrat AFAIK).
I have been quite clear I am ready to hold my nose if she wins-but I also reject the notion it is disloyal of me to fight to ensure a better candidate wins. Or that it is sexist. Or that it means I love Scott Brown or Charlie Baker or whatever other sins Coakley opponents get accused of.
You’ve invested a lot of time in playing the victim here.
How’s that working out for you?
Do you mean to say a MARKETING firm has HIGH PROFILE clients?
His office hands out lucrative contracts to his company’s clients.
Sooner, or later, Grossman will have to answer questions on this. He needs to set that podium back up.
You do know Steve Grossman is our sitting state treasurer, right?
In your link above, two of the cited examples are the Bruins and the Celtics. So I guess he should refer whatever business it is to the Red Wings and the Knicks?
I can tell you the Lottery was advertising at the Garden long before that. The scratch tickets are new, but Red Sox and Patriots versions came along around the same time, and those teams make more off the deal.
It’s also not surprising that one of the top few law firms in Boston advises the treasurer’s office. Mintz Levin was a national leader in public finance law when I was in law school, over a decade ago. Also before Grossman was elected.
JPMorgan Chase I don’t like, but they’re one of the largest banks in the U.S. It’s also not surprising the state treasurer’s office would deal with them, particularly since they’ve acquired so many other companies the office might have dealt with in the past.
I’ve also seen nothing to suggest that Grossman Marketing made significantly more money off these entities since those deals were reached than it did in the past.
methuen’progressive’ we heard you the first two times. Enough is enough.
We know Martha Coakley supporter methuenprogressive is in Ms. Coakley’s camp. I hope he keeps posting. I look forward to helping BMG associate the phrase “Martha Coakley supporter” with him. Martha Coakley has spent a career cultivating the support of voters like methuenprogressive. First as a prosecutor and then as AG, Ms. Coakley has encouraged the attitudes that methuenprogressive articulates so eloquently.
That’s why I support Don Berwick.
He thinks “we are a hairs-breadth away from martial law enforced by a heavily-armed, inexperienced, and undisciplined police force”?
He thinks the cops are the Gestapo? The Stasi? Nazis, as you have articulated so eloquently?
I stand by my comments.
I reject your distortions of them.
You claim a candidate should be defined by their supporters.
Except yours being defined by you.
Who said anything about “both ways”? I’m happy to have myself identified as a supporter of Don Berwick, and that’s among the things I mean by “I stand by my comments”.
My objection is to your frequent distortions of my comments (and those of others). Please cite a statement from me, in context, where I said that I think the cops are “Gestapo” or “Nazis”.
I do think that the NSA privacy intrusions rival anything that Stasi ever achieved.
You did in fact bring up the Gestapo, Nazis and the Stasi in your criticism of cops. So I don’t think there is all that much of a distortion. I don’t think you realize how often you allow your rhetoric to go way beyond what you actually believe. You do realize that bringing up Nazi/Gestapo in just about any context is highly inflammatory, do you not?
Removed from context, I could say that both you and methuenprogressive also brought up the Gestapo, Nazis, and Stasi.
Context counts.
I’ve already said, here, that current surveillance operations of the NSA dwarf those of Stasi. I stand by that inflammatory assessment and comparison.
For me, thousands of cops firing automatic weapons at night at unknown targets in the middle of a residential neighborhood is “highly inflammatory”. The video of our governor looking in admiration at the uniformed apparently military honcho he has just yielded authority to is “highly inflammatory”.
I used both “Gestapo” and “Nazi” in the context of hypotheticals — IF fill-in-the-blank THEN whatever.
Here are some examples, in context:
Which part do you challenge
Sounds like…
Nevertheless…
I certainly hope that it remains possible to use Hitler and Stalin as examples of what we wish to avoid. I certainly hope it remains possible to speak out when our own government’s behavior resembles that of a police state.
If that offends your sensibilities, then I offer my condolences and invite you to avoid the kitchen if you don’t like the heat.
That, I hope, offer night courses in history.
Enroll as soon as you can.
You are utterly incapable of taking any kind of criticism whatsoever. You cannot comprehend the idea that you might ever use counterproductive rhetoric or turn off the very people you are trying to convince.
I am not offended by your speech at all. I just find that your hyperbolic metaphors are largely counterproductive to making your point.
Ask yourself this. Do you post here to persuade people or simply to satisfy a narcissistic compulsion for attention?
All too often you spend an enormous effort trying to prove yourself right in absolutely every respect rather than trying to actually be persuasive.
Like it or not, invoking Hitler etc. is going to distract people from paying attention to your actual argument. It might be fun for you, get a rise out of some people and give you a self-righteous rush, but not much more than that.
The time to call for a People’s Pledge was at the beginning of the campaign. Now it just looks like Coakley is worried she can’t get outside PAC support, so she is suggesting other candidates should also forgo PACs.
Coakley, Grossman, Avellone, Berwick, and Kayyem all were in favor, but negotiations broke down.
http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2014/04/25/martha-coakley-steve-grossman-peoples-pledge/
This is a nice piece of reporting from David S. Bernstein. According to this, it is unclear who sank the People’s Pledge. Both Coakley and Grossman seem to have had an interest to do away with the Pledge.
I am sure both are likely true, which is why those of us who want dirty money out of politics shouldn’t back either of these candidates in the primary. But considering her past and her own DC based superpac endorsements, the OP and subsequent comments from the Coakley camp are a little disingenuous in my book.
I am not sure what you mean with the expression “dirty money”.
A Super Pac has been formed to help Grossman, but that SuperPAC hasn’t raised any money and hasn’t done anything yet.
So far, Steve Grossman is working hard and playing by the rules. By comparison, Martha Coakley was caught violating campaign finance rules.
We heard you the first ten times. (sorry kirth)
Her campaign did what again? Had two checking accounts, of funds legally donated to her, one federal and one state, and then paid some bills from the wrong account?
That’s terrible. Did an industry she regulates hand her a $75K payment?
Did she hand out huge state contracts to firms that pay huge sums to a company she runs? That, would be wicked terrible, by comparison. Wouldn’t you agree?
But we had a PAC free race between Brown and Warren and Markey and Gomez. I would want a PAC free race here. SuperPACs with their shady disclosure laws and ability to raise unlimited funds are dirty by their very design.
But “dirty money” is a stretch.
Money doesn’t grow on trees. It’s also known to be the root of all evil. Unless you’re growing your evil hydroponically, money’s in dirt, and therefore dirty. QED.
Actually, it’s the LOVE of money is the “root of all evil”.
Money itself is more neutral than you suggest, I think — unless you’re also being sarcastic (which I enjoy if so).