Despite false attacks from Steve Grossman and her fellow opponents, the facts are clear: Martha Coakley believes that outside special interest money does not belong in the race for governor.
Coakley has made it clear that she believes that special interest money doesn’t belong in the race for governor. How has she made that clear? One, I have heard her say it many times Two, she has made her opposition to Citizens United clear. Three, she was the first Attorney General to support a constitutional amendment to reverse the Citizens United decision. Four, she joined with 25 other state Attorney Generals in filing a brief with the Supreme Court to protect state’s ability to regulate and restrict political spending.
Steve Grossman and Charlie Baker supporters have recently formed SuperPACS that will pour outside money into this race. This is not what we want. It is my understanding that Coakley and the other candidates were meeting about signing a people’s pledge like the one signed by Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown but that Grossman’s campaign staff walked away from the negotiations.
We want a fair grassroots campaign like the one we ran that got Warren elected. I heard in a volunteer call last night that we have already knocked on thousands of doors across MA over the past 8 weeks and that we were the first campaign to submit the necessary amount of certified signatures to the Secretary of State’s office to qualify for the ballot. I know in our town we have had phone banks before the caucuses, we elected half of the delegation as Coakley delegates, we collected signatures and we have had many volunteer oganization meetings.
I am a proud grassroots volunteer and I am going to do everything I can to help Martha Coakley get elected as our next great Governor.
…grassroots campaigns and lots of money are not mutually exclusive. Lots of money spent on your behalf does not mean you can’t also have 100s of passionate volunteers on the doors and phones. I’d still like a hard citation on the formation of these alleged superpacs and what their connections are.
Nothing screams “out of inspiring ideas” like whining that your opponent is doing better than you at raising outside money.
Everbody is aware of Martha’s efforts to attract outside money through NAGE, EMILY’s List and illegal transfers through her state campaign account.
If Steve Grossman is gaining ground, (obvious if the Coakley response to yesterdays Kayyem attack on finances is to attack Grossman), maybe his message is resonating.
People don’t stand in the rain getting signatures because the other guy is marginally worse, but to be part of something that will bring a better future – Deval, Obama, Warren.
Campaign season for all its annoying phone calls and ads, is the one time we get to listen to our leaders detail the benefits of progressive policies.
I see no evidence that Coakley is peaking early. Her team is ramping up switching from gathering signatures to door knocking and lining up volunteers.
I would stand in the rain to collect signatures for Martha because I believe that she is the best candidate for Governor.
Are you saying you would not stand outside for Grossman because he is “only marginally better”?
It just wasn’t on TV. I know a few environmental groups ran door-to-door Persuasion and GOTV operations, and the amount of mail was tremendous. The only thing the people’s pledge did was stop TV and Radio spending, IIRC.
Beyond that I just really can’t stomach all this back and forth about who does or doesn’t have a SuperPAC. They all have a core group of big money supporters. Those big money supporters have maxed out at $500 and are looking for something else to do. This doesn’t seem very surprising to me.
I guess, if you really want to split hairs, you could say that Coakley’s ‘allied superPACs’ are not organized solely for the purpose of elected her Governor, they are issue oriented and she happens to be the one they are supporting. So… Point to Coakley?
But now, here is what I really think while we all are dropping millions on candidate elections (via the candidate or a PAC), which seem like a brilliant way to transfer money to consultants, the creative types who design mail and TV ads and mostly, the television networks. Organizations doing the really tough work of organizing for the long term, like Progressive Mass, Mass Alliance or any of the dozens of issue organizations working towards a better Commonwealth are struggling to raise a few hundred thousand dollars, not millions.
Imagine if all of those nice field organizers who drop in every cycle and then go away actually had the prospect of full employment with an organization that shares our values – instead of the boom/bust cycle of campaigns. Then we would be getting somewhere. That plus public financing of elections would be huge.
Hmmm…. Upon reflection, I just dropped this comment at the end of the most recent post about this stupid SuperPAC tit-for-tat, and maybe it doesn’t add much value here.