Remember how Gabriel Gomez, last year’s failed Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, seemed to take “running for office” literally? GOP candidate for lieutenant governor Karyn Polito is following in his wasted footsteps, and complaining every step of the way:
Shrewsbury Republican Karyn Polito …has been seeing a lot of running going on as she has entered one road race after another since announcing her candidacy.
“We are running 5Ks everywhere,” she said on her way from a Statehouse meeting on missing children to a Latino luncheon in Boston Thursday. She said she ran a 5K in Hyannis last Sunday and is doing another 5K in Dorchester this weekend after walking a four-mile parade route there. She also did a 5K in Boston recently and was one of the many runners that finished Worcester’s 5K St. Patrick’s Day run. Polito said she’s been finishing with times around 45 minutes.
Forty-five minutes to run 5K (3 miles)? That’s called sauntering, not running.
Polito clearly isn’t into running. She went on to complain that “I don’t love running, but I love running a 5K. They are more fun to do, because it goes by faster.”
If she just wants to get these fun runs over with, why do them in the first place?
Best guess: Polito not only lets the Charlie Baker campaign speak for her on important issues like marriage equality, but also submits to Baker-directed campaign strategies that she despises. Good little woman. She does what she’s told. She makes a fine female token for Baker just as she did for Gomez.
26:57
http://www.coolrunning.com/results/14/ma/Jun1_Corrib_set1.shtml
I know Will Brownberger rode his bike all over the district and Dems didn’t complain, I hope there isn’t a double standard here…
“While it’s great to see a congressional hopeful modeling health and fitness, it’s also a convenient way for a low-information candidate to get positive public exposure without having to say anything substantive.”
In Polito’s case, it’s more about getting positive public exposure while not having as much opportunity to say anything that would embarrass the Baker campaign, like giving her real position on marriage equality (against it) and anti-discrimination protections for transgender people (against them). But she managed to still make the Baker campaign look bad today by whining to the press about the 5K runs that she clearly doesn’t want to be doing.
What kind of candidate whines about how they’re campaigning? A candidate who isn’t setting her own campaign agenda and is tired of being a good little doobie.
The Pride parade is on the 14th. After doing these 5ks and parades it will be hard for her to excuse herself, especially if Baker will be there.
“Oh, she is such a bragger” or “she must have a personal trainer” or “she is in such good shape b/c she is rich”.
C’mon Laurel, nothing Karyn does would make you happy, even changing her opinion on marriage equality is dismissed by you and others.
Not sure why this deserves an anti-Polito post.
You know, they’re just terrible at attending to the important stuff.
But whatever.
Please make a not of it.
Your post was dumb. Karen Polito, like many other politicians, uses a race for campaign publicity. Yawn.
Not much more to say.
It’s not unusual for people on blogs to imagine that “coverage” works something like a news room where important things draw posts and unimportant things get passed over. That misunderstands the nature of BMG which is a community blog for which figuring out what “deserves” or doesn’t deserve a post is largely irrelevant. Posts are written depending on interest. Sometimes things are interesting because they’re important; sometimes they’re interesting despite being unimportant.
To complain about whether this topic “deserved” a post is to imagine that there is some conscious agent out there who is deciding what to cover or not based on some rational criterion.
There isn’t.
(Boy, does this comment sound awkward. Elliptical jokes sound so much better.)
I get that anyone can post anything.
I find the constant partisan sniping over trivial issues annoying. This isn’t even an issue, it’s just a thing.
It’s not like “Martha Coakley files fraudulent campaign finance reports” or something like that.
Seems to me some are jealous of how Karyn keeps herself tone and good health and “remains photogenic” according to Laurel (statement endorsed by Jconway). Talk about a demeaning comment on a woman. Yet if there was a D next to her name and you or I said that, we would be called a
chauvinist. The double standard is mind-boggling.
Sarah Palin taught the Republican party that hard, humiliating lesson. The only person showing chauvinism here is you danfromwaltham, for making it out of bounds to criticize how the dominant male (Baker) is deploying his female side-kick (Polito) like arm candy. Polito is a former state legislator accustomed to speaking her mind, so remaining silent and just looking pretty must be driving her nuts.
What would we women do without men to tell us when we should be upset? Gosh!
Really, it’s beyond the pale to describe her this way, Laurel. You demean her as a trophy running mate for Baker. Polito is an accomplished women with her own ideas on how to run state government. To keep mentioning her looks or her BMI and infer Baker as some sort of abusive male relegating Karyn to just hand waving and smiling duties is a typical stunt I’ve heard about Republicans for the past 30 years. But I am sure you can’t wait for Hillary to be the role model for women, even though she bit her tongue many times b/c of Bill’s behavior.
We sometimes have trouble reading what people actually wrote rather than what we think they wrote.
because generally campaign organizations try to keep the candidate very, very busy — either fundraising or making appearances. Campaign organizations don’t suggest that campaign season is the time to finally meet one’s athletic goals.
So yeah, it does seem as if she were being asked to remain photogenic but quiet.
if campaigning didn’t get in her way.
She could become a moral force against obesity.
Is she running to meet voters, similar to Tom Conroy’s walk around the state when he ran for Senate last year? If she’s really just doing races I don’t understanding how it helps the campaign.
it allows her to “remain photogenic but quiet”.
The linked column goes on to note the following:
All this follows the running bit. Some relevant issue talk.
Hate to say it laurel, but DFW has a point. The diary (and several of the comments) are not fair to Polito.
I just noticed Laurel described Karyn as a “token” on the ticket. I believe she deserves more respect, that is all.
Did you go to the Italian Festival in Waltham?
But I basically live in one.
Maybe you have a point jimc, but reading this more closely it seems to express the sort of generic dissatisfaction you can count on the members of the party out of power to express. Any Republican running for governor is going to say that and a Democrat running would point to the same facts with a different spin. Not that she offers nothing much at all in terms of actual policy. And, in fact, given that state government has little control over macroeconomic levers, coming up with policy responses here is never simple and never uncontroversial.
So yes, she is speaking, but it’s in the most generic way possible.
An apologist might argue that she was just catching her breath from the race, and so give her a break.