The most recent polling of the governor’s race was done by the Boston Globe.
Several things are notable:
- Elizabeth Warren (55/39 +16) and Deval Patrick (54/41 +13) are our second and third most favorably viewed office holders, but the most favorably viewed is Martha Coakley (54/36 +18).
- 72% of those polled didn’t recognize Don Berwick.
- Polling for the Democratic Primary shows it split 53%/17%/5% for Coakley, Grossman, and Berwick.
- During the period from June 15 to July, support for Coakley strengthened slightly and support for the other two candidates declined, for example, support for Berwick shrank from 8% to 5%.
At this point, the Democratic Primary does not look like much of a race.
Please share widely!
…but then it was only sort of an endorsement.
…this column says Grossman’s numbers did improve, but he also failed to take advantage.
I’ve just come back from a panel discussion involving McCormick and Falchuk, so maybe they are a little more present in my thoughts than in most people’s. I don’t know if anyone’s noticed, though, that “someone other than the Democrat” has a 3-point lead in last week’s Globe poll.
LINK
Coakley will likely run away with this as most Dems will default to her and the vast majority will never pay attention during a summer race. Tough to blame the candidate or the campaign when the electorate is not checking in.
Also, it’s kind of depressing that 35% polled have never heard of Steve Grossman.
I think your link might not be correct, though. Another Globe article says the race is now 39-36 for Coakley, in yet another example of a continual shrinking of that margin.
This other poll also puts gun ownership in MA at right about the national level. I have a very hard time believing that is true.
and ugh
http://c.o0bg.com/rw/Boston/2011-2020/2014/07/18/BostonGlobe.com/Metro/Graphics/topline-144.pdf
Source: http://www.masslive.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/07/republican_charlie_baker_takes.html
Amount raised in June:
$400,000 Baker
$172,000 Coakley
$156,000 Berwick
$150,000 Grossman
Cash on hand:
$1.1M Baker
$0.9M Grossman
$0.5M Coakley
$0.2M Berwick
My figures were from last week.
The Democratic Party stance towards the Probation Department scandal seems to be “patronage is not a crime”. The leading Democratic contender for Governor was Attorney General during that period, and seems to agree. The Democratic Speaker of the House loudly argues the same, during the same news cycle that reminds us that his own godson (Brian Mirasolo) was made “acting chief probation officer” at Mr. DeLeo’s personal request.
The Boston police and fire departments made pension and disability abuse a growth industry for lawyers, doctors, and lobbyists in the greater Boston area. It sold many copies of the Globe. What did Democratic Party functionaries (including our Attorney General) do about it? Zero. Nada.
We read today that the BRA left millions in fees untaken during the Menino administration. Did our Attorney General know anything about it? Apparently not. This news of BRA corruption comes as a complete shock, right? Nobody ever suspected that the BRA might be making back-door sweet-heart deals with developers over a span of years, right? Nothing there, nothing to see, keep moving. I note that Mayor Walsh (who initiated the audit) was not the first choice of the Boston Globe — or, perhaps, the party elders.
As the stench of venal and political corruption gets ever-stronger, and as the Massachusetts Democratic Party continues to do absolutely nothing about it, it becomes easier and easier to understand why more and more voters want no part of it.
I turn 62 this year, I’m a life-long Democrat. My first presidential vote, as a 20 year old Md resident, was for George McGovern.
If the gubernatorial race unfolds according to current polling results, I’ll be one of those “someone other than the Democrat” voters. If Martha Coakley is elected, I’ll probably write in “Don Berwick”.
I will not vote for Martha Coakley.
It doesn’t really matter what the party believes. Are laws against patronage on the books or not? I suspect even if they are the definition of patronage is kind of like that of pornography – “I know it when I see it.”
Nobody has suggested that the talk show comments Martha Coakley objected to were illegal. Ms. Coakley demonstrated in her immediate outburst against the talk show that for some issues, she makes a vocal and public response even when no crime has been committed.
Surely you do not suggest that “what the party believes” about patronage doesn’t matter in an election!
I agree with you that the definition of patronage is like that of pornography (another issue, by the way, on which Ms. Coakley was very aggressive and on which the courts ruled against her every time on First Amendment grounds) — “I know it when I see it”.
I doubt that I’m the only voter who looks at the Probation Department scandal and says “That is obscene —” — whether or not it is illegal.
Just like Wall Street folks broke no laws with the mortgage scandals, because our current laws were to ambiguous, by design I submit. We need a government that writes laws to make this immoral behavior illegal and not leave gaping loopholes.
I think the more appropriate approach is to tighten procedures.
a week or so ago and I came away annoyed with him for the number of times he tried to gain traction on Martha Coakley by attacks on her. Coakley has her problems that make me reluctant to vote for her but she doesn’t seem to play the game of gain by pulling down the opposition. I think he may have increased his negatives more than his positives by performances such as that.
She doesn’t have to engage in much of anything, just like her race in 2010.
Her opponents have to give people a reason to not vote for Coakley and without some serious moves that’s nearly impossible to do by staying wholy positive, especially given the large gap in the polls.
I have seen that strategy in most campaigns over the years, successfully, too. What bothered me is that I never sensed Grossman saying vote for me because I can do this, or I believe this, but she’s this, and I’m not. I’d like to hear a positive about the candidate.
The polling tells me that one component of a successful challenge would be to knock down Coakley’s favorables. That’s kind of unpleasant though because it’s a road to losing twice. Right now it looks unlikely that anyone other than Coakley could win the primary, and driving down Coakley’s favorability could lose the general to the ever “nicer” Baker.
I agree that driving down Coakley’s favorability could lose the general to the ever “nicer” Baker. The most effective ways to accomplish that are to focus on those aspects of Ms. Coakley’s candidacy that are truly abysmal (as opposed to vacuous attacks on her gender, for example).
I suggest that in a “future history” exercise, we here at BMG will be complaining just as loudly about Governor Coakley as we will about Governor Baker. At least Governor Baker will face a legislature that is, at least in name, Democratic — it will be very hard for Governor Baker to advance the GOP agenda by more than a hairsbreadth.
Governor Coakley, on the other hand, is likely to face less opposition from the legislature than Governor Patrick has dealt with. A reason why I am so strident about the criticisms I raise against her is that I predict she will be given great latitude to enact whatever she wants — her history and practice (and that of Mr. DeLeo) will be to conduct most of the truly serious discussions behind closed doors.
We should not be surprised, therefore, if we find that operators of blogs like BMG find themselves under increased threats of libel action, scrutiny about tax filings, or “investigations” of supporting terrorism during an administration of Governor Coakley.
Just ask Tim Murray, James DiPaola, or Charlie Baker. Of course, trifling campaign finance violations are irrelevant to Governor Coakley herself, she just made some honest mistakes. Why wouldn’t her sister be the best treasurer for her campaign?.
As it was hard for governors Weld, Cellucci, Swift, and Romney to get tax cuts, education “reform” bills, and all other kinds of stuff through the Democratic legislature.
Sadly, the tax cuts, education “reform” bills, and similar garbage were the Democratic agenda as well at the time. The arguments made in favor of candidates who supported that agenda were very similar to the arguments being made for Ms. Coakley today.
I am very confident that future voters will put casino gambling and the increasing reliance on regressive lottery revenues in the same category of advancing “the GOP agenda”.
then as now. The Democratic Party in Massachusetts was, and is, perhaps too big a tent. I decline to characterize whatever a speaker right of center in the party was willing to ram through as “the Democratic agenda,” while recognizing that far too many Democrats went along with it. Without a Republican governor, a good number of these bills never would have reached the floor.
What assurances do we have that Coakley will not introduce similar legislation herself?
And before you lecture us Berwick supporters about spoilage, I would point out that even if we all backed your candidate, he would still be down 30 pts in the polls. Both of our candidates are in the gutter, and I am starting to get dismayed that these numbers will change. I would bet anyone at BMG a beer that our next Governor is Charlie Baker, though that free beer would be little comfort.
And I knew as much the minute I knew Berwick would make the ballot (which, pace local media, was not at the convention but about six weeks before). Grossman might have had some chance with a one-on-one race, plus an actual second ballot at the convention in which he thumped Coakley and the next day’s stories were about that instead of the plucky doctor fellow. So I’m not terribly inclined to give Berwick a pass on this.
As for Coakley introducing legislation, the fact of needing to work within our party will have no small influence. She may introduce things I don’t like (as Patrick did with casinos) but I don’t expect her to introduce nearly as many bills I don’t like as a Republican governor would.
And I still think the race is quite winnable and will be won.
Unless the polling numbers are very different for the greater Springfield area than they are statewide, I don’t think you can fairly say that the media narrative coming out of the convention robbed Steve Grossman of the bump he would otherwise have gotten from winning there, and handed it instead to the plucky doctor underdog. I’m basing that on the fact that out here, what media paid attention to the convention at all basically said, “Steve Grossman wins the convention! We asked Martha Coakley to respond, and she smiled and said she did what she had to do, and look at her polling if you didn’t think that was plenty good enough.”
I’m not sure what you think would have been different if Berwick hadn’t been in the race at all; certainly my local media are covering it as if he weren’t. Unless you think that having people like jconway and me lining up behind Steve, as we would likely have done, would have made an overwhelming difference — which is a flattering thought, but I think that if it were true both our candidates would be doing better right now.
The way the race shaped up it wasn’t a huge chance. Still far better chance for Grossman without Berwick’s candidacy. It’s always easier to draw distinctions with a front-runner in a two-person race. And, yes, having most of the liberal activist base in the state devoting their energy to Grossman instead of going around essentially equating him with Coakley (or, as one regular here has done, with Charlie Baker), might have helped somewhat.
Re the convention: Sure, the headlines said Grossman came in first. The first paragraph also said everyone expected Grossman to win the convention anyway and Coakley withdrew from the second ballot. That’s a hell of a lot different from a story saying Grossman beat Coakley by 20+ points on a second ballot. A thumping might have piqued journalistic interest.
Here at BMG and in coverage running across the state and on public radio Berwick was considered a “winner” on June 14 because he “exceeded expectations” while Grossman merely met them. Not counting the fact that anyone who reads BMG or David Bernstein or any other intelligent coverage of the race was no more surprised by Berwick’s showing in Worcester than by Grossman’s.
Is that he made it too uncomfortable for progressives to get behind him. Had he run to the left from the beginning, it may have always been a two person race.
Instead, he’s been running as an insider’s insider for the race for half a lifetime (or beyond) and had positions that fit in far better with the mid 90s DLC than the Elizabeth Warren or Marty Walsh style candidacy that could have had the race wrapped up by now. His kind of decades long campaign earned him enough enthusiastic friends to win the convention or a caucus fight, with a reputation among many party activists as a nice guy who shows up and will help with many constituent service type issues, but left him unfamiliar to the huge voter universe of a primary campaign and not in the best position to change that.
Berwick is down 30 points because the voters still don’t know who he is. If he were to win the nomination, that obviously would change and so would that 30-point deficit. It’s not like Baker got anywhere near %50 in any of the match-ups.
He has a very short window of time to get people to know him and to vote for him. Not sure how many people will tune into the debates, and being out of state, I am unaware of whose ads are on the tele yet. But, my suspicion is he will have a very difficult time making up the difference. As will Grossman. I will dispute the idea that a Grossman v Coakley single match would result in something different.
My heart tells me he can inspire grassroots supporters to come to his side in this amount of time, that people will pay attention after labor day, and that this race is still wide open due to the large number of undecided voters. But my mind is telling me Governor Baker get’s sworn in.
Would have liked to have seen a poll of Baker v. Dem nominee to get a sense of what the base numbers might be.
Coakley-Baker
40% – 31%
40% – 35%
39% – 36%
Grossman – Baker
26% – 34%
27% – 36%
29% – 37%
Berwick – Baker
17% – 37%
17% – 40%
18% – 42%
Possibly voters favor Baker more when matched against Berwick out of a fear of the unknown rather than because of Berwick’s personality or positions. It’s striking to me that, against Grossman, Baker’s polling only seems to improve a point or two compared to Coakley.
That’s just silly talk.
Fenway is absolutely right that a democratic governor (including any in this race) would make that kind of republican agenda be very hard to leak through, much as some uncomfortable number of self described democrats in the legislature would love for that to happen.
The legislature is not going to give Coakley anymore latitude than Patrick. The legislature will do what the legislature wants to do, just like it has for the past eight years.
The idea that Coakley will somehow get a pass is very silly – if she was so popular in the legislature, Grossman wouldn’t have about 75 more endorsements in it even while losing in the race.
I’m suggesting that Martha Coakley’s agenda is far more similar to Mr. DeLeo’s agenda than Deval Patrick’s was, and Bob DeLeo’s apparent agenda is far closer to Charlie Brown than to me.
On the issues that matter to this self-described Democrat:
– Wealth/Income concentration
– Transportation
– Government abuse of privacy etc
– Public Education
– Government corruption/patronage/etc
a “Governor Coakley” will continue the abysmal path we’re already on. A “Governor Baker” will do no worse and may even do better on some.
On four of those five items, Martha Coakley will be a positive disaster based on her history and current campaign statements. On the fifth, public eduction, her answer for how she pays for her many proposals was “eliminate waste and increase efficiency” — right out of the GOP hymnal.
I’ll never vote for Charlie Baker. I’m just saying Charlie Baker will do better as Governor than Scott Brown did as Senator. The specter of “Governor Charlie Brown” is no more frightening to this Democrat than the nightmare of “Governor Martha Coakley”.
Essex and Norfolk Counties, both of which have slightly smaller populations that Suffolk, represent a larger percentage of respondents (12% each v. 9%). Plymouth County, with only about 2/3 the population of Suffolk, is 8% of the sample (v. 9%). That suggests a slightly conservative skew. Indeed, this sample has a few more conservatives than liberals, with even the “moderate” group breaking conservative by 3 points.
The numbers perhaps can be justified by the difficulty Democrats have had with midterm year turnout.
…then Democrats lose, again. She’s just a bad candidate and gets worse the more the spotlight is on her. To quote a famous politician: “fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”
If Grossman can position himself as the alternative to Coakley _who can beat her,_ he has a shot.
Manifestly unfair to Berwick, a very appealing candidate who is running a decent campaign. But that’s how it works When the polls drove the coverage and the coverage drives the polls. A perpetually self-fullfilling prophecy.
…but he did not nail down the caucuses the way Patrick did.
lol.
Given his progressive bona fides if he had started early and rallied the troops like DLP did I can certainly imagine him upsetting the caucuses and sweeping the convention in much the same way. Not easily as in taking no effort, but easily as in it is easy to imagine how it would play out.
He did not sweep the convention, but he was virtually tied with Coakley. He can still be the nominee. A couple fumbles here and there by the frontrunners and all of a sudden, Berwick is the one. It’s entirely possible. No one would have predicted his virtual tie with Coakley at the convention. Those same people re predicting again, aren’t they?
Coakley, Grossman, Berwick.
Who can beat Baker? Baker is switching positions, being evasive, putting out brush fires and trying to look moderate. All keys to a Republican victory in November.
Do we select a Democrat who is switching positions, being evasive, putting out brush fires and trying to look moderate?
Or, do we select a candidate who has not switched positions on Casinos or Health Care, who has not had to deal with scandal or innuendo, who not trying to look moderate.
Scott Brown won in this bluest of blue states with imagery of trust: an attractive guy in a barn jacket and a dented pickup truck was all it took. Scott Brown did not run as a moderate, he ran and won, on a projected image of “trust”.
Don Berwick exemplifies trust. No alterations,props or gimmicks needed.
That’s how Democrats win in November.
We cannot beat and should not beat Charlie Baker and the Republicans at their own game.
But he has to win the primary first. To do that, he has to get his name out there and that’s a massive amount of work — a lot of of it media work. What’s his warchest like.
As of June 30, the Berwick campaign had about $225,000 on hand and it recently raised $860,000. The Coakley campaign raised more money ($1.2M) and has more money on hand, viz., $371,000. Steve Grossman’s campaign raised less than Coakley’s but he has $820,000 on hand.
So it doesn’t look to me as if Berwick is positioned to get the word out. He sits at 5% to 8% in the polls with Coakley gathering seven to ten times as much support. Could I repeat that? Are you listening?
Coakley has 7x to 10x as much support as Don Berwick.
This are very long odds, johntmay. Even if you think Ms. Coakley a weak candidate, that view is not shared by the Massachusetts electorate.
Toward folk who who are having trouble facing the reality that their candidate is unlikely to win. Of course, anything could happen, but It’s really hard to invest time, resources and heart supporting a fine person who would be an excellent public servant. Been there, done that.
Scott Brown had long odds as well – so long that the senior Republicans in the state senate never even bothers to challenge him. If the Massachusetts electorate wants to make the same mistake twice, they will have to do so without me. Baker beats Coakley. At the convention, virtually every delegate I spoke with said this of Don Berwick, “I like him. He’s my personal favorite, but I don’t think he can win.” I was saying the same thing until I watched his speech. I switched my vote in an instant, as did three other people in my delegation.
Ms. Nunn has a better chance of winning the Georgia Senate seat and Ms Grimes has a better chance of winning the Kentucky Senate seat than Dr. Berwick has of winning the Democratic primary.
It’s nice that you have these “feelings” but polling and counting dollars don’t suggest that this is going to turn out the way either of us would like, and so maybe effort is better spent elsewhere.
Spent how, enjoying my summer by lounging at the pool? Sorry, I do not see defeat at clearly as you.
The primary was on December 8, 2009 and the general election followed on January 19, 2010. In the primaries, Coakley beat Capuano 47%-28% and Brown beat Robinson 89%-11%. Polling before the primary put Brown’s support at about half of Coakley’s, e.g., on September 16, it was 54% Coakley and 24% brown. Before the first debate on January 5, Brown improved to trailing high 30s to Coakley’s 50%. After January 9, almost all polls showed Brown leading; there were occasional ties. The ultimate result was a 52%-47% victory for Mr. Brown.
In short, Mr. Brown never polled as low as Mr. Grossman now polls.
Dr. Berwick is doing still worse.
He is not polling as well yet as Jack E. Robinson did in his loss to Scott Brown in the primary. He also has the least cash on hand.
It might make some sense to be completely practical here.
Don Berwick is raising a lot of the right issues. In debates, he might be very good at pushing Martha Coakley to sign up for better positions. In the very likely event that she becomes governor, that can be a very good thing. So if things continue as they are, maybe it would be better for us progressives to hold our fire on Coakley and instead use the Berwick campaign as a gigantic lever. We should have no illusions, though. Why, we’re reality-based! The chances of winning this look terrible. So let’s accept that. Let’s make the best of it. Let’s not stick our heads in the clouds and hope the guy with 6% support running against our most popular elected official will somehow find a path to the Beacon Hill.
If it is really, really important to avoid having Ms. Coakley be our nominee, could I point out that Mr. Grossman enjoys three times the support and three times the financing of Dr. Berwick? He’s very far behind too but at least he’s out of the single digits. I doubt there’s enough anti-Coakley animus to line enough people up behind Grossman, but, at a third of the support and money, Dr. Berwick is not anyone’s vehicle to keeping the nomination out of the AG’s hands.
I agree that Berwick’s voice has added so much to the Governor’s race.
He continues to set the agenda and is/will make the other two candidates better candidates and ultimately better Governors should one of them prevail and I am proud to be volunteering for his campaign. I also think that he would do the best against Charley Baker. It is however my pledge that I will work hard for our nominee whomever it is!!
But we are still in the dog days of summer and the vast majority of folks are not paying much if any attention to the race. Staring with August 1 the dynamics could change as the candidates debate and really start to spend campaign money for the last 5-week sprint when anything can happen. Berwick has a track record of accomplishing what others say is impossible so we will see.
and I wish my assessment here was wrong.
An August surprise is going to cost a lot of media. A candidate with only 1/4 million in the bank can’t pull that off.
Patrick had long odds at this point in 2005 if you just judged by the poll mach ups, but had some great and consistent momentum showing in the polls too. Both Grossman and Berwick have extremely long odds and no momentum.
Short of a terrible scandal or awful tragedy, our next democratic nominee for governor is Martha Coakley.
Wikipedia helpfully keeps historical polls. Here are some of them from this time of year 8 years ago:
Survey USA June 18
36% Patrick
31% Reilly
23% Gabrieli
Suffolk June 26
31% Patrick
25% Reilly
22% Gabrieli
Survey USA July 11
37% Patrick
26% Reilly
27% Gabrieli
So at this point, even the third place candidate had more support than Grossman and Berwick combined, and Patrick had already accumulated a significant lead.
So, no, Berwick’s campaign is not coming from behind the way Patrick’s had.
My thanks to kbusch, below, for posting a reality check in the form of polling data from the 2006 Democratic primary. I don’t know what Deval Patrick’s odds were back in July 2005, but by this point in mid-2006 he had, indeed, claimed the lead. That’s not remotely what’s happening with either Steve Grossman or Don Berwick.
I say this with sorrow, since I am not happy with the way the primary race is playing out. I was attracted to Berwick early on, organized an event for him in 2013, and voted for him last month at the convention in hopes that a strong showing might spark public interest in his campaign. That didn’t happen. The general public has shown minimal interest in the preferences of the party activists, liberal or otherwise. Grossman did well at the convention, and Berwick surpassed expectations, but neither got any kind of bump as a result.
As for lspinti’s hopeful comment that “starting with August 1 the dynamics could change,” it’s hard to see how or why that would happen. The reality is that 2014 is nothing like 2006. Neither Grossman nor Berwick has managed to capture the public imagination or to demonstrate any appeal beyond their respective bases. For both of them, I think, the time for a dramatic “come from behind” moment is just about past.
Should have said “kbusch, above.”
One question: why are things so different from 2006? Why isn’t Berwick playing Patrick’s roll and Coakley Reilly’s? I’d guess a bunch of things:
1. In 2006, the Democratic base was pretty fired up as a result of six years of the Bush Administration and years of Republican control of Congress. No one expected Democrats to take over both houses of Congress that year, and so there was a lot of focus on the state level. By contrast, this year, many are more worried about the U.S. Senate than the Massachusetts governorship. I know I am. (I’d like to see the EPA funded.)
2. Not only was Mr. Patrick a gifted speaker back then, but he was also backed by an extraordinary political team. Dr. Berwick’s heart is truly in the right place, but, alas, this is not a Disney movie wherein a good heart more than suffices.
3. I’m not sure about how dollars flowed back then, but I would guess that the Patrick campaign attracted national attention and out of state support. It would surprise me if activists in Maryland, Minnesota, or Chicago are even aware of our governor’s race. For example, all the recent diaries on Daily Kos tagged Don Berwick are either polling summaries by David Nir or contributions from Massachusetts residents. Contrast, say, Bill de Blasio.
4. Reilly — perhaps unjustly — clearly represented the more entrenched wing of the party. (This was strikingly apparent in my town.) He also suffered from sluggish evolution on marriage equality. This created a clear, clean polarization. By contrast, there are ardent liberals (not SomervilleTom, of course) who support Coakley, and plenty who support Grossman too. The current contest does not break down on clean ideological lines.
I don’t doubt that it looks like either Martha Coakley or Charlie Baker will be our next Governor.
Because I see Don Berwick as the only candidate I will cast a vote for in the General, he is therefore the only candidate I will vote for in the Primary, and he is the only candidate I will advocate for until then.
I survived the Reagan administration, I survived both Bush I and Bush II, and I survived all recent Republican Governors. I also survived Ed King.
So I’m going to continue to promote my candidate as hard as I can. In the increasingly unlikely circumstance that he wins, I will celebrate.
If the result is “Governor Baker” or “Governor Coakley”, then I’ll just hunker down and wait it out.
I will say that I won’t be shy about saying “I told you so” when the shinola starts to hit the fan during the administration of Governor Coakley.
…shy about offering an apology if a Coakley administration proves to be better than you fear?
As it stands, I don’t trust your advocacy of Berwick, because it seems more like blind, and frankly irrational, hatred of Coakley. Or, put another way, you’re not doing your purported favored candidate any favors by your obsessive disparagement of one of his esteemed opponents in the upcoming…
If the past is any guide, Tom, neither you nor I are immune from being wrong about a candidate, either for or against a candidate, and so perhaps we should temper our language on the chance an incorrect assessment eventuates into ill will.
I’m generally not shy about admitting my mistakes, and I certainly make my share.
I was very enthusiastic about Barack Obama, and I was wrong.
I was nearly as negative about candidate Bill Clinton as I am now about Martha Coakley — and I was woefully, embarrassingly wrong about that. My impression of Bill Clinton was set by his first awful and prolonged speech at the DNC (was that 1988?). I very quickly realized that Bill Clinton was a great president (in my estimation).
I’m happy to temper my language, but I am unwilling to ignore the panorama of flashing red lights and clanging alarm bells on this candidate’s issues dashboard. If the flight engineer sees an array of information leading to a conclusion that a serious in-flight emergency is unfolding, keeping quiet because the flight deck doesn’t like being disturbed during their casual conversation while on autopilot is — in my view — the wrong answer.
I understand the polling numbers. I understand the campaign strategy (after all, we’ve seen it before). The fact remains that we are plunging towards the ground and the pilots continue onward on autopilot.
How about we make gentleman’s agreement — I pledge to be flexible in my assessment of Martha Coakley if she is elected if you do the same about Charlie Baker.
Deal?
Tom, you mention upthread that the following issues are your top priorities for the next governor to address, and that you want someone on the job who will be more aggressive in solving these problems then the current administration.
– Wealth/Income concentration
– Transportation
– Government abuse of privacy etc
– Public Education
– Government corruption/patronage/etc
My question for you is: what on earth makes you think the Republican is even a viable choice then?
If your top issue wealth and income distribution, I assume you want to see more even distribution throughout the economy, as was historically the case for much of the 20th century. Do you actually think Charlie Baker is going to be the governor who makes headway on this issue? Honestly?
Regarding Transportation, there will be no progress without more state level funding. That’s a fact. We won’t be getting any new additional transit funding from the feds, and we may well be getting less if the FHTF goes broke. There are plenty of ways to raise the revenue, but all involve taxing someone to get it. Do you really think Charlie Baker is going to make getting that transportation revenue a priority?
Regarding government abuse of privacy, I understand the well-deserved anger at President Obama for his role in continuing and expanding illegal intelligence gathering that has eroded our constitutional rights. But please bear in mind which elected officials created these programs using the political blank check they were given by the American people after 9-11: President Bush and his Republican allies who controlled congress. In fact, even as the Republicans control the house today, they elect to do nothing to stop, and indeed support, the ongoing erosion of American’s right to privacy and the militarization of ostensibly civilian community police forces.
I could go on, but this comment is already to long. Suffice to say that the idea that a Governor Charlie Backer would be better on ANY of the issues you claim as your top priorities for gubernatorial action is simply not credible. Asking any of us to keep an open mind about Charlie Baker’s possible performance as governor is like waking up on Monday morning and saying “Hey, today maybe there won’t be any traffic on the Pike going in to Boston.” In order to do so, you have to make a deliberate decision to ignore everything you already know about the subject, as well as all of your own previous experience.
I think I’ve made it clear that neither Charlie Baker nor Martha Coakley will get my vote.
I’m not arguing at all that Charlie Baker will do anything towards any of my priorities. I am instead arguing that neither will Martha Coakley.
A choice between Charlie Baker and Martha Coakley is, in my mind, no choice at all — pick your poison, each is equally bad.
No deal. If your argument is that Martha Coakley has failed the test of progressive, liberal and/or Democratic ideals I don’t see how any flexibility in my assessment of Charlie Baker, who has never laid claim to anything of the sort, is, in any way relevant. By choosing to run on the Republican ticket he has placed himself, from the get-go, at odds we me, an avowed Democrat.
Your argument (such as it is) is that Martha Coakley isn’t a good enough Democrat to spend the effort voting for… I disagree, obviously, but let’s not bring Charlie Baker into the Democratic fold merely for the opportunity to use him as cudgel against me.
My point is that Martha Coakley is no more likely to change her basic character after election than Charlie Baker. You asked, above,
I think we violently agree about what a “Governor Baker” administration is likely to be like. My argument has been, all along, that I see a vanishingly small likelihood that Martha Coakley will be any better.
If I’m proved wrong, than I certainly hope I’ll come forward and say so. I’ve done it before (Bill Clinton, as President) and in that unlikely event I expect to do it again with Martha Coakley.
My bottom line remains that if Martha Coakley beats Charlie Baker (which I think is very much up in the air), it will be because she is no different from him.