Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Let’s waste no time uniting and moving forward!

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First I have to say this – I had a bad primary night.  All of my statewide picks came up short.  I would have preferred John Tierney be renominated, though that is not my district.  I had a couple of friends in the Merrimack Valley who courageously challenged legislative incumbents from within the party, but they too came up short.  I guess I did get my way in the Middlesex DA race, but that was always the one about which I cared the least.

There’s no time to dwell on that though, and certainly no excuses to sulk and withhold support from those who were nominated.  It is vital that Coakley-Kerrigan be elected over Baker-Polito.  Don’t get complacent either by the thought that Dems have it easy electorally (We have recent evidence to the contrary.) or by the idea that Baker is one of the handful of Republicans in the country who hasn’t gone off the ideological deep end.  Don’t think Baker can’t be too bad because our numbers are overwhelming in the General Court; many of those would be GOPers in most states and could easily be persuaded to join him.  Also, if you talk to people who have worked for the Commonwealth, they will tell you that a Republican Governor means a Republican administration, and that governing philosophy seeps down the executive branch into the departments and agencies.  Remember, neither candidate needs us.  Either candidate who loses will suffer a bruised ego, but will live to tell about it and probably land a lucrative job.  We, however, may suffer if the wrong person is in the Corner Office.

Regarding the 6th CD, all you need to know is that Moulton’s first vote will be to elect Nancy Pelosi Speaker, while Tisei’s will be for John Boehner.  Even if Tisei breaks with his party sometimes on specific votes because he is also one of the last GOPers who isn’t nuts, a vote for Boehner is a vote for what bills are considered in the first place.  In the General Court, even the most conservative Dems are better on most issues than most Republicans.

Please work for and vote for our ticket.  If you really can’t stomach a particular candidate then put your energies into another race, but I hope you will vote Democratic, especially at the top of the ticket where it is likely to be close.  If you are yourself a candidate who did not make it tonight, thank you so much for your willingness and effort to offer yourself for public service.  By giving voters a choice you have greatly contributed to our democratic process.

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  2. Adlai Stevenson.

    And yet the sun rises on a new day. And I pledge to you,
    my fellow progressive activists, that I will dedicate every waking hour of my life going forward to elect a unified,liberal Democratic ticket in November.

    Fred Rich LaRiccia
    Senior Advisor
    Mike Lake Campaign
    for Lt. Governor

    • My own rec habits are to give a diary visibility it doesn’t already have, but I appreciate it nonetheless.

  4. Per this.

    Whoever ran Medford for Coakley (55%).

    Whoever ran Hanover and Braintree for Grossman (48% and 49%).

    And our own Harmony Wu, who (I assume) ran Needham for Berwick. He came in second there, and missed taking it by 18 votes. (It was tight overall, with Steve only 31 votes behind.)

    Impressive work by all.

    • Berwick’s Western Mass. person. Some of his best numbers are in Amherst and Northampton.

      Day job beckons …

    • Those are impressive, but I would note that Coakley is from Medford so not terribly surprising. Her Boston gap is impressive.

      Who ran Amherst for Berwick? 63%

    • Yes, Needham was a good town for Berwick, and no doubt about why. We had an amazing lead organizer (not me), Ken, who put in almost a full day’s work much of the week, splitting time between Cmbg office and in the field in Needham. He personally canvassed something on the order of 1,500 doors — quite possibly more (he was at 1,200 last week).

      We also had SuperClark, an amazing immigrants’ and domenstic workers’ rights activist, octogenarian and convincing canvasser. He personally knocked on over 1,000 doors.

      Add to this strong spine other vols’ work and organizing, and Needham, organizery-wise, was well-covered for Berwick, and I’m super proud of our results.

      I am disappointed though that we didn’t get the solid 2nd place. The numbers you see online (eg WBUR)–

      Berwick – 1236
      Coakley – 1253
      Grossman – 1265

      –are actually wrong.

      There’s an error in the Clerk’s spreadsheet. The total # of votes should be 1,481.

      So, Grossman won Needham with 37%, and Coakley and Berwick each pulled 31%. I wish we could have eked out the 17 votes to grab the 2nd spot, but it’s what it is, and I’m happy that he did so much better in Needham compared to the state as a whole.

      I am a little surprised how well Grossman did here as I was not aware of any organizing, although he’d locked up local pol support early (which some came to regret). Our proximity to Newton suggests long-standing relationships and so on; I dont have the history here to know if that’s true or not; just conjecture.

      Anyway, we left everything on the field yesterday. (I even used my kid’s scooter to finish my turf faster…takes more work than it looks!). I don’t regret one minute of that time or one ounce of my energy; I wish I could have done more!

      Don really energized the local progressive, and that experience has helped build a stronger grassroots community and invigorates us for the next round, including the ballot questions.

      I know we’ll work to GOTV for Martha, and I hope she will pay attention to how much — if not enough to win — Don Berwick’s bold, clear progressive message resonated with activists.

      With casinos, sick time and a great progressive Dem challenging Repub. State Sen. Richard Ross, there are a number of baskets where we can focus that energy in the fall, and I feel more optimistic about people’s readiness to Engage than I have in a bit.

      We’ll rest a little but not too much.

  5. One of the rationales people have for voting Republican for Magov is that person puts a check on the legislature and can’t really do too much damage. That made some sense during the 1990s when we had Clinton in the White House. Weld and Cellucci were hemmed in from above and below. Neither was particularly inclined to drive hard right, but had they been they wouldn’t have gained much traction.

    Unfortunately that fell apart in the 2000s when W. was President and Mitt Romney was Magov. The Republican party has marched farther right since then. The years of Deval Patrick and Barack Obama in the White House have been fairly good to Massachusetts. However, Patrick is just about done and we have no idea who’ll replace Obama in 2017. Our next governor may need to be more of a check against Washington than a check against the legislature.

    I don’t have particularly great faith in Martha Coakley’s ability to circle the wagons should the need arise, but Charlie Baker’s not going to do it at all.

    • or where he ran over the legislature.

      Universal health care?

      Maybe the special election vs appointment for US Senate vacancies?

      • He tried pretty hard to prevent gay marriage from becoming the law of the Commonwealth and he attempted to put numerous poison pills in the health care legislation. State college costs spiked. He pushed abstinence-only programs. His transportation agenda was largely non-existent.

        Yet most of all, he didn’t get how the state can positively effect the economy. His million new jobs promise coming into office was pure manure and job growth in MA remain fairly stagnant during his term. He lacked ideas outside of offering freebies or tax cuts. Fixing the state’s crumbling infrastructure to make MA more appealing to businesses never occurred to him. Economically, Deval Patrick played a stellar hand with bad cards. Mitt Romney never really got in the game.

        • a governor is dependent on the national/global economy. If it’s good, then he looks like a hero, if it isn’t, then he’s a chump. Anything else is bragging and resume inflating.

          • 2003-6 actually was a decent window for the U.S. economy. They weren’t great years, but they were all right. MA ranked 47th in job creation during that run.

            • Romney whacked local aid by 20% in relatively good times, and Deval kept the faith with local governments and school districts through the really tough times.

              • Romney sees a business organization as something to be controlled. Get costs down, fatten up the bottom line, and sell for a big return. In government, you often have to provide services when you don’t have a lot of money, but you don’t have the choice to say no. It’s a different mindset.

  6. Also, if you talk to people who have worked for the Commonwealth, they will tell you that a Republican Governor means a Republican administration, and that governing philosophy seeps down the executive branch into the departments and agencies.

    While I feel some regret for not placing a strategic vote for Grossman over Berwick (and am really lamenting the lack of IRV in MA), any qualms I have about Coakley as the nominee pale in comparison to my fear of the above situation. As such, she’ll certainly have my support (and, of course, my vote) as we move into the general.

    P.S. I do really, really hope that Coakley takes the advice of one of the commentators on WBUR (or maybe it was WGBH?) and positions Healey as her “running mate” — could add a much-needed spark!

    • But our own Striker57 basically argued that point in his own blog post. It is interesting to think of Healey as a running mate, since Kerrigan has had almost NO visibility I can think of around here or on the airwaves.
      Not sure how much dynamism he really adds to this ‘ticket’. I do think

      Healey would make a good surrogate, and essentially, can devote her general campaign to the top of the ticket. As could Goldberg as well. It will be interesting that if the elections go as planned, 5 out of 6 statewide officeholders will women and 2 out of 6 will be LGBTQ. A point of trivia today that would have been a point of controversy not too long ago.

      • …Kerrigan was the ONLY LG candidate to have TV ads. Healey as Coakley’s de facto “running mate” might be too much for SomervilleTom to bear!:) It’s 4/6 women, btw.

  7. I went Berwick/Kerrigan/Tolman. So I’m 1 of 3. I didn’t dislike anyone who won, and I was scared of Coakley as nominee. But she is the nominee, and I will work hard toward her election. I hope she does, too.

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