Come out tonight (9/3) to the Chateau on School Street in Waltham at 5:30PM to meet 5th Congressional Candidate Dr. Shelly Schwartz. There are no debates scheduled in this race so it is really the only way to get to meet this great candidate to represent us in Congress.
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Sheldon Schwartz for Congress
To win our election and start to change Congress
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Preview by Yahoo
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Shelly believes that the government should be there to set the rules, ensure that the rules are being followed, and give everyone an opportunity to succeed in life regardless of where they live or who their parents are. This does not mean, however, that he is not disturbed by the wasteful manner in which our hard-earned money can be spent in Washington. He believes that being a strong Democrat is not equivalent to supporting every government program regardless of how effective. He will be a strong advocate against government waste, working to ensure that our money is wisely spent. He will work to make our government more efficient and effective through measures such as upgrading technology, discontinuing duplicative administrative commissions, and making our government more transparent.
I looked up Sheldon when I read about his candidacy in the Metrowest Daily. He sounds like a nice guy with a lot of good positions, unfortunately for him, we already have a very progressive and capable Congresswoman in Katherine Clark who has already done a good job forging bipartisan compromise on contentious issues while advancing substantial progressive legislation. I do encourage Sheldon to run for local offices, where his voice as a doctor and single payer advocate might be more effectively utilized.
I’ve enjoyed talking with Dr. Schwartz, and on details he’s fine. But his boilerplate sounds, frankly, Republican.
Sure, everyone is against waste. Eternal vigilance and all that. But in practice, this rhetoric has meant just one thing for the last sixteen years: cut social services and increase military spending. Oh — and tax cuts.
Dr. Schwartz talks a lot about crossing the aisle to cooperate with House Republicans. This seems preposterous in the modern House, where absolutely nothing is going to get to the floor unless the leadership wants it — and, in Boehner’s house, unless the wing nut faction acquiesces. Even if he could cobble together a majority coalition across the aisle — and that is going to be difficult in a Congress where the most liberal Republican is well to the right of the most conservative Democrat — the leadership could and would prevent a vote. And, even if *that* miraculously succeeded, there’s still the inevitable Senate filibuster — even if we hold the Senate.
On the issues, it’s tricky to find much daylight between Schwartz and Clark. That’s odd, since the effort and expense of this campaign suggest stronger motivation than is readily apparent from the candidate’s Web site.
I recommend everyone read up on Katherine Clark’s excellent interview with the Globe. She has already made Republican friends on her softball team, has already talked to a few of them about co-sponsoring legislation, and is making the kind of connections that enables convergence to happen. That means working with Republicans on issues where there already is common ground, rather than watering down progressive principles to reach a mythical one.
I think Brownsberger, Moulton, and now Dr. Schwartz are trying to find that mythical common ground, which is an easier sell politically, rather than do the hard policy work and legislative analysis required to actually create the space for real compromises to emerge. Katherine Clark has shown herself more than able to do that.