So while the Globe and local TV is telling us what happened in races they hardly covered I found some interesting tidbits as the evening progressed:
The Globe and Scott Lehigh tell me Coakley underperformed yet she got twice the number of votes that Baker got in his primary. And she defeated an incumbent statewide, well-funded candidate while doing so.
Congrats to Maura Healey, her team and her supporters on running a tremendous race. Anyone who fails to be impressed by Ms. Healey doesn’t understand politics or elections.
And unmentioned by the “media experts” was Maura Healey’s strong endorsement and pledge to work for Martha Coakley during her victory speech. Ms. Healey is the rising star and her actively campaigning for Nominee Coakley should well provide the spark that some say Coakley lacks.
I noted, without comment, that not only incumbent statewide candidates Coakley and Grossman bested Dr. Berwick in total votes but so did Treasurer Nominee Deb Goldberg and second place finisher Barry Finegold and third place finisher Tom Conroy, and so did first time candidates Maura Healey, Steve Kerrigan and Leland Cheung. The LG and Treasurer’s races were 3 candidates contests just as the Governor’s primary was. Conroy, Kerrigan and Cheung all did so with campaign warchests far below Berwick’s.
The Mass AFL-CIO, coming off the sucessful Marty Walsh Mayoral campaign and a very good Legislative session, had a very poor showing in high profile races where they endorsed (Tolman and Tierney)and they missed the boat entirely by failing to endorse Deb Goldberg in the Treasurer’s race. Goldberg came up 1 vote short of 2/3 at their August meeting.
Treasurer Grossman gave a great concession speech (a little too long but that has been his style for years) and made a point of urging party unity and electing Martha Coakley.
Two openly gay candidates won statewide primaries and that fact was barely – if at – mentioned. That is either a sign of how far we have come or really poor analysis by talking heads.
It was “Ladies Night” well beyond the statewide and county races. Beverley Griffin Dunne won her Peabody State Rep primary, Barbara L’Ilalien won her stste senate primary, Diana DiZoglio won her primary as incumbent state rep in a race that was no where as close as predicted. Hmmmm. . .”ladies night” is that unbecoming?
John Tierney deserved better than the campaign Seth Moulton ran against him in the 6th CD primary. John served the people of the North Shore and Merrimack Valley with distinction for 9 terms. However, Moulton found the Congressman’s weak points and the Tierney campaign failed to respond until it was too late. Electorial politics in Massachusetts is often a blood sport and Moulton proved a tough campaigner. The race against the Republican will be interesting.
In races where candidates had taken different positions on repeal of the expanded gaming law – those who opposed repeal won 2 of 3 races statewide. In the Democratic Primary for Governor, candidates opposing repeal took 78% of the vote.
This morning I’m going to work to elect the Coakley-Kerrigan ticket, to elected Maura Healey as AG, Deb Goldberg as Treasurer, Bill Galvin as Secretary of the Commonwealth and Suzanne Bump as Auditor. It will take me a few days but I’ll add Seth Moulton to that list.
That really makes no sense at all.
I can’t explain that result either (that’s why I did not offer some wisdom). I could get the top of the ticket down ballot having higher tolals but the second and third place finishers – no real clue.
I suppose I could suggest that Finegold, Conroy, Tolman and Cheung all have run for office and/or hold office and they had established voter bases. Berwick and Lake lacked that base to start.
What is there to explain other than downballot races are much different than top of the ballot races?
Although you claim that you are noting it without comment, the implication is that these people overperformed someone with much more money – it’s hard not to view it as a senseless dig at Berwick.
Downballot races that receive much less attention are very different than the top of the ballot. When it comes to spending, a dollar goes a lot farther in a race for Treasurer than it does for Governor.
… other than rain is different from snow…?
The ‘prevailing wisdom’ is that downballot races don’t draw crowds. That’s why they are called “down ballot’ races: the notion that the ‘top’ of the ticket is where they put all the sturm und drang… with the follow on expectation that if more people are drawn to the top of the races such would be reflected in the numbers.
It’s quite possible that this ‘prevailing wisdom’ is egregiously wrong…. but merely saying it’s wrong without positing an explanation — other than “downballot races are much different” — is profoundly unsatisfying as well as being rather blinkered. At the very least it is a point of interest if only for the way in which it clearly defies the prevailing wisdom.
The last contested Democratic primary for Gov was in 2006 and nearly a million people voted. Voting numbers for this race was much much lower, at about 500K. That, too, is interesting, if undefined at this time…
And those who backed Berwick. Tell me again how we are all supposed to come together on this……
He ran a shitty campaign. I think that’s all striker was trying to say, something the editors who endorsed him in unison, and supporters like me have been saying for quite sometime now. He ran a really shitty campaign. Grossman ran a good campaign the last three weeks, had he spent the last three months like his last three weeks he’d have been our nominee.
Neither gave Coakley much of a challenge, but I think we are all mocking and underestimating Baker at our own peril. He will be quite formidable.
Are Berwick’s ends advanced more by Baker or by Coakley? I am by no means a Martha fan, but I consistently said no need to hold the nose in the primary for a second or third choice, I also consistently said, no need to waste your vote in the general on someone who won’t prevail. As it is, we have a fairly center-right field.
No Green candidate that I’m aware of, the two independents are fiscally conservative, one of them anti-immigrant, and Baker is more fiscally conservative than they are. Coakley occupys the left corner of a very crowded center. So, Berwick and his supporters will have more cache if they back Coakley wholeheartedly and force her to move on their issues. Single payer may lurch slowly forwad under Coakley, it is DOA under Baker. Insert a litany of progressive reforms and the answer is the same.
In many respects, the part of the Berwick campaign I was able to see as a volunteer compares favorably with other recent campaigns — specifically including Warren’s. Both the candidate and and senior staff were accessible, the strategy was clearly explained, and resources were made available promptly and effectively. (There was the usual silliness about lawn signs, but every campaign seems to foul up lawn signs!)
The principal’s great asset was his incredible skill in talking to individuals and small groups, and the campaign used that effectively. It may have worn the candidate down, and that might have had a cost in the closing stages. The media campaign wasn’t stellar, though the original “stopped car” spot is really one of the best spots I’ve seen for the progressive idea.
It’s also worth remembering that the campaign always operated under rigid constraints of deportment and attitude; there were to be no deals and no bargains, period. That’s a choice: Berwick was going to get this on a wave or he was not going to get it at all.
Losing campaigns always look idiotic, and always seem to have been run by fools and knaves. That’s an illusion, and it can lead you to false conclusions.
I was hoping the convention would be the foundation for a wave that could led him to the Corner Office, it wasn’t, and if anything, at 22% of the entire electorate, he did about the same as he did at the convention. He sealed up the left of our party, and kept it sealed, and now it’s adrift or coming to terms with the Coakley reality. Either way, not the best way to propel a campaign. I liked that spot too. You view it as a campaign well fought against long odds, I viewed it as an opportunity blown. I guess I’m just a glass half empty sorta guy-but I’d say there are some here who earnestly felt he was the nominee, and I just never saw that after July.
She wore in her hair a brave prairie rose.
Her gold chums cut her, for that was not the pose.
No Gibson Girl would wear it in that fresh way.
But we were fairy Democrats, and this was our day.
That’s from 1896, which is really where everything about the modern Democrats starts. You could say Bryan ran a horrible campaign too — he’s the Cowardly Lion of Oz. (Did you know the Scarecrow stands for the farm vote, and the Tin Woodsman stands for the craft unions? And even then we were asking, “What’s the matter with Kansas?”) But TR backed a ton of Bryan’s policy, and had the votes in Congress to get it through, *and* he had the decency to invite Booker T Washington to dinner in the White House, which no Democrat could have done back then.
So I think we’ve got a decent foundation, we’ve energized a lot of people who we’re going to need, and we know what needs to be done. We’ve got control of the state house but we can’t use it because so many supposed Dems back Republican principals. Berwick’s promise to hold feet to fire, roll call after roll call, would have moved things along — but we can move them along anyway.
He was a great statesmen who had the kind of economic populism, anti-imperialism, impassioned oratory, and appeal to the common man that only Elizabeth Warren can hope to match today. I think everyone should read Michael Kazin’s well received biography recovering his reputation from the low point of Scopes and H.L. Mencken’s cruel obituary. His is a model liberals should try to emulate.
TR was a different beast, I am a huge fan of his as well, but he did back the gold standard, backed capitalism but wanted it tempered and regulated, and also backed a lot of imperial adventures-some of them warranted (the Panama Canal) others a humanitarian disaster (the Philippines Insurrection, a sadly unknown chapter in our history we could learn from today). Otherwise, a no bullshit bad ass. He and Bryan would complement one another in our era, though they were diametrically opposed in their own.
“Tell me again howare all supposed to come together on this . . ” by appreciating what our candidates brought to the campaign and thanking them -then moving on.
I read several comments from backers of the other two Democratic candidates knocking Coakley since she won. I’ve let them go as the aftermath of a passionate campaign season rather than engage in pointless name calling.
I have nothing but good things to say about Maura Healey – during the election and since she won – even though she defeated a candidate I was passionate about. And she didn’t just defeat him, she crushed him. And I have no interest in raining on Healey supporters well-earned parades by stomping my feet and saying you are being mean to Tolman people by saying 62 -38%. The numbers are the numbers.
I’d suggest some Berwick supporters are a little over-sensitive (would raw be a better word?) I wasn’t taking a potshot at Dr. Berwick. Down ballot races generate less voter interest says CW. I found it interesting from a campaign operations angle that so many candidates had higher vote totals – why was that?
As I answered in the follow-up comment, the possibility is that Conroy (metrowest state rep), Finegold (Merrimack Valley State Senator), Cheung (Cambridge City Councilor) all had geographic bases to draw from. Winning candidates like Healey and Goldberg had momentum (and Goldberg had a statewide race in 2006 for experience). Tolman who lost to Healey (but had been a state rep, state senator and 2 time statewide candidate) more than doubled Dr. Berwick’s total. Past experience, a voter base and at least regional name recognition were factors. The only candidate to break that mold was Mike Lake who had run statewide 4 years ago and finished behind Dr. Berwick in total votes.
I seem to remember Charlie Brown telling Lucy when she discussed his pitching record “tell your statistics to shut-up”.
I wasn’t implying that candidates with fewer resources overperformed in vote total as compared with Dr. Berwick. I think the numbers showed that.
That said, I don’t believe those candidates had a greater impact on the tone and direction of some of the issues than Dr. Berwick.
But politics is math in the end. If you add up the numbers you get to set policy tone.
Really? TV time is cheaper?. Printing is less expensive? Consultants and staff work for peanuts? If you can’t maximize a campaign budget to get the best bang for the buck, how are you going to handle a state budget?
I have a lot of respect for Dr. Berwick. He took the time, early in the campaign, to ask for and then tour several building trades apprenticeship training centers. He did so he said because he wanted to educate himself on these programs and he hadn’t had experience with them. That’s a candidate doing his homework and I was impressed.
Stop looking for excuses to duck working for the Democratic nominees. A
I haven’t said an unkind word about Healey, Moulton, or even Coakley since the primary concluded. And frankly, I saw the writing on the wall and tried to shift my tone towards their direction anyway. I knew Tolman was done when the basketball ad was what my relatives were talking about. She ran a great campaign and he ran a terrible one, and all my whining in the world about who was more righteous won’t change that fact. Coakley ran a terrible campaign in 2010, doesn’t mean Brown was more qualified to be Senator by a long shot.
Candidates and campaigns are sometimes different beasts. I think Coakley is showing that with more discipline from her, and better staff, she can still be viable. Goldberg learned a lot of lessons from her mini disaster in 2006, and is on her way to being our next treasurer.
Katherine Clark wasn’t my first choice in the 5th CD, and she has been an outstanding Congresswoman, particularly for what little time she has been there and how much she has accomplished. I was never particularly inspired by Ed, but felt, he was a solid progressive and an amazing legislator. Same here, at the end of the day, I think Moulton, Healey, and Coakley will do a good job if they get elected.
If Berwick was meant to win, he woulda won.
…were probably looking at the spread. While she got about the percentages the polls predicted none of the undecideds appeared to break her way, resulting in a much narrower gap than the polls were showing relative to Grossman.
WBUR made note of this.
n/t
1. In a three way primary it’s not unusual to see 50:25:25 or 50:30:20 or thereabouts. It’s kind of a random pattern that people follow, though the three candidates typically are the result of a logical process. The whole idea about what is “weak” for the winner of a three way race is totally subjective.
2. Comparing Republican primary totals to Democratic ones (especially with hotly contested races) is not meanful.
3. It’s been said here and elsewhere that Tierney’s personal GOTV operation was poor and that he relied party and allied operations to pull him from the fire. Either they were not on board this time, or Moulton had a sizable and motivated ground game in place.
4. The “experts” in this state suck, especially on TV. I learn a lot more reading this blog than I ever get through the media. They’re more partisan pundits than analysts and never criticize their own.
There are more than 3 times as many registered Democrats than there are registered Republicans in MA.
unenrolled will pull that ballot. In MA usually the action is on the D side.
No one loves Charlie Baker. People might vote him in the general, but he is not loved (unlike, say, Scott Brown, who boasts an armada of middle-aged fanboys). The Dems weren’t terribly inspiring either, but the Republican vote totals tell us that Baker has not rushed in to fill that vacuum. It was conceivable that in a low turnout election, Tea Partiers could have put Fisher into contention.
Baker clearly does not have magnetism going for him. He also doesn’t seem to have much of a GOTV operation. The primary usually serves as a test run for that operation. Given the totals, Baker either didn’t have much of a ground operation or a lot of his supposed voters ignored the pleas to get to the polls or both.
For one thing the GOP in MA has very little ground operation at any time. An individual local candidate might have a goodly number of supporters, but at the state level hardly at all.
Brown January 2010 was an aberration and not driven by the party.
There was no test run of the GOTV for the primary. None. No signs, no calls.
The GOP in MA calculation is to have 100% (because they always vote) of their 11% show up (and probably 10% of that will blank Governor) and get a big majority of the unenrolleds (about half the unenrolleds reliably vote R).
It’s completely different from how the D side approaches elections, which is to make certain all the registered D’s get out, and people pull out their friends and neighbors for the big ones (Patrick 2010, Warren 2012).
He doesn’t need magnetism because “firing up the troops” isn’t the big thing for the R’s. At the upper levels it’s “firing up the donors.”
nt
A lot of MA voters love Brown. It’s not rational. They just do. Didn’t say they were strictly Republicans. Point is, if Scott Brown were running for Magov, you can be damn sure significantly more people would have turned out for him. He has a personal base that he can draw upon. Charlie Baker doesn’t. Martha Coakley may in fact be more loved than Charlie Baker, which is kind of mind-boggling because she is hardly well-loved by the electorate. Point being, Baker looks incapable of attacking one of Coakley’s major weaknesses, something Brown did when he won that Senate race.
I certainly hope Baker shares your distaste for doing the work it takes to win an election. You may very well be right that very Republicans weren’t working yesterday. They certainly weren’t working on Election Day four years ago when Patrick’s ground game spiked the ball in the end zone. So, it that’s the case, don’t change and don’t learn. Suits me fine, especially in what might be a low turnout election.
As for donors, I suspect more national Republican dollars will be headed north of the MA border. And what are you exactly buying with Charlie Baker? He’s trying not to get entangled with the national party (because it’s suicide in MA) and he hasn’t shown an ability to draw large numbers of voters. Doesn’t seem like a terribly good investment. On the off chance that Baker wins, what’s he going to do for the Mother Ship?
When you’re out of power there’s really nothing in it for you.
When the majority of candidates don’t have a prayer, it’s not fun either.
It’s just that state of affairs.
Personally I rely on Bob DeLeo to look out for my interests.
Coakley won’t change things much. Bad stuff will be minimized and swept under the rug (like Healy will ever investigate anything) and my civil rights will be reduced. Not a problem.
“Personally I rely on Bob DeLeo to look out for my interests.”
It was a bit surreal. No Coakley signs, no Baker signs either now that I think of it.
I disagree. Baker had a smaller pool of voters to target, talk to and bring out. And he had a marginal challenger to cope with.
By comparison, Coakley had a much larger pool of registered Democrats to reach, ID and pull. And she had 2 serious challengers competing for those same voters. Baker won with 74% but Coakley only got 42% is a false presentation. It’s like comparing lap times in an Olympic size pool to lap times in a plastic backyard pool an declaring the plastic pool swimmer the better athlete.
They knew they had it in the bag and didn’t really bother.
I don’t get Striker’s point.
Who is making that comparison? No one is saying that Baker’s primary performance was more impressive than Coakley’s. The Repub primary is generally a poorly attended formality.
Coakley absolutely had a tougher job in her primary.
As far as vote totals, she better get more votes than the Repub in a primary considering there are at least 3 times as many Dems as Repubs in this state.