While I appreciate the job Senator Warren did in doing what she seems to do best of late (humiliating Donald), I am fairly certain the presidential race is not going to come down to these parts.
So why did Charlie Baker draw what basically amount to an intentional walk? I know this is a presidential year, and I know Trump makes getting involved (particularly in NH) in the big contest an imperative, but we are two years away from being able to take the Governor to task and if I am a serious sort (Healey, Moulton, etc), I look at the lay of the land and I view 2018 as far too uphill a climb.
Lowell could have, should have, been the start of a prolonged campaign to re-take the office, but it was almost exclusively, at least in terms of media coverage, an event with an eye toward national politics. We should be fighting to reject Donald Trump, but if we do not start organizing and getting on message, I am of the mind that 2018 will be a bridge too far, as they say.
I appreciate that our legislative leaders have to work with the man, and I also grasp that there are members of the Democratic caucus sitting in the House and Senate on Beacon Hill who might even be to the right of Baker, but if you’re a party activist and you aren’t at least starting to get a bit agitated at the way Baker is being handled with kid gloves, then you’ve got a tremendous amount of faith and patience.
I’d love to hear the thoughts of the BMG community!
TBH, I don’t mind Baker being treated so much with kid gloves. There are much worse characters in the Commonwealth, and they’re Democrats. Marty Walsh, for one, has been proving to be slightly better than abhorrent.
And, Baker signed the trans rights bill, while there were Democrats, like State Rep. Paul Donato (who represents Medford) who voted against it. Donato, I’ve only recently learned, has voted consistently anti-LGBT.
…but I don’t think we are doing ourselves any favors by letting Baker skirt. He did the right thing on trans rights after much posturing, and he is doing a good enough job purging his own party of complete loons, but sorry, the man is eventually going to rectify issues on the economy and jobs, on education, and more and we are going to find that divide and wish we started getting aggressive.
Completely fair point on some of the conservative Dems that are out there, though.
…but the Chairman led a breakout session on holding Baker accountable, so if anyone here did attend that it would be interesting to hear from them.
I’d love to hear that myself. But, unless I missed it, there was very little formal pushback in main stage presentations?
The impact of Baker was discussed in the breakout I attended on legislative races. That is, he’s popular, and perceived as moderate, and will have something of a halo effect on other republicans running (moderate or not), when undecided voters consider their options this fall. The emphasis in that session was on three things, 1) the Republican $ pouring into down ballot races through various channels, 2) specific races that deserve focus, such as the Cape&Islands seat formerly held by Dan Wolf, and 3) the need to change the conventional narrative about Democrats vs. Republicans in Massachusetts.
Re: the general lack of emphasis at the convention on a 2018 governor’s race, the sense I got was that it’s still early days. I didn’t hear anyone saying the party would give 2018 a pass–but they acknowledged the possibility of a second Baker term.
Thanks for that report. Sounds about right as it pertains to our legislative races.
I guess my thought process is that when dealing with an incredibly popular Governor, it’s never too early. I’ll be interested to see what gear they put this into when we’re through November. And who will lead the charge.
Thanks again –
I was the third on the right side of the head table who made the comments about Mass Fiscal basically lying about procedural votes.