I arrived in Philadelphia last night, and am shortly heading out to my first event: the daily breakfast with the Massachusetts delegation. Speakers this morning include Attorney General Maura Healey. Looking forward to seeing lots of our #mapoli friends there.
I’ll be wandering around Philly for the next four days taking pictures, talking to whoever will talk to me, and generally seeing what I can see. If there are things you’d like to hear about, let me know in the comments.
I’ll post here when I can, but the easiest way to keep up with BMG’s Philadelphia adventure is on Twitter (@bluemassgroup). I’m using the hashtag #bmg16, and I’ve embedded the stream on the flip. Check it out, and feel free to be in touch!
Please share widely!
the Chair has damaged our party and our message. The scandal burned up the airways this morning.
She must NOT address the Convention today. She must resign immediately for the good of the party.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
It makes no sense whatsoever to walk away right before the biggest quadrennial event and dump it in the lap of someone else. With any luck she’ll use her address to apologize.
You don’t keep a crooked referee for the second half just because he refereed the first half. Any competence (questionable!) DWS has is outweighed by her lack of integrity. I’d rather have a couple minor snafus than the deserved division she’d bring to the convention. Our greatest strength is that Bernie will endorse Hillary, unlike Cruz. If DWS is still around, that advantage in optics is lost.
…Christopher explained to me that it is only corrupt if it involves money. :-our
If DWS’s new job isn’t paid, it’s OK. It will BECOME not OK if she is rewarded with a paid administration post.
Maybe.
You can switch referees at any point during a game and assuming basic competence a new referee can call the plays on his watch without worrying about or considering previous calls.
We’ve learned that DWS was grossly and improperly working against “Team Democrat” by sabotaging the campaign of Mr. Sanders.
To me, that is more like a football coach who, during the first half, is discovered to be colluding with the opposing team to arrange for an injury to a key player. Her behavior is a clear betrayal of her — and our — team.
She should not take the field even a MINUTE after her offense is discovered.
And then going after Tom. That’s the play they did with the Bernie hack, and we can see now the many other ways they worked to discredit him. What isn’t clear is if there was collusion with the Clintons. So far there isn’t, but making her honorary chair after such dishonorable acts is tone deaf beyond belief. On top of the Kaine pick, Bernie people aren’t happy right now.
Editors: Say hi to UIP candidate and Bernie delegate Keri Thompson and Harmony Wu. Rand Wilson too!
Doesn’t one need to be a registered Democrat to be a delegate at the Democratic National Convention? Isn’t there an alternate Sanders delegate available to replace someone who changed their party registration after the delegate caucus?
..to run in its primary. Theoretically, BEING registered in a party would enhance your chances of winning its primary, but it’s not a requirement, and the way things are going who the hell knows? Just like a state senate candidate doesn’t need to be a resident of the district they are running in – they just need to live there when they are sworn in.
…said UIP candidate has lost the chance to be a delegate to the next few state conventions, according to party rules.
This is for the Plymouth 3rd vacancy. Since Bradley “conveniently” got out too late for a true primary. His hand picked successor is writing in for the Dems along with Joan Meschino who is surrendering her senate race to Patrick O’Connor, a popular local Republican.
So the winner of the Sept 8th primary will be Bradley who’s still on the ballot, followed by a write in runner up who likely gets the committee nod. But there is nothing wedding them to that. So it’s the shenanigans of this along with the shenanigans of DWS that convinced her to jump to the light side. Burm and Meschino are both votes for DeLeo, Keri won’t be. I’ll let her do her own intro after the convention, but stay tuned for other races similar to this.
…that if there is a Democrat in the race, anyone who publicly opposes said candidate is liable to have her credentials challenged. However, it’s not automatic and if the Dem isn’t actually running the case can be made that she didn’t really oppose the nominee. In extenuating circumstances such as that I would be open to such arguments if I had a vote on the matter. If there is a district caucus to choose a different nominee (like there was for Middlesex Probate a few years ago and completely within rules and state law, not “shenanigans”) then she would be back in the position of opposing our nominee.
Not sure where you get your misinformation about Joan Meschino. Joan is the progressive in the State Rep race to replace Garrett Bradley. From what I can tell, Joan is more liberal than Keri. And contrary to your assertion, Joan is not an automatic vote for the Democratic house leadership. In fact, her campaign literature explicitly states an independent voice for the South Shore. So please correct your misinformation.
Don’t you think it’s a disservice for Keri to take a Democratic National Convention delegate slot after she voluntarily switched to the UIP after the CD8 Sanders caucus — particularly when there is a Sanders alternate ready to to step in? Would Keri have been elected had the voters known she was quitting the Democratic party?
Or is she still a registered Democrat?
Keri changed her party registration. She is no longer a Democrat.
Worse, Keri is encouraging Democratics to change party registrations so that they can take a UIP ballot and write-in her name in the Sept 8 primary. We are in a quandary on our Democratic Town Committee, because if some of our members change their party registration they will be inadvertently (we hope that’s the case) resigning from our Town Committee. You must be a registered Democrat to be a Democratic Town Committee Member.
Then there’s the issue of splitting the Democratic vote in November. Keri may be helping elect a Republican. Maybe that’s why Gabriel Gomez is endorsing her UIP primary bid.
…that DWS even saw these offending emails, let alone sent any of them? It seems the age old question of what she knew and when she knew it has not yet been asked.
If Schultz’s best argument for staying was her planning and organizing skills, no wonder she’s gone.
Our cape candidate, Jessica Lambert, is running the UIP write in as a registered D on the D primary. Keri Thompson is enrolling UIP and resigned from her delegate position according to protocol but the delegation is letting her attend most events, she just can’t vote on the roll anymore. Basically she and the alternate switched places. So she’s in Philly making the best kind of trouble!
media are reporting that she will NOT gavel open the convention this afternoon.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
…and the more I learn about this the more I think she is being scapegoated. I understand the concept of the buck stopping with her, but I don’t believe I’ve seen evidence that she knew about the offending emails before the rest of us did.
Feel free to read them before you comment on this case.
…doesn’t mean she was copied on them (though the few I spotchecked based on subject line didn’t appear to be to or from her). I don’t have the patience with my computer to flip through several pages of subjects and recipients, let alone open every message, so if you have the smoking gun email clearly showing that DWS received or sent one of these messages, let’s have it.
And she apparently had to be dragged into doing it, you are in the decided minority here thinking this wasn’t deserved. I won’t debate it further. She has resigned and hopefully can begin putting the party before herself, as Sanders has repeatedly done, before she can cry foul about his supporters forcing her out.
It may be for the best politically. I just absolutely hate jumping to conclusions.
But it’s pretty obvious she needed to step down immediately. Fair or not, her presence was no longer helping Democrats secure victory in November.
No, she’s being held accountable for her staff and her office. Even if she personally didn’t put her thumb on the scales, she was unaware of what her senior subordinates (the CFO!) were doing and presiding over a climate that made it seem acceptable (personally cadging for gifts).
Even if it were the wrong reasons (and to be clear, I don’t think so) it is still the right outcome.
Cory Booker. Killed it.
Michelle Obama. Oh my god. Killed it.
Elizabeth Warren. Killed it.
Keith Ellison. Killed it. I really like him.
Bernie. Better come correct.
Even with the jokers in the crowd trying to disrupt, the difference between tonight and last week could not be more stark.
He did, and in a big way. I don’t think he’s capable of giving a better speech than that.
I loved MIchelle. Cory was great, I gotta admit. Warren wasn’t hype, but she knows how to lay out the case. As for Sanders, he showed (again) his worthiness to be the leader of his revolution.
I felt that he milked it too much. Maybe he needed to do that so Berniacs could milk it with him, so he could bring them along.
Me, I grew impatient with the taking so long to get started, the taking so long to talk about Bernie. BUT, as he continued, he was great. He made the case that if you voted for Bernie, you should vote for Hillary… And that was his job with the speech.
…I felt it took him an awfully long time to get to Hillary, but I agree that maybe he had to handle it that way and once he did get to Hillary he laid it on pretty thick. Rachel Maddow found it curious that some of his supporters have such great faith in him EXCEPT when he says vote for Clinton.
IL is lacking in real progressive leadership and she’d make a fabulous Mayor or Governor in that state. I am not saying every First Lady should follow the Hillary path, but she’s phenomenal. During the dark days when I doubted Obama’s commitment to certain principles I was comforted that she always had his ear last.
I like Michelle’s speech and her way of doing things. I have no idea what her politics are, and have read she has been asked to run for Senate and refused.
But….I’m watching the wife of a former president run in a race where a major opponent was the brother and son of a different one. We have enough dynasties. I just mourn the lost opportunity for a Karen Lewis campaign.