So the other day I brilliantly make the case that the elite liberals have to get out more and see what the rest of the country is up to. Otherwise they have nobody to blame but themselves for the Trump vote.
Then I astutely observed that Ed “Rhymes with Dead” Markey and the loud but shallow Katherine Clark are vulnerable in the primary.
No sooner do I write that, and as if on cue, a BMGer who shall remain nameless (Pablo, it was Pablo) not only swung and missed but left his chin hanging so far out that Tweetie Bird could have delivered the knock-out punch.
Ernie has been spending far too much time in Norwood, hanging out with the used car salesmen and Donald Trump, to have the pulse of the Fifth Congressional District. Ernie, come on up to Arlington before you write your next post on this topic.
Arlington generates more Democratic primary votes than any other city or town in the district, and Katherine Clark is wildly popular in Arlington. My sense is this popularity extends into Lexington and the portion of Cambridge that is in the district. Combined with her hometown of Melrose, she would have an overwhelming base of support that would be impossible to overcome.
Pablo wants to let me know that Arlington, the thermometer of American thought, loves Katherine Clark and therefore nobody can beat her.
Pablo, I hate to tell you this but you are the poster child of why Trump won. You are the bubble. Do realize Revere is in the same district. Do you realize Winchester is in the district? do you realize Winthrop is in the district? Do you realize Framingham is in the district? How about Natick, Wayland, and Woburn not to mention Malden, Watertown, Waltham, Southborough and Medford. I won’t even tell you about Stoneham and the others.
You have to get out more my friend.
How freakin’ self-centered are you Pablo? Oh, right you are from Arlington?
Empathy baby, it’s about empathy.
—–
How about the Globe trying to tell Trump, (I mean speculating) who to choose as the next US Attorney for Massachusetts? All the names on their list are tools who the Globe knows will play ball with it. Brian Kelly? Perfect partner for the rag trying to hold on to the tiniest slice relevance. it. (How are those Globies workin’ out for you? Bob Cousey and Davifd Ortiz must be besides themselves.)
Anyhoo the article was sooo transparent.
—-
Speaking of the Globe, the US Attorney, and transparency can you believe the Globe printed a story saying the investigation in to the city hall union thing is almost over? I spit out my Ovaltine when I read this transparent reporting disguised as a newspaper and prosecutor trying to hide something.
The Globe writes that all the information it received was from a defense attorney or someone associated with one of the defendants or someone who knew someone who knew a guy someone associated with the defendants. The Globe was very clear about this.
In other words they did not illegally get it from the feds. No Siree. How could anyone ever accuse them of that?
Yet the story and headline said the investigation was close to being over. Hmmmmm, how the hell would the defense know that? Only the feds would know that?
See, stupidity and incompetence can cause transparency.
Not only that but the story quotes grand jury testimony that more likely than not only the prosecution has at that this time.
The Globe Thinks It’s Fooling Us.
There is no call for posting a diary for the purpose of slapping around another BMGer like that.
…I’m not one to point out others attacks and EBIII seems to have a special immunity to the rules.
However, what most disturbs me here is the blatant mischaracterization of what Pablo said, solely — it seems — for the sake of making an attack diary and getting attention…. not even replying directly to what Pablo said on the 24th of November in the actual diary in which he said it, but waiting four or five days, pulling it out of the original post and more or less incoherently trying to shoe-horn it into some conversation he’s having between the different shards of his own psyche. How are we supposed to respond to that?
Take it down.
Pablo was correct in his comments and EBIII was wrong, but EBIII was not far off in his other comments. The moderators are neither stupid not shrinking violets. I can think of worse things written here that have been allowed to remain, you know phrases like “worse than Hitler” and “Nazi Collaborators.” Nothing EBIII has written approaches that level of offense.
We would all be much better served if bloggers here actually fact-checked their own stuff rather than attack others. Volume, ten or twenty posts per day, does not equal quality.
I don’t know who he is in the real world, but I’m not sure what I ever did to him. Of course he seems to not be a fan of SomervilleTom or jconway either, two people I actually respect very highly on this board. Then again in fairness we have been known to uprate each other too – he’d want me to point that out.
…I’m not sure he’s talking about me. I certainly don’t post anywhere near 10-20 diaries a day. I also actually think a blog is exactly for peer fact checking since it’s just conversation and not a policy seminar, but it can be done politely. If he comes back and says he was referring to me, then I would refer my honourable friend to the previous reply I made to your same comment above.
TBD takes umbrage at my use of “Collaborator”, and he mentioned that here. Of course, I don’t think I’ve ever used “worse than Hitler” or “Nazi Collaborator”, but such niceties have never stopped him, it’s just what he does.
I treat the attacks from both EB3 and TBD as a badge of honor, I figure they wouldn’t bother if my commentary wasn’t making them at least squirm a bit.
Complete rubbish STom. Let’s try this:
I stand corrected.
I apologize for falsely accusing you in this case. I had forgotten how distraught I was that night, and how freely I expressed myself.
I did say that Donald Trump is Hitler, or worse. I stand by that assessment.
While I did not explicitly use phrase “Nazi Collaborator”, I certainly did choose “Collaborator”. I put that in the same category as those who choose “denier” (a clear reference to Holocaust denier) to describe those who deny climate change in the face of compelling evidence to the contrary. I choose “denier” in explicit preference to “skeptic”, a word that I think insults every scientist (because every scientist is a skeptic while evidence is being gathered and analyzed).
I also stand by my use of “Collaborator”.
I am married to a German, and have been for fifteen years. She, even more than me, does not use such language lightly. Right-wing Nazi political groups are on the rise in Europe, especially in Austria. Mr. Trump has chosen Steve Bannon as a key “strategist” — the same Mr. Bannon who since 2012 has turned his media organization into a mouthpiece for Richard Spenser and his white supremacists.
I invite you to skim the obscene and anti-Semitic published by this crowd.
You saw the same campaign I saw. You know as well as I do that German citizens of the 1930s did, in fact, sit by quietly as Adolph Hitler seized power. Europeans of all persuasions did, in fact, choose to “work with” the exploding Nazi movement rather than fight it, long after the horrendous misanthropy of that movement was flagrantly obvious. There were claims at the time that “nobody knew what was really happening” — and those claims were self-serving rubbish. The institutional Catholic church was notably silent during this period.
I DO think that Donald Trump is as bad as Hitler or worse. I DO think that those who continue to support him are Collaborators. I DO think we are experiencing a terrible calamity sweeping away American democracy as we’ve known it.
I understand that you disagree, and I understand that you aggressively attack any who dare to disagree with you.
I, nevertheless, stand by my characterization of Mr. Trump and his Collaborators.
I decided not to re-post it, but you applied the label collaborator to a fellow BMGer.
We were all upset after the election …
I meant that I stand by the term in its generic sense, as opposed to specific things said in the heat of the moment.
My point remains that in my view we here at BMG are far too eager to excuse the inexcusable.
… is a bit much. But I don’t think Pablo is really attacked.
Christopher, I assume you don’t prefer passive-aggressive diaries that attack people namelessly, because there have been plenty of those lately. TBD has a point about those.
I think everybody needs to chill a lot (not excluding myself).
I oppose deletion, as I would of most diaries.
…to say “some people” and then not go after him directly OR if it makes more sense to name he could say something like, “I just wanted to expand on my disagreement with Pablo in a recent thread, but thought it made more sense to start my own to flesh it out. I believe he is mistaken when he says… and this is my reasoning.” The tone of this one felt more personal than I like, but maybe par for the course for EBIII.
However, I stand by my argument. In the Fifth Congressional District of Massachusetts, Arlington is the biggest town in terms of the raw number of votes generated in a Democratic primary. I contend that Katherine Clark would generate such a large plurality out of Arlington, Lexington, and Cambridge (plus Rep. Clark’s home town of Melrose) that it would be mathematically impossible for an opposing primary candidate to overcome that margin of victory.
I will provide data to support this argument when I have time to assemble it.
what is the data you are mining? Don’t bother if your argument is based on Hillary and Clark’s recent primary numbers.
As we all know the demographics of Arlington are very similar to Cambridge, without the riff faff. Although Arlington has its share of riff faff)
These are world class elite liberals. Every other car is a Subaru sporting a faded co-exist bumper sticker on the back along with the “Greenpeace”, “Bernie” or “Hillary”, “Amnesty International” “Ski Killington” and “ACK” bumper stickers.
Now take a look at Framingham. Big freakin’ town. Biggest town in the country. So big it shouldn’t be a town. It should be a city. In fact that’s in the works. I bet there’s more people in Framingham than Arlington. I’m not gonna look it up. I’ll wait for the data.
Then take Natick. Right next door to Framingham. Both these towns are full of Dems. But guess what? They ain’t no Arlington Cambridge Dems. And neither are the ones in the heavily populated streets Waltham and Watertown.
A more moderate Dem who would work her ass off, have a well organized campaign, send out the right message, and raise some money could take it from Clark next September.
Clark has been a headline grabber and celebrity seeker since she got there with little legislative skills.
Revere, Medford, and Malden. A boat load of votes in those cities, (isn’t Arlington a town? A podunk town? Like with selectmen and elected dog catchers? The pulse of the 5th.)
as I was saying, a boat load of votes for a Democrat running against the Democratic party’s status quo which Katherine Clark, and the stereo-typed Arlington voter, represents)
Pure data, Ernie.
From our beloved Secretary of the Commonwealth, this is the total number of votes cast in the 2014 primary for the Fifth Congressional District. Katherine Clark was challenged by Sheldon Schwartz. Clark had 57,014 votes, Schwartz had 13,070.
(The 2016 primary was uncontested, and turnout in the district was skewed toward municipalities in Pat Jehlen’s state senate race.)
Arlington 7,427
Cambridge 7,204
Medford 6,420
Malden 5,359
Framingham 5,208
Lexington 4,786
Watertown 4,703
Waltham 4,386
Belmont 4,032
Revere 3,629
Melrose 3,511
Natick 3,332
Woburn 3,313
WInchester 2,984
Stoneham 2,704
Wayland 1,926
WInthrop 1,805
Sudbury 1,728
Holliston 1,266
Weston 1,127
Ashland 1,036
Lincoln 999
Southborough 699
Sherborn 536
Total 80,120
means nothing. Nice to let her think she can’t be beat though. Makes it easier for a competent opponent.
Saying Katherine Clark can’t be defeated because she licked Sheldon Schwatz is like saying Alabama cannot beat Boston College because B.C. walloped Wagner.
I see a lot of votes in a lot of places that gave her the vote the first time around after the special election, but now that she’s had time to let them know who she is….well..
Someone can give her a fight. Regardless, these numbers mean nothing when analyzed.
I have numbers. You may think they are nothing, but my numbers are better than your lack of numbers.
Arlington voters turn out for contested primaries in rather large numbers. Assuming a primary challenge to Senator Clark, kindly explain to me how you would mount a primary challenge given the turnout in the district. Remember that this is an elongated district, and a candidate that may have an advantage on one end of the district (be it Framingham or Revere) would not have a geographical advantage on the other end of the district.
We don’t need no steenkin NUMBERS.
See, they’re the new progressive Democrats. They’ve got all the answers for our post-truth Democratic Party. We and our steenking numbers is why we lost, don’t you see?
Snark off
He was the second place vote getter last time and would probably win over the Watertown and Framingham parts of the district, especially now that Spilka and Brownsberger wouldn’t be splitting the vote. He’d still be at a massive fundraising and grassroots disadvantage. And there really isn’t a reason to vote her out that I’m aware of. She’s advanced some bills and moved up in leadership despite being in the minority, and it’s unlikely barring a scandal we switch incumbents around here.
I was with Brownsberger. He did a good job representing his portion of Arlington, and I used to live in his district.
I have also known Karen Spilka and Katherine Clark since they were first elected to their respective school committees. They are outstanding public servants, and I could have happily supported them in the primary as well.
My sense is that a significant number of Spilka and Brownsberger supporters would back Clark if she were challenged. I know that all the local Democrats who worked with me on the Brownsberger campaign are very impressed with the job being done by Katherine Clark.
And if she got a primary she would have my full support. I totally disagree with his premise that she is a lazy do nothing Congresswoman. I do agree with his premise that the primary results you linked to are not demonstrative of what a serious challenge would look like, though again, she has a substantial fundraising record and record of constituent services that makes a challenge substantially unlikely.
I will be reading Markey’s fundraising tea leaves for signs of retirement. It definitely looks like Seth Moulton is already carving a path independent of the institutional party that was discredited earlier this month, and raising the kinds of funds needed to mount either a challenge or an open seat fight for a Senate seat.
So if a primary challenge does happen, she should certainly take it seriously. Unlike that incumbent, there is no need to switch horses for this district.
I can’t imagine why the moderators tolerate this.
Sure, threads like these generate a traffic and page views, and perhaps 37 cents of add revenue. But they demoralize the people who BMG is supposed to serve, they discourage people from looking at anything beyond the front page, and they are (and should be) contrary to the site rules. This has been going on for years.
In point of fact, Clark is extremely popular in Malden, and if Malden’s Dems get their act together, they’ll give Arlington a race for their money. Moreover, Clark’s national prominence on the despicable alt-right harassment of women in computing — two Gamergate targets were her constituents — largely immunizes her from a Koutoujian challenge.
Koutoujian — whom I like — ran well to the right of Clark and Sciortino. If anyone thinks that MA-5 is yearning for a representative who will be further to the right and more inclined to back Trump, well, come on down — because they’re higher than a kite.
Merely pointing out that Pablo’s example, while accurate so I uprated it, wasn’t the test case he thinks it is and if Ernies diagnosis is correct, and it’s not, there is a coalition to hobble together in other parts of the district. Arlington is as much a firewall as Michigan was in this crazy climate.
Who does this refer to? Why are they demoralized?
This piece is an egregiously shallow cheap shot at pablo. It’s another in the long list of egregiously shallow cheap shots that so often spew from EB3. It’s also the kind of piece that drives away thoughtful people who care about dialog and attracts the kind of people who fill comment streams on youtube and newspaper sites with similarly hostile rubbish.
I don’t know about demoralizing people, but it is certainly hurtful and explicitly written to be that way. It makes an absolute joke of the following excerpt from the “rules” (emphasis mine):
I don’t doubt that EB3 says these things to those around him. All of us get hot from time to time and write perhaps intemperate words in the midst of a passionate exchange. Writing a diary like this is, frankly, more like a sucker-punch in the gut.
I know that some people like to do this. I tend to avoid them. I also know pablo, and I know that he not only does NOT do this, but also that he doesn’t deserve this kind of attack.
That’s what comes to my mind when I read “demoralize the people who BMG is supposed to serve”.
As mentioned above, not only is it an deliberate attack on another poster at BMG, it is also disingenuous at best, if not somewhat of a psychotic break at worst. Pablo says “Clark has the votes in Arlington” and EBII goes completely off the rails about whether Arlington is “The Everyman”” (and he put the words in quotes, as though that’s what Pablo actually said) and then calls Pablo self-center and clueless based upon the drastically orthogonal reading of what Pablo wrote… in an entirely different diary.
EBIII rants. Pablo made honest and earnest reply. Did EBIII respond to that? No. He pulls a quote, not linking to the original (though he links two Globe stories, so we know he has basic motor skills to do that) and goes on another rant. People uprate his shtick for unfathomable reasons…. certainly not for quality of discourse. Demoralizing.
I don’t view Ernie’s post as a personal attack. More of a challenge, and given that I have data to support my argument and EB doesn’t, it’s almost unkind to play when I have such an unfair advantage in the discussion. Besides, this post provided a forum in which others have said kind things about me. What’s not to like?
nt
…I’m not sure you get to arbitrate this. You’re entitled to be forgiving and that’s laudable, but not to excuse or minimize. I’m not objecting to what you’ve done and said, I’m trying to re-characterize it properly…
Well, yes. That was sorta my point. It’s not like it’s a real discussion. It’s EBIII bellowing and you (and others) treating EBIII rip-snorting noxia as one side of a legit discourse. Of course it’s unfair. It’s also a microcosm of the election we just went through.
Well, I understand that. We should probably be saying nicer things about each other whenever they occur to us, not just when we’re under attack.
Re the orginal post: Substantively it is codswallop; it is childishly personal; and violates our rules.
However, the readership here is frequently capable of using such clumsy provocation to fertilize a lively and informative discussion. That’s why we’re frequently reluctant to get rid of the original post. You never know what you’re gonna find.
then read the above thread.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
As for the substance of the diary … the idea that Markey and Clark in Massachusetts are somehow responsible for the downfall of the Democratic Party, is goofy. The idea that Clark faces any serious opposition, or that there’s even an opening for such, has not been demonstrated, to say the least.
I’ll say two things about Clark:
1. She ran heavily on “women’s issues” in the primary: Equal pay. Choice. To be completely honest I discounted that strategy — didn’t really sound like a “progressive true believer” kind of marker. That was dumb on my part — very dumb. Women vote, and those issues are *very salient* to Dem primary voters.
2. Clark has shown courage, and literally put herself in harm’s way on the issue of online harassment — which was notably happening to one of her constituents in a national-profile case. Clark herself was “swatted” — had a SWAT team called to her house by an anonymous and false tip. Doubtless our local anonymous prolific commenter thinks that was just “grandstanding”, but actually it was guts.
There is very much to be said about inequality, class, blue-collar work and downward mobility; and all of our US Reps should have something compelling to say about that. Inequality is a local crisis; the Baker administration doesn’t seem particularly interested, and it will get much worse in the Trump years.
That’s a long way from saying Clark is the problem, or is in fact in any danger. So far, that’s just throwing #@%$ at the wall.
I actually *like* MA pols — Moulton, Clark, Warren of course — getting the spotlight a little bit. They *are* national leaders as well as local reps, and their ideas and attitudes can set a tone for others to adapt and follow, and which may provide encouragement for others outside of Massachusetts. Especially under today’s circumstances, I would *encourage* that kind of behavior.
Now’s not a time to shut up.
How do extrapolate that from what I said.
You know Charley. if you are going to come back to me and comment after years of ignoring me please make it on point. Unfortunately for you you read what you wanted to and then came in here with nothing but smug remarks.
Lame is what Lame does Charley.
The Democratic primary voters in a district that went something like 65% for Hillary Clinton in the GENERAL will, after two years of a Trumpocalypse, decide that they really need to dump their member of Congress for someone more conservative. Because sitting house members get dumped in primaries so frequently. It’s not like it took immediate relatives being indicted to sink Tierney on the second try or anything.
And ya know, Arlington need not be the “thermometer of American thought” to be a key town in a Democratic primary in the 5th Massachusetts Congressional District.
n/t
had a bill of hers passed by Paul Ryan’s House of Representatives today.
Make that — the vulnerable and ineffectual Katherine Clark.
n/t
I actually agree with Ernie on this. Markey will definitely be challenged, and Clark may be as well. The Senate is 52-48, and the House margin may shrink in 2018. They will be fighting everywhere.
Degree of vulnerability is anyone’s guess, but I would put Markey’s higher.
That’s my prediction. He is already raising 3-4 million next cycle for an easy re-election to the House. He can move that to the Senate account pretty easily.
And he just burned all his bridges to the House leadership by backing Tim Ryan. He will have to move up or get out. And he had no qualms about challenging Tierney.
I would support him against Markey, and possibly against Kennedy if it were an open seat. I would support Clark against any primary challenger that ran against her, she’s done an outstanding job.
Why folks think Markey is vulnerable, except that he’s in the way of an admitted rising star in Moulton. I’m aware that his approval ratings tend not to be especially high, and his profile is not high, though apparently he still gets stuff passed, like the toxics reform.
I like Ed. He’s been a workhorse for most of his career. He’s been a climate and consumer champion. I’m open to the idea it’s someone else’s turn but I’d like to know why specifically.
But I think that a lot of people will try to shake things up, and the (usually) unspoken taboo against primary challenges will fall by the wayside.
I do not think Moulton will be the one to challenge him, but someone will. And we should applaud that person, because he will get a Republican challenger too.