In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.
“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”
Americans voted for Trump because the were tired of being talked down to and labeled as ignorant and behind-the-times for complaining about policies they rightfully or wrongfully believe are the cause of their economic woes; less job opportunities, stagnant pay, less buying power, elimination of pensions, 401K programs not providing livable incomes and controlled by unethical and duplicitous fee mongering financial institutions, and the elimination of the middle class in order to pay the unethical and duplicitous fee mongering professionals running the unethical and duplicitous fee mongering financial institutions.
Now it’s bad enough that this was happening to the good people living and working in the fly-over states and on Staten Island but the people running the Democratic Party insisted that the voters not only suck it up and accept their lot in life but be fully committed to the more important issues the party is pushing. If they conflict with other interests, too bad, only a racist or a sexist would ask questions.
No one likes an arrogant dick and the elites setting the agenda for Democrats are looked at (because they act it) as big arrogant dicks sucking the tit of government at the expense of those they say they are helping.
Blue Mass Group is the minor leagues for this inbred subconscious propaganda. National Public Radio and their local affiliates are ground zero for the smug yet constantly preachy messaging telling the listener what to believe, who to idolize, and who to look down on. NPR is the king of the editorialized statement camouflaged as a benign universal belief.
The arrogance resulted in one of the most flawed candidates ever presented. It wasn’t good enough to have our vote they also insisted we beige she was “the most qualified person to ever run for president” and her difficulties are because “she is a woman”.
And how about Catholics? All the talk about is how backwards the church is blah b;ah blah. How about finding some commonality. You know? Like helping and fighting for the fucking poor, the homeless, the sick, the immigrants, the addicted, the incarcerated, the abused, the…
Instead the Democratic elite tries to marginalize Catholics and implicitly labeled haters etc.
Who gives a shit if we have women priests? Lets be glad we have St. Francis Center down town helping the homeless.
Not for nothing but you people deserve what you got. You don’t realize that you are being used by the ultra elite whose only goal is to keep the various groups making up the many classes below the ultra-high fighting among themselves.
Most Trump voters are not bigots etc. They felt they were left with no other choice then to join forces with the bigots to protect their self-interets. Remember how many people were torn between Bernie and Donald? Bigots or socialists. It didn’t fuckin matter. They were just tired of people telling them what to do and how to think while getting less and less.
The media has earned its well deserved repeat of being 4th rate. First rate opinion of themselves in spite of being terrible.
These people watched the media cheer on the needless Iraq War. Remember Ted Kopek riding into Bagdad standing in a tank?
How about turning on the news Nov 8th and getting the results from Brian Williams. Brian Williams! Are you kidding me? Like he’s the fucking Michael Jackson of news. Nobody does it like he does it so we can overlook all sorts of indiscretions. He’s that good.
Yeah, the media sucks.
—–
Anyway now comes the enima. Clean out the party elite, the dead wood, and the phoneys.
I say we start with Ed Markey and Katherine Clark. Talk about deadwood. Katherine Clark wants so bad to be important. What a fuckin’ lightweight. The first sign of a congressional loser is when said member is in the front of line to see the president when he walks down the aisle to give his state of the nation speech. Katherine did that.
She’s is punching well above her weight. Just a matter of time before she gets knocked out.
Anyway I see both of them vulnerable in a primary. When’s Markey up again?
Totally agree on two things: the smugness of the liberal elite and No Show Markey.
I can’t point to a single accomplishment of Markey’s in the Senate so you got a point there, he hasn’t been nearly as dynamic as I expected him to be. Frankly, Lynch has been more visible on many of the issues I care about and visibly progressive at that. So I definitely have buyer’s remorse from that primary. Lynch would be a shoe-in for Governor if he got past the primary.
You’re dead wrong a definitely showing your chauvinism on Clark. Clark has actually passed substantial legislation that has helped people despite being in the minority her entire tenure. Whether it’s working with McConnell on opioids, cracking down on cyber stalking and cyber harassment, or working with Republicans on ways to prevent terrorists from recruiting online. Very visible on gun safety which is an issue you disagree with her on, but most of her constituents feel is important. She’s also very visible in the communities she represents with office hours and attending community events. Ditto Lynch, Capuano and Moulton.
nope, not an issue for me. There is nothing I have ever written that should cause you to say I disagree with her on gun control.
She is lame because she is one of these overly ambitious country bumpkin shooting stars who gets eye rolls from her colleagues. You know other overly ambitious people only they know how to do it right. Like not spending a day of your time or assigning a staff member to stand at the aisle and hold a place for them so they can get 2 seconds of face time on TV when the Pres walks in the chamber.
Doesn’t matter what her positions are she’s a lightweight from Colorado who never buys Renuzit.
I would say Markey is more vulnerable. He’s old, and been there a while. The Senate is razor close, they almost have to challenge him.
Trouble is I don’t know who they get.
I think Clark’s anti-online harassment pushed was widely noticed and helped her. She might be challenged, but I think she’ll be fine.
…is a single term in the Senate “been there a while”, especially from the state that kept return Kerry for a quarter century and Kennedy for almost half? Even in terms of age he has a few ahead of him both currently and historically. Maybe we can’t think of legislation with his name on it, and it’s not his fault our other Senator is a rock star, but usually a credible primary comes from egregiously offending the base of one’s party and I don’t see any of that from Markey either.
I don’t thing longevity is a reason in and of itself to vote ’em out, but let’s be clear. With respect to Congress, Senator Markey has indeed been there a while. 40 years, in fact.
40 years, according to Wiki.
Despite being in the minority. Ed has done very little but collect a bigger pension while being in the Senate and getting in a little bit of trouble advocating on behalf of some donors. Compared to his record as a House member, it’s hard to argue he isn’t taking the position for granted.
Moulton is hungry and has no qualms about challenging unresponsive incumbents. If Ed doesn’t agree to the Kennedy succession, I’d look for Seth to skip ahead in line again. He’s already challenging Pelosi, and he is looking for a fundraiser to raise 3-4 million for 2018. As Christopher pointed out, a House war chest could only be used for other federal offices. It’s unlikely he runs for President so a primary challenge against Markey or raising to run for the seat when it opens up isn’t beyond question.
Contested primaries are good and we should keep encouraging them! Had our 2016 presidential primary attracted a wider pool of viable candidates we might’ve been in better shape going into the general. I welcome a wide field for our gubernatorial race from a variety of experiences. I’m glad to see so many Mayors possibly jump in, business executives, and yes some legislators.
Moulton is hungry because he wants new leadership? We’re all hungry for that.
I agree that Clark has raised issues, and I like Clark, but I’m not sure what she’s accomplished yet.
I’m not familiar with your Markey/donor reference. I will google …
Markey called for an investigation of Herbalife on behalf of a donor who was shorting their stock.
Markey was also conspicuously lacking in moral courage when the Tsarnaev family was looking for a burial site.
Thanks for pointing to it, but I don’t think the Herbalife thing is enough of an issue to hurt Markey.
…you seem to have been down on Markey almost since the beginning? I recall you saying he may not have won in the first place if he had a decent GOP opponent.
I was with him in that primary and defended him alongside you against a lot of DFW trolling for Lynch related to NAFTA or the war vote.
I do think Gomez, who wasn’t a great Republican candidate though he’s a really nice guy, cracked 45% against Markey. My opinion is that Brown would’ve had a better time winning that race that cycle than he did later carpetbagging in NH later in the cycle.
Same low turnout for the Coakley special, but Gomez didn’t bring enough of the GOP base out to vote for him. I also know a lot of Latinos that voted for him since he was pretty liberal for a Republican and they wanted a Latino in the Senate, but those gains weren’t enough to offset conservatives staying home and independents staying away entirely.
He should be pretty safe against a Republican, unless Baker stays popular, gets comfortable re-elected, and makes a play. I don’t see Polito beating him and they really have nobody else do they? A young Democrat unwilling to wait another six years who is charismatic, has the right name or background, and has access to national fundraising would be wise to make a play. Likely, they will raise a ton of money and scare him into retirement.
…but you explained yourself well here.
If Joe and Seth raise a lot of money for their ‘re-election’ in 2018, demur running a suicide run against Baker, and Markey raises comparatively very little, than the Senate was a feather in a fine cap. If he get’s aggressive about fund raising, than look for Joe to stay put. Seth is the kind of guy who doesn’t mind running in a primary, the kind of aggressive leadership our local party could use more of. My money says he runs either way.
Markey has always been one of the monster fundraisers in DC. Between 2013 and 2016 (September) he raised $19,000,000 and spent a little over $18,000,000 leaving him with $2.1 million cash on hand. Markey has never been afraid of anything (you probably were not yet born when he had his legendary confrontation with former-Speaker McGee).
Markey has deep ties to enviro and arms control donors across the country with good reason. He has been at the front of the fights on energy, environment, climate change and arms control for decades. See https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00000270&cycle=2016#funds Markey donors will not be turning tail on him because of silly speculation that Moulton will run against him. You do a real dis-service to Moulton for floating this. Obviously you have had no conversation with Moulton about this.
The notion that Markey does not carry clout is equally nuts-o. Go to any of the standard sources to learn about his record and you will feel really foolish for slagging him. Remember, this site is about “reality based commentary.”
Nobody tells me where to stand. Barney Frank’s excellent memoir goes into greater detail about it. I am also familiar with his Congressional record and defended it during the last Senate primary.
I just don’t see him being as present in the state or visible on the issues as a Senator like he was when he was in the House. Admittedly, he is outshone by Warren and the presidential race. But I think some of Ernie’s criticisms are valid. And whoever she is, she’s someone often in the know about the more esoteric aspects of local political life.
Name three major progressive laws that have had a Mass MC as the lead sponsor since 2013. That means, not one of the multitude of Members who sign on to someone else’s work and issue the press release after it passes, but someone who is the tip of the spear. You will be hard pressed to do so since the GOP has stymied pretty much every Dem in the country for the past four years. It is not the fault of our delegation, it lies with the words of Mitch McConnell at the beginning of the Obama admin.
But please go and read about what Markey has done in DC and if you have the willingness to admit his successes, post them here.
More importantly, an enormous part of the work of a legislator, state and national, is to work the inside levers of contacts in the Executive branch. Ted Kennedy had far more success doing that than people understand and Markey’s 40 years in DC has given him massive clout. Most of that goes away with Trump, but not all of it, and it will take decades for a Moulton or a Clark to achieve that. No slight to either as I like them both but that shit-talk about Markey in your previous post was not connected to the reality of DC.
BTW, I have not yet read Barney’s bio but I do not need to read it to understand what happened since I was there “in the building” as it is said.
I worked for the campaigns of both Markey and Clark and would do it again, because their positions on many issues that are important to me align with mine and because I think they can be (and have been) effective in Washington. I currently have no interest in replacing either of them until Senator Markey is ready to retire. That doesn’t mean someone might not come along to make me change my mind, but let’s worry about more serious problems than replacing reasonably strong representation in Washington. (I’d much rather worry about replacing some of the DINOs in the Mass House, for example.) I agree on EKBIII’s first paragraph after the quote re: economic issues. I also agree that Warren is confronting those issues directly and I wholeheartedly support her efforts to do that. I don’t think her colleagues in the Senate and House have to do exactly what she is doing in order to make a real contribution as progressives. Do I think they’re perfect? No. Am I happy to have them representing me right now? Absolutely.
N/T
Set a thief to catch a thief.
The stuff above the lines, at least.
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.
There was considerable delight in town when Katherine Clark joined with Rep. John Lewis to organize that sit-in in the well of the House. At risk? Only of being further recognized as an up and coming rock star in a minority that lacks dynamic leadership or strategic thinking.