Cambridge councilor plans to challenge Capuano
The Boston Globe: http://tiny.cc/Mazen
Cambridge City Councilor Nadeem A. Mazen, the state’s highest-profile Muslim elected official, is planning a run against US Representative Michael Capuano.
Please share widely!
Good. I don’t quite see his rationale, but competition is healthy.
Mazen has been an interesting councilor-a lot of friends of mine supported him but longtime Cambridge policy veterans didn’t seem to get along with him for one reason or another. Councilors would say he didn’t play well with others which came out in the open when he and Mayor Simmons got into an argument. One where both sides had a point-he was pretty fiscally conservative for Cambridge (in a good way) and the funding items he got upset about didn’t make sense to me either. Mayor Simmons was likely correct his inquiry was formally out of order though.
He’s definitely a maverick who’s to the right of Capuano on some stuff (unions, automation, uber regulations, charters and free trade come to mind). Similar to Brianna Wu-far to the left on identity issues (less of a factor against Capuano than against Lynch) but favoring basic income as a moderator to the unfettered creative destruction of technological change. I am not disagreeing with that notion, but it won’t surprise me when the trades and regulars pushback against it and back their longtime allies.
I predict both incumbents will be comfortably re-elected, but Mazen has a strong base of support in Cambridge, strong national fundraising network and is a very charismatic and capable candidate. A lot of people of color have been waiting for this seat to go to a diverse candidate and that is likely enough for Mazen to make it a fight. He won’t win this time, but I could say Capuano retire and make way for a more viable diverse candidate down the road.
Primaries are good.
Point of order — can you perhaps offer different words to explain what you mean by “favoring basic income as a moderator to the unfettered creative destruction of technological change”? Is this a reference to a UBI? I just don’t grok what the phrase means.
Yes both he and Wu endorse UBI. I think more politicians should endorse it and we should start pilots and study it, but I view it to as another tool for increasing income mobility rather than just a way for corporations to buy off voters upset about outsourcing and automation. To be fair, Mazen has not expressed that view explicitly but Brianna Wu has.
I’d support Mazen over Lynch if that race existed. I wouldn’t support him over Capuano, who I think has done a pretty good job. I agree that both incumbents will likely be re-elected but I think the Lynch-Wu race will be a huge blowout. Mazen will likely do well in Cambridge and lose in Somerville, Boston, and lose badly in Chelsea, Everett, Randolph, and Milton. He does know how to fundraise and campaign, however, unlike Wu, so maybe it will be closer.
Mike Capuano is my representative, and I will enthusiastically support him during the campaign and vote for him at every opportunity.
Mike Capuano has been on the correct side of virtually every issue I can think of, both economic and social. In the 1980s, he loudly opposed Proposition 2 1/2. He opposed the catastrophic 2003 invasion of Iraq. He has been a consistent and strong supporter of international aid funding, abortion rights, labor rights, and unions.
At a time when we desperately need effective, experienced, and motivated troops to fight the continued exploitation of all of us by a wealthy elite, I find it preposterous to do anything but support Mike Capuano. Here’s what he said about big bankers in a 2009 hearing just after the 2008 collapse:
Our party chose a “more diverse” candidate for the special election to replace Ted Kennedy. We all know how well that worked out
With all due respect to “diversity”, fresh air, and all that, this primary campaign only distracts us and Mr. Capuano from the urgent and pressing work that needs to be done RIGHT NOW.
I think this is yet another stupid stunt — it reminds me strongly of the similarly stupid primary campaign against Pat Jehlen. I wonder which right-wing advocacy groups are secretly behind this latest attack on a progressive stalwart.
And that’s why he’s drawn opposition. It’s the template we’re seeing more and more of in blue areas — people using social issues to cover a rightward economic shift.
What’s the evidence of the rightward shift, though? I agree that Leland Cheung ran that way, but why do we assume that about this guy?
We didn’t know about the right-wing support for Mr. Cheung until it emerged in the glare of greater scrutiny resulting from his candidacy.
I make the probably rash assumption that similar right-wing support will be discovered if Mr. Mazen continues in this path. As sabutai observes, it follows a pattern.
Hard to see the Cambridge City Council as a hotbed of right-wing stealth candidates.
How do YOU characterize Mr. Cheung?
Tom, the last time I did that, Charlie edited my post for salty language. He (Leland) certainly has given opportunists a bad name.
I do appreciate @leland4anything, however, a lasting contribution to the rich history of campaign foolishness, right up there with “Guy Glodis Shall Reign…” and “Whether you are back from the Cape or the Continent….”
@ trickleup: Heh.
I’m not sure the Cambridge City Council had anything to do with Mr. Cheung’s campaign. I think your term “opportunist” is quite appropriate.
In any case, I think Mike Capuano is a great candidate. I hope, for Mr. Mazen’s sake, that his ill-fated venture ends soon.
Half an uprate. I am with JimC that contested primaries are good for our party and help us build our bench in all sorts of good ways. I know many activists in Somerville and Medford who met one another and sank their teeth into that race who are now running for alderman, school committee, and are active in Indivisible Somerville, PM, RCV, RaiseUP and the Fossil Fuel Free Somerville effort. All of those efforts sprouted from this campaign.
I think defending incumbents we like in contested primaries is just as positive as opposing incumbents we don’t like. It is unlikely Mike Connolly would have done the latter in his race if progressive voters in the district weren’t turning out to do the former. Mike and his campaign managers admitted as much and they are incredibly indebted to Pat’s team for increasing voter turnout broadly even though they were neutral in that fight. When overall turnout goes up, progressive turnout goes way up. A contested congressional race will train new activists, new leaders, new candidates and have turnout ramifications downballot that will help progressives. I say this both as a friend of Nadeem’s and someone proud to have cast his first vote for Congress for Mike Capuano in 2006 for Senate in 2009, and for Congress again in 2018 when I am once again a District 7 voter.
Let me clarify the “rightward drift” in a fairer way. Mazen comes from the tech sector and shares a lot of their policy assumptions. Automation, disruption, immigration, and technology are good. Protectionism is bad, unions are meh. He is also a Muslim American who has been viciously attacked, even in Cambridge, for his faith. These things have undoubtedly shaped his worldview.
So on some issues he is quite leftward. He would be our most pro-Palestinian member of Congress. He opposes the city having any CCTV cameras that monitor public spaces. He opposes the Cambridge Police Department having military style vehicles or weapons (as it currently does). He strongly supported net zero emissions and a living wage ordinance and refused to compromise on either, despite the former’s lack of timetable feasibility according to the City Manager and the latter’s unconstitutionality according to the City Solicitor (wages are strictly an issue for state law).
He is perceived as economically rightward by some longtime activists in Cambridge. This is a very particular definition of rightward. My own opinion is I found his fiscal conservatism refreshing, and it reminded me of my mentor Patty Nolan’s from my school committee days. He and her are the only members of those body’s who bother to read budgets and ask why we spend what we do and if we are getting our money’s worth. Such an attitude definitely rubbed some longtime activists and stakeholders the wrong way. He constantly talks about bringing Cambridge public sector workers in line with private sector practices and management, which has rubbed them the wrong way, which has come across as anti-union or anti-public sector worker to some. His take on uber initially put him into direct confrontation with cab driver unions, but they later baked his compromise.
On housing he is YIMBY which I find to be progressive and forward thinking, but it does utilize market reforms to achieve affordability, and in Cambridge there is still a constituency that won’t settle for anything less than rent control. On education his non profit has worked with charters in the past, and he felt as a councilor that his role was to support all the schools, their staff, and their families in the city regardless of charter or district. So when I ask, ‘how is he right wing?’ these are the answers I get. I am hoping this sounded objective.
I think it is fair to conjecture that on issues like the prevailing wage law, preferential contracts for unions, free trade agreements, charters and the like he might be to the ‘right’ of Capuano. And on issues like Israel, civil liberties, and identity politics he may well be to his ‘left’. We are talking about very minor degrees and distinctions, but certainly distinctions that are sure to be amplified in a primary as the recent special senate race demonstrated..
Thanks. What is the Uber bit you alluded to?
The confrontation and the compromise. Basically he came to agree with the legislation the legislature ultimately passed permitting them but forcing them to comply with more oversight.
Do you know if Mr. Capuano offered any opinions about the Uber matter? I didn’t see anything in your second link, and I don’t pay the Boston Globe so I couldn’t get past the paywall on the first.
Mazen should seek campaign advice from Senator Leland Cheung.
Why is it that while many of us don’t like the anti-primary taboo in our political culture, especially against incumbents who are DINO in many ways, the only primaries we end up getting are against those most of us find sufficiently progressive? (see also Jehlen, Pat)