Several top Democrats have all but endorsed the re-election of Gov. Charlie Baker, and I want to talk about just one reason why that could potentially cripple the party’s effort to convince people to register, turn out, and vote Democratic.
There are massive racial disparities in America’s criminal justice system. African Americans are more likely to be arrested on drug offenses, more likely to be held in jail awaiting trial, more likely to be sentenced to prison (and longer prison terms), and more likely to have their probation revoked, often for unexplained reasons.
African Americans are incarcerated in state prisons at a rate that is 5.1 times the imprisonment of whites, according to The Sentencing Project. Latinos are imprisoned at a rate that is 1.4 times the rate of whites nationwide, but Massachusetts has the worst disparity in the entire country – here, Latinos are imprisoned at a rate 4.3 times the rate of whites. Misguided criminal justice policies and prison-packing mandatory minimums have gotten so bad that a bipartisan coalition is pushing for major reform.
Yet part of Gov. Baker’s response to the opiod epidemic is to try to make mandatory minimums even worse. He wants to sentencing some drug dealers as killers:
State Representative Russell Holmes, a Mattapan Democrat, said he thinks the bill goes too far. “How do you know it was that person’s drugs that killed the person?” he said. “I’m not agreeing with that.”
Critics worry that people selling small quantities of drugs to feed an addiction might end up in jail. “Incarceration of people with drug addiction continues to scar them and not help the problem,” said Lew Finfer, a spokesman for Jobs Not Jails, a coalition of labor, community, and religious groups pushing for an overhaul of criminal laws. “We need to make sure we’re doing it right; not adding to mass incarceration.”
Maryanne Frangules, executive director of the Massachusetts Organization for Addiction Recovery, shared similar concerns. “Our feeling on mandatory minimums is you need to have the ability to look at mitigating circumstances,” Frangules said. “We don’t want carfentanil and people making this stuff out there, but I’m not sure mandatory minimums is the answer.”
But this is the best part, and by best I mean the atrociously, horribly worst:
Defense attorneys praised Baker’s efforts to tackle the opioid crisis but worried that mandatory minimum sentences could wind up criminalizing drug addiction.
“The intent is good,” said Martin W. Healy, chief legal counsel to the Massachusetts Bar Association. “We hope this is targeted more to actual traffickers, instead of low-level dealers who are addicts themselves.”
Doesn’t that make you feel better, disproportionately-targeted communities of color? The Massachusetts Bar Association supports expanding powers that have a long track record of being abused in racially-biased ways, but they’re hoping hings will be different in the future, because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯! Note that the MBA’s leadership is 100% white and 83% male.
Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, House Speaker Robert DeLeo, and U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano (in a total coincidence I’m sure, all white men) have all issued virtual endorsements of Baker by saying they won’t commit to voting for the Democratic nominee. Even if they endorse the Democrat now, every article will say they probably only endorsed because they were forced to.
Baker has introduced a bill allowing Massachusetts police officers to cooperate with President Trump’s white nationalist campaign targeting immigrants. Baker (and Walsh!), gripped by panic, were ready to ban all Syrian refugees – even children – as a response to a terrorist attack. And Baker once defended the Confederate flag not as a symbol of slavery or treason but of “tradition.”
Now, I’m not saying Baker is racist, and his immediate condemnation of racist taunting at Fenway Park was a step in the right direction. What I’m saying is: Democrat should be highlighting these issues as reasons to register, to come out to the polls, and vote Democratic.
Instead, Massachusetts’ top Democrats are sending a loud, clear signal that there’s no daylight between Republicans and Democrats on issues like sentencing reform, immigration, and racial justice.
And Democrats will wonder why they keep losing the governor’s seat to Republicans and setting up Massachusetts Republicans for runs at national office. Then again, maybe they just don’t care.
I think the balance needs to be to get rid of the concept of “possession with intent”, but throw the book at those who really do push and distribute, especially to children.
Or they don’t have the choice you think they do. Or, to use your own phrasing, maybe ‘there’s no daylight’ to be had…
To make use of BMG as a microcosm to help us understand, let us examine what we have:
The first type is people like jconway and johntmay, stalwart democrats, each, who brook absolutely no opposition to their solutions, no matter how far from reality their solutions might lie. Their answer to the victory of Trump is to, somehow, talk more like Trump and ‘win back’ the people who Trump won. The problem, they think, is ‘messaging’ and they think the Democrats messaging should be as effective as the Republicans messaging. No daylight there.
But the Republicans messaging is almost always coded. Did you ever wonder why they call it the ‘opioid crisis’? Because ‘heroin crisis’ will remind people of the problems of the inner city in the 1970’s and the white establishments near total ignorance of the problem (followed quickly by a ‘crack epidemic’ which was, again, largely confined to a certain color). ‘Opioid crisis’ allows white people to care about other white people without the burden of wondering why nobody cared all that much about drugs when African Americans were the ones dying.
Republicans never say what they mean and never really mean what they say, this has been true from ‘states rights’ to ‘compassionate conservative’ and beyond. ‘Make America Great Again’ is really ‘Make America White Again.’ There is a, seemingly benign, surface meaning. Then there is another meaning, generally more sinister.
But, on the other side of BMG are people like Christopher, who’s already posted a balanced response to the surface message only. Christopher is like one of those pre-Civil War politicians who sat down to deeply and fairly consider the position of ‘states rights’ as a constitutional principle thus providing deference to, and more than a pass to, the ulteriority of the message: pro-slavery…. something to which he would be overtly opposed, if he thought about it.
Or, to put another way, Christopher answers in the affirmative to the old political joke “two politicians were having an argument when one jumps up and accuses the other of lying. The other one cries ‘Yes, I am… but here me out…”‘ The very phrase, ‘hear me out’ is like a political version of an eclipse: no daylight there, either…
I’m using specific names here because they put themselves out there and can reply here with agreement or dispute as they see fit. But the demonstration fits the legislature, which is the focus of your complaint, some of whom are eager to win the next election and feel, like some do here, that since the Republican methodology is the only victorious methodology they should twist themselves into pretzels trying to find the right message and others are busy scrupulously being too fair by half about the surface message Republicans proffer, all the while eliding the thorns that are sub-rosa.
Interesting analysis, but yes, I will push back a bit on your reference to me. While I know the pre-Civil War history well enough that I COULD play defense attorney on states rights or even secession according to then-current understanding if I absolutely had to, the truth is when I start hearing the term “states rights” bandied about too enthusiastically my first question is always what no good are y’all (and yes, given the states usually involved “y’all” is very appropriate) up to that you’d like the rest of us to ignore. I really don’t think I would put myself in a position to give slavery a pass and if I had to vote for either the Missouri Compromise or the Compromise of 1850 it would be with a huge metaphorical clothespin on my nose. The Fugitive Slave Act is one law that might have actually pushed me into civil disobedience.
I don’t completely agree with your characterizations of others named either as I think they think there is, or at least should be, plenty of daylight between the parties, but I will let them speak for themselves.
Finally, I was under the impression that there is some difference between opioids and heroin, at least in context if not active ingredient. I think of the former as beginning with legal prescriptions in pill form getting out of control while the latter as shooting something that was never legally prescribed. Growing up we were taught that heroin was dangerous without qualification and I never thought of it as racially discrepit.
In the beginning there was the poppy. Opium… from which the term ‘opioid’ was derived. In the early 1800’s Morphine was created. From Morphine was derived Heroin… which was, at one point, sold ‘over the counter’ as a ‘pick me up’… Morphines widespread use (and overuse) during and after the Korean War (the first use of a fully integrated military…) led to widespread misuse and ultimately to a Heroin problem in the inner city, which could be synthesized and sold more easily on the street.
Then, the prescribed drub, Morphine, a legal ‘opioid’ led to the problem of Heroin. Now, the prescribed drug, oxycontin, a legal ‘opioid’ leads to the problem of Heroin.
The point, Christopher, isn’t to say which term is appropriate for which ‘crisis’ (The Morphine/Heroin crisis of the 70’s is just as much an ‘opioid crisis’ as the present day situation. And the present day situation could equally be termed a ‘Heroin crisis’) but to ask why two, essentially similar, crisis don’t share the same term. Why? Because some white people don’t say what they mean and they don’t mean what they say…
I think the dynamic at play may be different from that assumed by the thread-starter (which I up-rated, by the way).
I think we may be seeing our top Democrats implicitly acknowledging the profound irrelevance of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, and the nominations it puts forward.
The assertion that Mr. Capuano is implicitly or explicitly endorsing Charlie Baker strongly suggests to me that author doesn’t know Mike Capuano.
Here are the last two paragraphs of the threadstarter that, to me, miss the elephant in the political room (emphasis mine):
Nope. I think our top Democrats are sending a loud clear signal that Massachusetts Democratic Party is an anachronism that is irrelevant to Massachusetts residents and especially to Massachusetts Democratic voters. We Democrats have allegedly held the legislature for generations, yet that legislature has for decades thumbed its nose at the stance of an overwhelming majority of Massachusetts Democrats on a long and growing list of issues.
I think Mike Capuano knows what we lifelong Democrats who support him believe and care about. I think he knows that the Massachusetts Democratic Party ignored us when it twice nominated Martha Coakley.
I think Mike Capuano, and perhaps the other “top Democrats”, are speaking to the political realities of 2017 and pointedly ignoring the increasingly fossilized institution of the Massachusetts Democratic Party.
I think Mike Capuano cares a great deal about taking back the governor’s seat and “setting up Massachusetts Republicans for runs at national office”. I think we all saw a crystal-clear example of how the Massachusetts Democratic Party did exactly that in 2010. That one election (never mind the 2014 gubernatorial race) is exhibit A in the case AGAINST committing to support the party’s nominee at this early juncture.
I don’t know about Mr. Walsh or any other “top Democrat”. I think that Mike Capuano is doing exactly what he should be doing about his stance towards the Democratic nominee at this early juncture.
I’m confused by a couple of your characterizations of the party. First, Coakley may not be your cup of tea, but she’s not a DINO. She is right in the mainstream and arguably even progressive on some things. Plus, you speak of the party as if it made a decision independently of Dem voters regarding whom to put on the ballot. Coakley won fair and square the primaries for Senator in 2009 and Governor in 2014. In fact during the regular cycle when there is a convention, a gathering arguably more representative of the institutional party than the primary electorate which includes unenrolleds, their endorsement must yield to primary results. Otherwise Steve Grossman would have been the nominee for Governor last time.. The second thing that confuses me is your reference to the 2010 race where we successfully re-elected our nominee for Governor, so I’m not sure why that’s an argument against what the party was doing.
I’m referring to the 2010 special election for the senate, in which Martha Coakley lost to Scott Brown.
I didn’t say that Ms. Coakley was a “DINO”. Bob DeLeo has also “won fair and square” all the elections, primary and otherwise, as have all the other legislators who identify as “Democrat”.
That’s sort of my point. The net result of all this is that our “Democratic” government consistently ignores the stance of a significant majority of Massachusetts Democrats. Each and every candidate follows the rules of the institutional party.
The candidate nominated by the party for the senate in 2010 and the governor in 2014 was out of step with a majority of the state’s voters, and arguably a large part of the state’s Democrats.
What I’m saying is that it’s hard to argue the party ignores the wishes of the state’s Democrats regarding whom they nominate, when it is the state’s Democrats who are themselves doing the nominating. The only way that might make sense is if you are suggesting the outcome of primaries might be different if the primaries were closed. I suppose that might be true in some cases, but it’s hard to tell given a secret ballot and lack of polling on that particular question.
@Christopher: What I’m saying is that the outcome that results from following the rules is an organization and government that is out-of-touch with Massachusetts Democrats and that does not represent their and our interests.
I’m not sure what the best answer is, as you well know the rules of the current institution — and the laws of the Commonwealth that perpetuate it — are complex, arcane, and full of unexpected consequences. I’m saying that our current practitioners play those laws primarily to benefit themselves.
I want to know — and this is a serious question — where the political assassination of Tim Murray fits into the schema that you describe. Mr. Murray was a strong and viable candidate with wide support in western MA. He was taken out of contention by what appeared to be an orchestrated pattern of leaks, rumors, threatened indictments that never materialized, and what appeared to be carefully coordinated stories from the Boston Globe (a very different publication then in comparison to now) and Boston media outlets.
As johntmay has observed, our last gubernatorial nominee was out of step with the voters and with Massachusetts Democrats on casinos, health-care, taxes, and host of other issues. I suggest that there is VERY strong evidence that the Democrats that do the nominating — and electing, and selecting, and cajoling, and fund-raising, and everything else — are different from and out of step with statewide Democrats who pull the lever in actual elections.
Whatever the solution(s) or lack thereof, I think THIS phenomena is driver of the reluctance of some to announce categorical support for the nominee of the party this far ahead of the campaign.
I honestly don’t know enough of the details about Tim Murray to comment too specifically. I know you have in the past essentially accused Coakley of abusing the AG’s office to neutralize a potential primary rival. Since I don’t recall Murray actually being charged with anything he would have been free to run for Governor and let delegates and voters decide his political fate. It is ultimately up to Massachusetts Democrats to make the party responsive by running for delegate and local party committees, keeping in touch with elected officials regarding their priorities, and ultimately primarying those who consistently snub the party.
I appreciate your commitment to the organization, and we’ve discussed the specifics of all this at length.
My point here is that the entity as it now exists is simply not working. Even though the rules are all being followed, the result doesn’t work. THAT, in my view, is the message that these “top Democrats” send with their reluctance to endorse the organization’s nominee.
When society leaves behind an organization that, for whatever reason, cannot or will not change, then the organization eventually becomes irrelevant and then dies.
Walk around any of larger cities and towns in Massachusetts, and take note of the elaborate churches (at least those that are still standing). Only a few are still in use by the denomination that built them, and a great many are now condos. A great many others are just memories, the physical evidence bulldozed away as the surrounding city or town moved on.
Each election cycle in which our “Democratic” government (whether legislature or governor’s office) ignores what actual Democrats who live in Massachusetts want is another nail in the coffin in which the party will eventually be buried.
There is the story, possibly apocryphal, of FDR telling his base they have to “make him” carry out the policies they prefer. The same is true at the state level – the activists are ultimately responsible for making their electeds listen to them. I believe you have praised your own legislators so your own further influence on the party might be a bit limited, considering not every district is progressive and many legislators will choose constituents over party if the two are in conflict, which frankly is a reasonable political calculation to make. It is not the fault of Setti Warren, Bob Massie, or Jay Gonzalez that the party is less responsive than you would like as none of them are DINO legislators and all of them would be better than Baker. A party that is not listening or working is not a cue for the activists to give up, but rather a cue for them to double down.
I’m confident that if Setti Warren is the nominee, Mike Capuano will enthusiastically endorse him, probably at a time when that endorsement will be more meaningful.
A party that is not listening or working is a party that is dying.
When Coakley ran against Baker last time, their websites were nearly identical on the casino issue, health care, and the economy. Sadly, Grossman did not even mention health care on his campaign web site.
I think you have hit some of the big points but am guessing you were not here for the Weld re-election campaign in 1994. It feels the same today. Former Rep Mark Roosevelt (smart as a whip and coming off of his victory on ed reform), former Sen George Bachrach (the politically brilliant and principled opposition to Bulger) and Sen Mike Barrett, another smart, tough progressive, ran for the nomination.. I was a partisan of one of them but they were all great.
Roosevelt, the Democratic party nominee, got slaughtered in the final.. Not his fault. We were on the wrong election side of an improving economy. Weld had nothing to do with it. He rode the wave.
I want the economy to improve but I want all Americans to know that governors have zero control over the economy. They, like this one, only decide who benefits. As long as Baker fails to EMBRACE the grad tax, he is is on the wrong side of justice.
It’s an interesting discussion, but it’s worth noting we have three nominees generally racing to be to the left of one another on the major issues and it’s likely their percentage against Baker will be worse than Coakley’s.
This doesn’t mean that her approach was correct or their approach is wrong-it does mean that the narrative of a silent liberal majority waiting for the right candidate to awake it is suspect.
Having surveyed thousands and interacted with hundreds of unenrolled voters in this state in 2016-the main concerns are those kitchen table ones. And attacking Beacon Hill itself which they perceive to be irredeemably corrupt.
Coakley ran primarily on social issues which were her strength (protecting choiceand gay rights, going after guns) but also happened to be the things that made Baker different from national Republicans. Trying to tie him to them, as Gonzalez is doing, won’t fly with Massachusetts voters.
A candidate bold enough to run against the legislature and point out-as Green Miles is doing-that its largely enabled and aided by Baker in the Corner Office-is a candidate that has a fighting chance with the unenrolled. And a candidate who can make sure Baker doesn’t hit the 30% with Democrats he is targeting.
It’s hard. To win the nomination these candidates have to mingle with and kiss the asses of thousands of convention delegates and caucus goers. Most of whom are white, middle to upper middle class with the free time and know how to run, and over 40. Then you have your Lynch contingent of labor Dems who also have an outside say in the process of getting on the ballot, and tend to favor insiders over outsiders.
This leaves precious little time for the three month general election when lower middle class white unenrolled voters start paying attention and minoritiy communities need to be activated for the long haul. And forget us millennials-even the most anti-Trump among my friends have no idea who’s running for governor or how it connects to what we want to do.
Be like Bernie and keep it simple as a direct attack on the entire system-not just the Republican incumbent in the Corner Office-and you’ll activate the young people and lower middle class working families. Running against the DACA order and anti-sanctuary policies will activate Latinos and running for a fair share amendment and sentencing reform will bring in other minority communities. Connect the local fight to the same values as the national fight-money out of politics, protecting equality for all, and fighting income inequality. That’s how Warren won, it’s how Patrick won long ago, and it’s how our next nominee can win.
Here is my take on what you’re saying.
We need a Massachusetts Democrat who:
1. Proposes to address wealth and income concentration head-on
2. Attacks and promises to change the culture of corruption on Beacon Hill
But if Baker already holds the center, which is certainly a reasonable perception, don’t our candidates have to go left to show any difference? I’m not sure attacking “the system” a la Sanders will work in MA because we actually have a pretty good system. What they should focus on IMO is investing in our infrastructure, services, etc, something Baker has been so reluctant to do. Setti Warren seems to have the best vision in this regard and as such I have chosen him as my candidate. I have actually not heard much from any of them on the standard culture war issues, but I think it’s pretty safe to assume where they stand on those if they were to come up. As for finding out about them, yes our method is activists first, but if your friends really want to learn about candidates this early, there are ways to do that.
This is the essential divide between insiders and outsiders. And I would argue an area where progressive and unenrolled critics of the legislature have a lot of overlap and find a lot of common ground. Being an outsider who attacks Beacon Hill is the sweet spot for candidates in either party who do well statewide.
Baker and Brown attacked their corruption and insulation from voter accountability while Patrick and Warren attacked them for being timid leaders unwilling to go bold on anything. The outsider/insider dichotomy won Seth Moulton’s primary against Tierney and saved that seat from an assured GOP pickup. These are the candidates who inspire and can win statewide. Your average rise up the ladder insider won’t do as well.
Setti Warren is the boldest candidate in a terribly weak and uninspiring field. I wish other mayors like Curtatone, or an outsider like Dan Wolf gave it another look.
The way our candidates “go left” is to attack wealth and income concentration head-on. That’s exactly what Setti Warren is doing.
You may feel “we actually have a pretty good system”. I suggest that that feeling is radically out of step with a HUGE number of the actual Massachusetts voters that I talk to. The culture of corruption is still clear and present.
Voters resent any proposal to increase taxes because they, rightly or wrongly, believe that it will only bring more corruption. The power-grab by Bob DeLeo, when he ditched term limits on the speakership, further alienated voters who care enough to know who Bob DeLeo is and what he does.
It is not possible to credibly invest in our infrastructure, services, etc. in the absence of new tax revenue. Our taxes are far too low, and our government refuses to raise them because too many voters:
– Refuse to believe that the increased taxes would actually target only the wealthy
– Are convinced that most of the shortfalls they hear about are the result of corruption.
How many Boston attorneys, doctors, or other participants in the various pension and disability mills have ever been prosecuted? How many voters are able to multiply their post-retirement income by “coincidentally” happening to be “acting” as a supervisor when they “accidentally” slip on a stair and are “forced” to retire?
When voters talk about a “culture of corruption”, these are the kinds of things they mean. Many of them are absolutely “legal” — and that claim only strengthens the perception that the entire system is crooked.
The people who applaud and cheer when the probation department scandal convictions are reversed are the insiders and power-players who benefit from such patronage. The voters see the same story, hear the same applause and cheering from the same players, and redouble their belief that the entire system is corrupt.
I suggest that a Democratic candidate (and governor) who breaks that perception will be enormously successful.
It occurs to me we may be talking about two different systems. Sanders is going after an economic system which so heavily favors the 1%, in part because campaign finance is so broken, whereas you refer it seems to the more blatant insider deals which I’m not sure affects most people. I still say I don’t see MA as a hotbed of the former as our campaign finance laws are quite strict (more than necessary in some instances IMO) and it doesn’t take much time on a national blog like Daily Kos to realize that compared to many states we are governed pretty well. I’ve of course never been able to work myself up as much as some over the idea that some mucky-muck got a job for a friend and I don’t see extreme waste in how our money is spent.
Yeah…. not so much, I’m thinking. Direct attacks on the system have a way of coming unglued in the most unlikely of ways.
Maybe, just maybe, anger and politics don’t mix so well. Especially with the way you view politics: You pull your levers and flip your switches and input your ‘sentencing reform’ here and DACA rage there to goose the Latino vote and design clockworks that will, you think, produce the outcome you want from the available variables. Then it all goes to shit, because racism and sexism are actual things, and the angry old men get to say that losing privilege is equated to actual oppression… then you blame the other candidate.
I was a senior at Brookline High School in 1994! Watching the political media’s journey on Weld from “he’s an amazing centrist fiscal conservative if you don’t love him you must be a HYPERPARTISAN LIBERAL” to “uh, forget everything we said” has been a key part of my political life.
What I remember of the Roosevelt campaign are two of his commercials: one pointing out which was he and which was Massie, and one that basically said I’m qualified for Governor because two of my ancestors were President. Then there was the counter ad which slammed him for taking travel expenses for living essentially within walking distance of the State House.
Capuano, really? The other two don’t surprise me much, but Capuano saying that is a surprise. Does he have some beef with one of the candidates?
We’ve talked about this before, but the Globe’s “Charlie Baker, Secretly Not A Republican” fan fiction is absurd https://twitter.com/MilesGrant/status/905421781300891650
I like your analysis Green Miles but these aren’t issues that matter to ordinary voters not plugged into the activist community. They just see he’s not nearly as bad as Trump, is socially liberal like they are, and “manages well” whatever that means.
Hit him for being a timid do nothing wimp who’s shrunk from every fight with the Speaker, with his own party, with the President, and he was so afraid to take a stance he didn’t even vote for President. This is a wimp scared of his own shadow.
If we had a brick throwing fighter like Healey running she’d win in a walk. Maybe Warren can channel that energy-what I see is someone trying to run a Deval 2.0 campaign in a post-Deval environment. He’s got great stances on the issues-I also see him landing zero punches in a debate with Baker which will realistically be his only opportunity to hit.
Jackson is also running a safe campaign taking on Walsh with kid gloves. It’s not gonna happen, and it’s been a total snoozefest that’ll end in a rout. You also want to swing with precision and not throw wildly like Gonzalez is.
I’ll say it today Baker and Walsh take 60%-and they’ll do it because they don’t have real opponents even though both deserve them.
By “ordinary voters,” you mean what exactly
He means people who think even more poorly than he does…
The 98% of Massachusetts Democrats who aren’t involved in the state convention process, aren’t involved in their local DTC or PM chapter, aren’t involved in OR or ID, and basically are folks like my brother who have a salaried job, solid middle class life, two cars, two kids, spend their weekends at soccer practices and/or church/temple picnics and watch the Pats on Sunday and crack open a beer. They’ll go to a parent teacher conference but wouldn’t be caught dead at a protest. They listen to the non WEEI sports radio instead of WBUR.
He’s unenrolled now and close to the 100% of that group who don’t vote in their local election, only vote in gubernatorial or presidential level primaries, and tend to view themselves as moderately informed and moderate in their politics. Those are the folks who routinely send Republicans to the Corner Office and were equally skeptical of pot legalization and raising the charter cap since they like the small town feel of their community and it’s schools.
That was the typical voter I encountered on the campaign trail. Some of them were downscale like the contractor rockin the OFD hoodie in Scituate, or townies from whatever community they grew up in (Peabody, Fitchburg, Quincy, or Canton from UIP folks), while the upscale folks attracted to us were in tech or biotech and scattered throughout the leafier inner burbs and 495 communities.
They like Baker and Moulton in equal number because they see them as fighters taking on a shitty system and a rigged one party state. They tended to vote for Bernie or Kasich in the primary for the same reason. Kasich to tell the religious right to fuck off, and Bernie to tell the Clintons to fuck off. Sick of the culture war and just want someone willing to fight for people like them. I think Setti Warren could do really well with this group, he just needs to change his pitch. They deliver the Corner Office.
They are related but distinct from the downscale Perot/Bernie/Trump swing voter in the Rust Belt.
They see Baker as a fighter taking on the system – really?!
I think when he refuses to make the necessary investments in our state he leaves himself wide open in the manages well department.
When we hear investments, swing voters hear taxes and waste. And the record of patronage filled public agencies like BPS, the MBTA, the Mass Turnpike, and the UMASS system doesn’t help us make the case for more government. Nor when huge tax breaks go to Teamster backed film crews or politically clouted companies like GE and anyone who touched the Olympics.
Raging against the machine works. It worked for Obama, who people forget also ran against the Clinton machine and Washington politicians in his primary and general win. It worked for Brown against Coakley. It worked for Baker against Coakley. And it will work for Baker against whatever nominee we put up who fails to call Baker out for being a part of the system he claims to be fighting and a status quo preserver and nobody’s idea of a change agent.
A guy like Curtatone who took on his own city’s legacy of corruption to make an innovative smart government work, or a women like Kim Driscoll or Lisa Wong who put their communities on transit oriented paths to revitalization would’ve been interesting. Warren’s rhetoric is great, his inability to really fight Baker matched with his own status quo record in Newton leave a lot to be desired. He’s the best we got, but I am not convinced any of these guys have a path to victory.
Obama ran against the Clinton machine…..and won. Too many Democrats ignore that. But sadly, Obama got sucked into the machine at the end.
I would disagree with that. The irony of voters electing outsiders is that they kinda have to become insiders in order to be effective. A lot of the fairest criticism directed at Deval Patrick was his hands off approach to legislating and cold relations with legislators-even those who were critical allies in his campaigns.
Similar criticism plagued first term Obama until journalists finally got honest about how historically unproductive and obstructionist the GOP Congress was. I’d say he played the inside game without getting his hands too entangled better than most. Certainly better than Deval.
Baker, for all his flaws, plays the insider game better than anyone and yet he will likely be trotting out ads taking on the Beacon Hill establishment in his re-elect. And they’ll work since our party owns its failures.
So swing voters see it as wasteful to develop public health, transit, and education systems which could be the envy of the world? If we want these things to improve we have to pay for them, and yes, that might mean taxes.
Just a point of order regarding Joe Curtatone.
Mike Capuano served as mayor of Somerville from 1990 to 1999. I suggest that the bulk of Somerville’s “legacy of corruption” was removed by Mr. Capuano on his watch. Following Mr. Capuano was Dorothy Kelly Gay, Somerville’s first female mayor.
I like Joe Curtatone a lot. He’s done a great job as mayor, and I think he would make a fine governor should he choose to run.
Still, I think that mantle of taking on Somerville’s legacy of corruption must go to either Mike Capuano, or even Gene Brune, mayor from 1980 to 1990. It was Mr. Brune who spearheaded the fight for a Davis Square red line stop on the red line.
I think the Red Line extension and the Davis Square station had a great deal to do with transforming Somerville from a mob haven and pervasively corrupt city to the thriving community it is today.
If you’ll read this last piece about how the Davis Square stop happened, it was NOT accomplished by “raging against the machine”. It was, instead, the fruition of a long, tortuous, and persistent legislative and political effort maintained by advocates of the course of decades. Mr. Brune recounts that his role began in the 1970s, and culminated with the ribbon-cutting in 1984.
Finally, the role of Mike Dukakis as transit advocate, MA legislator, and then governor, was crucial, as was the enthusiastic support of Tip O’Neill, then Speaker of the House:
This was most emphatically NOT an outsider or a group of outsiders raging against the machine. This was, instead, a collaboration of the most powerful insider in the US House, the sitting Governor of MA, and the mayor of Somerville.
Leaders with vision who are committed to shared values are required to make government work. THAT, in my opinion, is what we should be focused on moving forward.
Oh — Joe Curtatone certainly fits that criteria.
This paragraph merits it’s own response, I think:
I suggest that (1) Barack Obama did NOT “rage against the machine, and (2) his signature accomplishment, the ACA, was a masterpiece of inside baseball.
The only thing that “raging against the machine” did for Scott Brown was win a special election against a singularly awful Democratic nominee. In particular, once elected, Mr. Brown as a completely ineffectual do-nothing as Senator. He lost, badly, to Elizabeth Warren. Not content, he ran the same campaign again again in New Hampshire in 2014, and lost again.
Scott Brown is a case study of what NOT to do.
Charlie Baker beat the same nominee that Scott Brown beat. Anybody who thinks that Charlie Baker is not part of “the machine” doesn’t know shit from shinola about either Mr. Baker or whatever “machine” we’re talking about.
I think we Democrats need a LOT less rage and a lot more vision. The behavior of virtually every angry “Tea Party” candidate, Scott Brown, and Donald Trump demonstrates what happens to government when elections are determined by rage.
America needs better, and we Democrats must DO better.