Talking about kicking a guy when he’s down – that is exactly what Senator Elizabeth Warren did to fellow democrat and Boston mayoral candidate Tito Jackson when she endorsed Mayor Walsh’s re-election bid last Saturday at Doyle’s Pub in Jamaica Plain.
This November’s Boston mayoral race is down to two democratic candidates – Marty Walsh and city councilor Tito Jackson. Walsh leads in the polls by over 30 points and is clearly headed for a landslide victory. Jackson, who campaigned actively for Elizabeth Warren in 2012, is generally considered more progressive than the more centrist establishment democrat Walsh.
So why would a progressive U.S. Senator endorse an establishment democrat against an up-and-coming progressive candidate in a race the establishment candidate is virtually certain of winning by a landslide? Furthermore, why is Senator Warren involving herself in a local Massachusetts political race between two democrats and in an area where she does not live and in a race she cannot vote in?
Pure old fashioned short-sighted political self-interest seems to be the most likely reason. Elizabeth Warren appears to be currying favor with an entrenched Boston mayor in the hopes or exchange for his endorsement and the use of his powerful get-out-the-vote political machine in her upcoming re-election campaign of November 2018.
The fact that she is throwing under the bus a fellow progressive democrat who is way down in the polls in order to help her own re-election prospects seems to be an exchange Elizabeth Warren is willing to make. Once again, we have establishment democrats disrespecting and denigrating the progressive wing of their own party in exchange for the short term self-interested goal of getting elected – apparently at any price. And establishment democrats continue to wonder in bewilderment at how they lost to Trump in 2016?
This desperate and raw political maneuver encapsulates the core and possibly fatal malady which afflicts democratic party politics, not only in Massachusetts but throughout the nation. Google the democratic party nation-wide and you will see the same troubling theme being played out everywhere.
The establishment controlled democratic party is either not able, unwilling or too corrupted, weak and frightened to address the growing progressive movement within its own ranks. Establishment democrats need to quickly figure out how to accommodate the vast number of progressives within the party or ultimately, and maybe sooner rather than later, simply fall apart – at which time a new party or political movement will take its place.
But back to our local political scene. Does Elizabeth Warren really think she can make this kind of raw political maneuver and no one will notice? Is this what they mean by hubris?
Coldly calculating the demise of a fellow progressive candidate in order to gain the organizational support of an incumbent Boston mayor will embolden republican opposition to Warren as they will see her maneuver for what it is – a sign of weakness.
Elizabeth Warren should have stayed out of the Boston mayoral race and she should win re-election on her own merits and not at the expense of vulnerable and now perhaps once trusting progressive supporters.
Unless you can show that she actually denigrated Jackson or kicked him while he was down this diary is out of line. It’s not the least bit surprising to for a Senator to take an interest in the state’s capital and largest city. I strongly suspect that her endorsement of Walsh was entirely positive and that she said nothing negative about Jackson. I’m guessing they already have a strong working relationship and for you to draw the conclusions you did is cynicism at its worst. Besides, Walsh strikes me as one of those Dems who is definitely more progressive than not, but isn’t good enough for the purists (see also, Hillary Clinton).
For those who think this is a routine or strategically appropriate endorsement or don’t think the black and minority community are not offended by Warren’s endorsement please note the below comments published in the Herald about this matter.
Also – how much longer are the black and minority communities expected to sit at the back of the democratic parties’ political bus? Same for the progressive movement generally. It’s a tough challenge but the Democratic Party must adapt and change or become extinct – just as is the Republican Party.
From Boston Herald:
“It’s a bit of a surprise that the senator would enter into the contest at this stage of the game. The high road would have been to stay neutral,” said Darnell Williams of the Roxbury-based Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts. “The black community will be somewhat reflective because the senator is going to be running for re-election. And some people may say, ‘When we needed you, you weren’t there.’ ”
Larry Ellison, president of the Massachusetts Association of Minority Law Enforcement Officers, added, “This is one she probably could have sat out. I don’t think he (Walsh) needed her help in this race. I’ve been getting a lot of calls from people in the communities of color and they haven’t been really happy about it.”
Priscilla Flint Banks of Dorchester’s Black Economic Justice Institute, stressing that she was voicing her own opinion, said, “I’m very disappointed in her. As far as I’m concerned, she’s just like the rest of them — the ones who say they’re going to do so much for our community and don’t.”
Jackson, who campaigned for Warren during her 2012 Senate run, told the Herald yesterday, “I respect Sen. Warren and the work that she does. I don’t agree with her, and I think she’s wrong in this race. … My issue is not about elected officials who already have a job. I want to deal with the 10 percent unemployment rate in Mattapan. I want to deal with the fact that it’s $2,100 for a one-bedroom apartment in the city of Boston.”
I’m disappointed that just because one candidate is black and another is white that we have to see this through a racial lens. I’m sure Warren is not being racist in her endorsement. People who support Jackson have a right to be disappointed, but I’m sure Warren is a champion of the issues mentioned in your final paragraph. I’m not arguing that she needed to endorse Walsh, but like it or not political relationships develop and sometimes manifest themselves in endorsements.
Please help me out here. I don’t live in the city, so I can’t vote and I don’t have a dog in this race. I’m therefore asking about the simple politics and facts of this exchange.
Suppose Ms. Warren had not endorsed Mr. Walsh.
How would her silence have had ANY impact on the unemployment rate in Mattapan or the cost of a one-bedroom apartment in the city of Boston?
Let’s take the speculation a step further. Suppose Mr. Jackson is elected.
What will Mr. Jackson do, that Mr. Walsh has not done, that will have any impact on either issue?
What, other than the race of Mr. Walsh, Mr. Jackson, and Ms. Warren, is the issue here?
Jackson would be less chummy with the police union (he could hardly be less). Remember the off duty cop who chased a pedestrian down the street and pinned him in the ground for tapping the cops car with an umbrella? Remember how Walsh blamed the pedestrian, and said we have to wait for a hearing, then when the intimidated victim didn’t show up, he did nothing.
Remember the contrast between that incident and Walsh’s reaction when he found out that one of the protesters blocking the Southeast Expressway was a city employee?
I used the word “thug” to describe Walsh’s actions on each occasion. People objected but I think I was not colorful enough because nobody seems to remember anything.
As for Warren, she made a stupid and cynical endorsement. Nobody’s under any obligation to invent high minded motives for her.
Didn’t mean to post the above as a reply to Tom.
There’s a lot Jackson will do that Walsh isn’t doing. I echo Bob’s comments on the police reform issue. We also have weeks of posts on *this blog* from its two editors attesting to Walsh’s indifference to the MBTA. Jackson would make the T a priority and would have no issue using his bully pulpit to pressure Baker and DeLeo to pony up the money. Jackson has taken no money from developers, GE, or Amazon unlike Marty Walsh.
There’s a lot Walsh has done that Jackson won’t do. He isn’t chasing after corporate patrons or pie in the sky ideas like the IOC. None of his staffers are indicted and he has been a critic rather than an enabler of Beacon Hill patronage. His union lackeys didn’t harass and harangue an out of state film crew.
When Walsh is inevitably indicted after his likely re-election this will be as embarrassing for Warren as her checks from Harvey Weinstein.
“inevitably indicted” — man that’s a strong statement. Hope you have some backup for that.
Fine. Change that to members of his administration, which is already happening one term in. Menino had zero.
None of the reporting I’ve heard about union members harassing Top Chef (which I assume is the reference here) connected them to Walsh.
Oh, and also Warren has nothing to be embarrassed about taking checks from Weinstein. His personal legal and ethical problems don’t make his money worth less or imply that she condones what is alleged against him.
WGBH poll: Blacks supporting Walsh over Jackson 40%-24%.
… by which I simply mean to say that people have a variety of opinions. And I know there are a good many progressives supporting Tito Jackson, but that doesn’t mean he’s locked up the whole “progressive” vote, whatever that means.
The endorsement is a bit transactional: Warren sees more margin in endorsing Walsh than either withholding an endorsement, or endorsing Jackson. I don’t think there’s much principle involved at this point.
Welp, and then there’s this … See if this moves the needle.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/10/21/naacp-releasing-scathing-report-walsh-promises-communities-color/EcbWMN7EAC7ttwigQCuTCN/story.html
My students split 50/50 during our mock election and debate. Many have met both personally. It’s a real retail campaign on both sides, I give Walsh a lot of credit for campaigning seriously in the black community.
I also happen to think Jackson will be a better voice for people of color-especially on housing, transit and police reform where Marty’s leadership is lacking.
Politics is not the unsullied expression of idealism.
It’s not even the sullied expression of idealism.
People involved in politics make decisions based, not on ideals, but on influence, favors, and loyalty. This is how politics works. Elizabeth Warren’s neglecting to endorse Jackson is not betrayal. It’s not eating our young. It’s acknowledgement of the fact that she’s involved in the real work of politics. We admire her and agree with her ideologically, but she’s still human being. She’s not immune from politics.
I’m sorry that your candidate won’t win. You are fighting the good fight. It’s frustrating and demoralizing. But it’s important.
I actually think the OP went a little over the top, but I can’t believe this post got 4 downrates. Are we at the point on this blog where anyone with a D next to their name is presumed progressive and any official we otherwise respect who does something we dislike can’t be called out on it?
Jackson campaigned way harder for Warren with a far more vital constituency for that race than Walsh did-most of his white Dot/Southie trade union base happily voted for Scott Brown twice. Jackson was also an integral member of the Patrick campaign team and administration, and Patrick has stayed neutral to his credit. Warren stayed neutral during the presidential primary, which made her eventual endorsement of Clinton far more credible.
This is definitely disappointing, and it’s not intemperate to state so publicly. It is intemperate to attribute it to a backroom deal, 2018 or 2020 politics, or argue its racist in any way. I firmly believe that people of color and progressives would be better served by a Jackson administration, and he has my first Boston vote this November.
Interesting.
This may explain something else I’ve been wondering about since last weekend. I attended a fund-raiser for Elizabeth Warren in JP (NOT the one where she endorsed Mr. Walsh). Mike Dukakis was there, with two interns from his staff. Deval Patrick was NOT there. I was not the only one at the gathering who wondered why Mr. Patrick would miss this event. Ms. Warren is, after all, our senior senator and she will certainly be the target of a national smear campaign. I therefore wondered why our most recent Democratic governor, who is famously close to Barack Obama and who is occasionally mentioned as a presidential candidate in 2020, would not find time to join Mr. Dukakis at this event.
I’m glad that I asked about the issues that separate the two candidates. While this is academic to me since I can’t vote, I think it is worth emphasizing two issues that differentiate these two candidates:
1. Excessive police use of force
2. MBTA service for the city of Boston
I down-voted the thread-starter because it is so aggressively hostile to Ms. Warren, while providing no insight at all into the issues that matter. For example, consider the concluding paragraph:
I certainly AM at the point where I am sick to death of harsh, vituperative, and overly personal attacks on elected Democrats who lead the way in our fight for progressive values. Elizabeth Warren is hardly “anyone with a D next to their name”, and I surely do not “presume” that she is progressive.
Surely we agree that Elizabeth Warren is leading the national fight for a progressive agenda and values.
Elizabeth Warren may have hit a sour note with her endorsement. It is perfectly appropriate for somebody to author a diary saying so, and explaining — as you and Bob Gardner have each done — what makes that endorsement inappropriate.
That’s not what this diary did, and I stand by my down-vote of it.
I wish downraters could take credit for their clicks.
I wish the platform would show them like they do for comments. I was one of the downraters. This post was cynical and needlessly slapped around a pillar of our party both in MA and nationally.
It wasn’t a good argument, but I also think the sacred cows around here are ass backwards. A ton of Bernie bashing despite the fact that he is the most liberal member of Congress while a lot of automatic defenses for the mediocre leaders like Hillary Clinton, Deval Patrick, Martha Coakley, and Marty Walsh.
I’ll push back on the transactional argument since Marty sat on the sidelines during Warren v Brown like he is now for Governor Baker, while Tito worked his ass off to get blacks to vote for a white liberal from Cambridge who got famous criticizing Obama from the left. Tito worked hard for her, and the OP is right it does send a bad message to candidates of color in our Lilly white state that they have to wait their turn to advance or be wealthy lawyers from Milton or Newton to get considered for higher office. We should be building that bench out. Jackson has been unfairly frozen out of debates and fundraising by Walsh and his elite enablers. We can’t deny those facts on a reality based blog.
Been awfully generous with the downrates for me on this thread, haven’t you?:(
I uprated you once on this thread as well! My philosophy on ratings is like how I grade homework. It’s a check plus, check, check minus system. A check just means you did the work with effort and without any major errors. A check plus or an uprate means you made something insightful and put in extra effort. A check minus or a downrates is when the effort isn’t there or there are errors in your thinking I want to highlight and have a dialogue about. It’s distinct from downrates for malicious attacks.
I really try to push you to think outside of your existing boxes because I like you, respect you, and because you’re a DSC member. I don’t feel it is trolling or disrespectful-but if you feel that the downrates are abusive than I can take that into consideration.
Frankly we should respond to malicious attacks like I respond to them in class-a teacher’s detention or a Dean send. On BMG that would mean a day or weeklong ban until the behavior improves. I think the lack of that enforcement really allowed the blog to deteriorate during the last election cycle, though I know Charley and Hester are doing a lot of the legwork without David or Bob and both have important day jobs.
I did see the uprate later and appreciate, but I stand by the rest of my comments. If there is information I am missing please feel free to fill in the gaps. I really was not aware of a Walsh connection to the Top Chef case and I really don’t think Weinstein’s money is relevant. I definitely stand by my downrating of the original diary for tone.
Re jconway upthread:
As an unapologetic Bernie backer, I want to note that a good deal of the defense of Hillary Clinton is because so much of the criticism of her has been unfair, double-standard-ish, and unhelpful.
Absolutely. I challenge anyone to point out where I engaged in unhelpful criticism or didn’t challenge the other Bernie supporters here to uphold that same standard. I believe I called on him to drop out after NY, and I have taken great pains to debunk a lot of the conspiracy stuff about the DNC ‘rigging’ the primary and other bullshit like that.
I also have been quite vocal we need younger candidates who haven’t run for president before to beat Trump in 2020. I think Bernie’s ideas and platform should be the party’s going forward, but we should have a real debate about that and a transparent and democratic process to make the changes. I do think this post and the other one about superdelegates legitimately lament how much of an insiders game politics has become, which definitely has a bearing on our appalling low turnout and registration rate.
Most of the insider stuff generally stays inside. I bet anything the vast majority of voters neither know nor care about such things and I remain unconvinced that it has any bearing on registration or turnout. People should choose a candidate based on agreement on public policy issues. If they want to really get involved and come inside that’s fine too, but for those who just want to vote aren’t really affected by the insider stuff.
On another tangentially related but equally important note here is the coverage of Warren’s endorsement from the Boston Globe;
https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2017/10/15/elizabeth-warren-endorses-marty-walsh-in-race-against-tito-jackson/amp
Points to ponder:
1. Notice the Globe reported the endorsement without ever quoting or probably even speaking to any of Tito’s supporters or Tito himself:
2. Does this seem like fair reporting to you? Does it seem like good reporting? Not a journalist here but covering both or all sides of a story must be taught somewhere in professional standards 101 or at least 102.
3. The Globe article reads like the reporter never left the rally venue and in fact seems a part of the rally endorsement at Doyle’s.
4. Has it dawned on anyone that the Globe is biased in their reporting of this story- and that they may be biased in other such stories? Make you wonder if your getting the whole truth or a full reportorial perspective from the Globe?
Not that the Herald is generally much better but in this story they did tell both sides. The fact that the Herald went into a minority community and talked to folks on this story and the Globe didn’t is noteworthy.
5. Being a reality based blog is covering one half of reality meet your own standards?
6. Do you see any correlation between the Warren endorsement of Walsh and your lead story about the DNC removing Bernie supporters and other Progressives?
I think these are all fair questions. Like I’ve said elsewhere, we have two shitty papers in this down. The Know Nothing Bigote at the Herald and the Know it All Elitists at the Globe. No real progressive populist perspective outside of Brian Klass at the Dig and *occasionally* McNamara at the Globe.
I cancelled my hard-copy subscription to Globe years ago because it literally wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on. The final blow was the paper’s accidental publication and distribution of subscriber lists (including my own information) — their distribution facility apparently used “waste” paper from the facility’s own fan-fold printers to wrap their papers (before plastic bags). That was a LONG time ago (at least a decade).
I cancelled my last on-line subscription in 2013 when John Henry ripped out what was left after years of decay when he bought the paper. The final blow for me was a “front page” story about the number of dents on the Green Monster.
Today’s Boston Globe is just another piece of Red Sox propaganda.
So my answers to your 1-4 is:
1. Didn’t read it, don’t want to read it, not surprised.
2. Of course it’s not fair reporting. It’s the Globe.
3. There’s a good chance the reporter wasn’t even at the venue. More likely the piece was written from a campaign press release.
4. See my lead in. The only thing the Globe cares about is Red Sox revenue. My assumption is that the paper determined that Mr. Walsh will be better for the Red Sox than Mr. Jackson. Red Sox “scorecards” and “yearbooks” are on sale at every game at Fenway Park. Each has as much actual reporting as any issue of the Boston Globe.
Regarding your 5 and 6, I frankly don’t know what you’re talking about. So they’re easy to answer:
5. No.
6. No
Mr. Jackson gets more expansive, higher quality, and more positive exposure here at BMG than pretty much anywhere else I can think of. BMG doesn’t HAVE a “lead story” — it would be helpful if you’d link to whatever piece you object to.
I don’t think the DNC has much, if anything, to do with the mayoral race in Boston. I don’t think Ms. Warren cares very much about the DNC does or doesn’t do.
Elizabeth Warren is not a villain. I don’t see how attacking her gains any votes for Mr. Jackson AT ALL.
It was her call. In my view, she made a bad call. But it doesn’t change how I view her as my Senator or my vote in 2018.
@ jconway, bad call:
Maybe. I don’t know enough about the race or the candidates to have a strong opinion. If I lived in Boston, I’d probably vote for Mr. Jackson — mostly because there’s a relatively long list of issues on which I disagree with Mr. Walsh (beginning with his abysmal handling of the correctly aborted Grand Prix fiasco).
I’m not defending Ms. Warren’s endorsement, I just don’t think it merits the hostility of the original thread-starter.
No, and it’s unfortunate since that’s what folks reacted to rather than his substantive criticism of Walsh and the appalling treatment of candidates of color by our state party.
This is one of the points I made about the Soeiro letter to Melania Trump. It is hard as hell to not let your anger get the better of your language. As much as I try, I still fail too often.
Can you back up the part about treatment of candidates of color by the state party?