I’m always a sucker for the who’s moving up games and the Boston Globe has obliged. Of course the most prominent name on this list for Dems is AG Maura Healey whom I love in her current office, but when was the last time an AG actually got the top spot (and not for want of trying)? I can’t think of whom I might want at the moment, but maybe that’s due to lack of imagination. I’m not keen on someone for whom business is their only experience.
Please share widely!
I think figuring out why Democrats lost so badly to Baker is the first order of business. Baker was beatable with the right candidate under the right set of circumstances with the right kind of support. For a variety of reasons, institutional forces inside and outside of the party decided it was not worth pursuing. I think we gloss over a lot of structural problems the last election exposed.
How the local donor class can freeze out potential nominee Setti Warren. How the local media is in the incumbent protection business. How the state party has no way to sanction against prominent Democrats endorsing Republicans for the Corner Office including a litany of Democratic legislators and mayors. How a registered Republican in a year when Donald Trump made Democratic trifectas out of Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada won over 40% of registered Democrats in the bluest state in the union.
Why did we lose? How do we win back unenrolled voters? How do we win back Democrats who defected for Baker? These are the important questions to ask. Not “who’s next?”. Any of those names on the list, even the instant frontrunner Maura Healey, would struggle against a Baker-Polito third term. Regardless of whether or not Charlie or Karyn is at the top of that ticket. We forget Polito has a lot of municipal allies she has made during her tenure and is the kind of candidate who can mollify the Lively wing and still win over the suburban moderates who decide Massachusetts elections. Too many Democrats were betting on 2022 being an easier year to contest this office than 2018, and we could pay the price for their short sighted vision.
Just so happens this was a topic of discussion at tonight’s DSC meeting. Mayors don’t run on a party slate anyway and the biggest offender in the legislature, at least in my neck of the woods, never asks for anything from the party that we can withhold. I would, however, push back hard on the idea that the institutional party did not think this was a race worth pursuing. We fought as hard as we could to defeat the most popular governor in the country, but I doubt many were surprised by the result.