Don’t act like you haven’t been waiting for me to tell you how to vote! OK, so this is more of a discussion post than Serious Endorsements.
Vote yes, yes & yes on ballot initiatives. I know the nursing question isn’t perfect, but approving the initiative and letting legislators fix any flaws would be greatly preferable to killing the initiative and giving legislators no incentive to change the status quo.
Vote straight-ticket Democratic. All the way down to school board races.
But!, you may say: There is a Republican who seems Not That Bad; there is a Republican who’s been around forever & was nice when he came to my school one time; or, I am extremely thoughtful unlike mindless straight ticket voters!
My counterpoint is that Trump has totally changed the GOP by putting immense pressure on officials *at every level* to assist his corruption & injustice. Even the “good” Republican members of Congress vote for leadership who refuse to investigate Trump’s corruption. Republican secretaries of state are helping Trump suppress the vote. Republican sheriffs are helping Trump’s race war against law-abiding immigrants.
There has never been a more clear, more important time to vote straight-ticket Democratic. If you don’t know who to vote for in the county commissioner race, vote Democratic. In 2018, it is the most important way to Resist.
Already did, though local non-partisan races aren’t always obvious. In my neck of the woods we had ballot lines for regional school committee. I’m not completely clear on this, but it had to be reconfigured such that while seats are still by community the whole region has to vote for them to satisfy one-person, one-vote concerns. FWIW I think SCOTUS went overboard with that one.
I agree that at the quantum level, the rules can sometimes break down & I may side with a pro-density Republican over a NIMBY Democrat. But them’s the exceptions, not the rules.
I have used this argument quite successfully with persuadable voters on this question, that said, I made a similar argument for Yes on 4 and to date the legislature still has not fixed the problems with that law. It does not seem they are keen to fix anything, which is also a good argument against straight ticket voting.
You won’t convince me that a vote for Suzanne Bump, Bill Galvin, or Robert DeLeo is a vote to #Resist. Certainly not a Trump Democrat like Colleen Garry. By no means does this validate the MA GOP, but I also fear that nationalizing every race lets bad Democrats off the hook.
Indeed.
The Massachusetts Democratic Party (as in the institution, not the concept) has destroyed its brand. I use the term “brand” in its technical sense here. It has destroyed its brand in the same way the GM, Ford and Chrysler destroyed their brands in the 1970s.
It doesn’t make sense to vote a straight Democratic ticket for local offices in Massachusetts, because the most influential elected Massachusetts “Democrats” are not Democrats at all, in any meaningful way.
Colleen Garry is no Democrat. Bob DeLeo has actively sabotaged the policies of a sitting Democratic governor. Mr. DeLeo rubberstamps the Trumpist economic and immigration policies of our sitting Republican governor.
The Massachusetts Democratic Party has done more damage to the Democratic wing of Massachusetts voters than Mr. Trump or his Trumpist Collaborators.
In Massachusetts races for local offices, #Resist demands refusing to vote for Republicans who pose as Democrats. Massachusetts voters who want to #Resist must therefore know enough about the candidates to separate the genuine from the counterfeit Democrats.
THAT is where the devastating impact of our destroyed brand is making itself felt. We will see that again tomorrow.
I’m fairly certain Colleen Garry supported Hillary Clinton. I’m not too concerned about Galvin’s chances, but more generally we need Dem Secretaries of State as a bulwark against their GOP counterparts who do everything in their power to suppress the vote.
Kemp and Kobach are beneath contempt and not on the ballot here. I did tell my sister and brother in law to vote straight ticket in OH and friends in MI, WI, KS, PA, and TX to do the same thing. I think it’s appropriate for those states. Even for CA.
Ms. Garry’s support of Ms. Clinton is utterly meaningless.
Does Ms. Garry support or oppose the policy proposals of Ms. Clinton, as they apply to Massachusetts?
But one should not slander someone as a Trump Democrat unless that person openly supports Trump.
Anti choice, anti trans, anti gun safety, anti gay rights, anti tax, and voting with the Republicans on the Hill 90% of the time certainly qualifies her as a bad Democrat. I will remove the Trump epithet, glad she endorsed the top of the ticket in a race that was never going to be close in MA. She is definitely a Baker Democrat and a Scott Brown Democrat.
Well, to continue the nitpickiness I believe she has a pretty decent record, unlike Rep. Nangle for example, of supporting Democrats in partisan races. I am not aware of her endorsing Baker or Brown either though I have pretty much given up on defending her policy record since she co-sponsored what I refer to as a Jim Crow bathroom bill.
The very fact that this last exchange is happening is what I mean by the “brand” being meaningless.
I don’t care what meaningless “endorsements” Ms. Garry has made in races that were won or lost without her.
What I care about is whether she is a real or fake Democrat — and that goes to the heart of the very same policy record that even you agree is indefensible.
Massachusetts, the Massachusetts GOP, and the Massachusetts Democratic Party would all be better served if Ms. Garry ran and served (or didn’t) as a member of the Massachusetts GOP.
I just like to make sure we get our facts straight.
@ get our facts straight
I don’t think a meaningless endorsement of Hillary Clinton is relevant to the question of whether or not Ms. Garry is or is not a “Trump Democrat”. I don’t challenge your fact, I just think it’s irrelevant.
What Trumpist policies has Ms. Garry opposed, and how has she done so?
@ Dem Secretaries of State as a bulwark:
That only works if the “Democratic” label means something. How do we distinguish real from counterfeit Democrats here in Massachusetts?
I’m very specifically and explicitly talking about Massachusetts — not any of the other states where the GOP so cynically denies representation to minorities.
I also feel compelled to remind you that one of the sharpest arrows in the racist GOP quiver is Voter ID legislation, driven by the lie of “voter fraud”. Your comment about a bulwark needed in Massachusetts would be more persuasive if you argued against VoterID laws.
In my view, fraudulent claims of being a Democrat are FAR more pervasive than voter fraud — to wit, the elected Massachusetts “Democrats” mentioned above.
In the case of Galvin he is very much a Democrat in all the ways that matter for his office. He is not pushing for voter IDs and I believe has fought efforts to institute such.
He also fought to make it harder to vote. He fought early voting, he fought online registration (and then ran ads taking credit for it), and he fought preregistration for 17 year olds. He fought automatic voter registration until a well funded primary challenge forced him to do the right thing. Great, Bill Galvin is not a racist Republican. Surely the Commonwealth can set a higher bar…
I see that as being a process person wanting to make sure it’s done right (kind of like yours truly) rather than actively trying to keep certain people from voting.
On the other hand, there are at least some centrist Democrats who probably would have voted for Baker except for the desire to punish the national GOP.