Disclosure: Jake is a friend of mine, but I did not do any work for the campaign and I do not live in the 4th.
I am a little dismayed by some of the sour grapes I am seeing from progressives regarding the Jake Auchincloss win in the CD4 primary. Both from my fellow ranked choice voting proponents (duly noted most of the CD4 candidates including the winner and runner up support Yes on 2, as should you) insisting that Jake would not have won under RCV (my answer: we have no idea, it was not a ranked choice campaign) and a recent call on this site to redistrict the 4th to make sure a “true” progressive can win.
I think the alarm is misplaced. If Jake were running in any other state he would be considered a full blown progressive. He is 100% pro choice, pro gun safety, pro demilitarizing the police, pro public investment in clean energy, a green transit network, housing reform, and racial justice. Just check out his website if you do not believe me. He is committed to cutting the Pentagon budget by 10% and ending our forever wars. As a former marine he knows firsthand the cost of war and will make sure we never go to war again unless there is a valid reason and a viable plan to win. I think his experience in public health through his family also gives him a unique perspective and he was the only CD4 candidate to host town halls with scientists and doctors on the pandemic. He is 100% pro science. He is not only an advocate for immigrant justice but an advocate for expanding legal immigration and the number of refugees we admit at a time when that is losing popularity and emphasis in both parties. He has vowed to repeal the Hyde Amendment and pass sweeping reforms to ensure full LGTBQA equality across the country. This is not a candidate who would get elected in a conservative district. He is neither an economic moderate like Dean Phillips nor a social moderate like Conor Lamb. He is a pragmatic progressive.
The big differences he had with his opponents was about the means to achieving change, not the ends. He is for a robust public option. Not even a reliable liberal like Barney Frank stuck with that policy during the 2009 ACA debates, because it was not passable at the time. It is passable today and Jake is for it. Single payer is not. He is for massive public investment in climate change mitigation, local green jobs making clean energy, and a massive regional/federal investment in our decaying public transit infrastructure. Jake is one of the few candidates who talked about addressing local needs such as the housing affordability crisis, the transit/traffic crisis, and the jobs losses that COVID will bring and has already brought. He is a solid progressive on education favoring teacher raises, smaller classes, universal pre-K, and more funding for vocational education and student debt relief.
The differences in the primary were all regarding style and symbolism rather than substance. Jake is methodical. He seeks to build consensus to actually pass progressive laws. He is soft spoken. He values listening to voters. He won because he campaigned in the working class and immigrant South Coast communities the rest of the Brookline and Newton based candidates neglected. These are all qualities lacking in the bombastic bromides that substitute for leadership in the White House. I would hate for the left to insist that only bomb throwers are acceptable or only the votes of affluent liberals should count in congressional primaries. Jake has said his model for congressional leadership is Katherine Clark. Like Clark, I am confident he will unite the 75% of the party that voted for one of his opponents behind him. He is already doing that outreach. Like Clark, I am confident he will focus on the job at hand and getting the work done rather than angling for a higher office or seeking headlines. I am confident he is going to be the progressive pragmatist he promised to be and wish him well.
Well again, I hope you’re right, and I found his remarks on bloated military spending to be very welcome indeed. I find it useful when people commit to single-payer, but “single-payer or nothing” is … dumb, and everyone knows it.
Still wouldn’t have chosen him over Mermell, but that’s water over the darn.
That’s a reality based reaction. Calls for primary challenges, write in campaigns, and redistricting Jake out of the CD4 are sour grapes. The reality is he recognized that in a crowded field where everyone was running to the left it was smarter politics to stay center left and compete for the southern part. I give Jesse a ton of credit for gracefully conceding the race and pushing ahead for ranked choice voting. I think Auchincloss will fit in nicely with Clark, Trahan, Moulton, and Keating in the center of the delegation while Lynch and Neal are a shade to their right and McGovern and Pressley are a shade to their left.
A chance to do what? What is anyone doing to him?
I didn’t follow this race closely, but when I hear “robust public-option” I am reminded of the Late City Councilor Bruce Bolling, who was for a “comprehensive housing policy” during the 1980’s when the issue for Boston was Rent Control and Condo conversion protections. Bolling’s “comprehensive housing policy” was a code word for stopping rent control. Similarly, when I hear “robust public-option” I hear a code word for “stop single payer”.
Auchincloss’s pragmatism is spotty. Do you really think he is likely to repeal the Hyde Amendment, as he seems to have blithely promised?
That promise is more likely to be passed and signed into law under a Democratic trifecta than single payer. I think a public option is a likelier end point for health care than single payer which could not even be implemented in Vermont without bankrupting the state. It’ll drive down costs and increase the number of people who have access to health care and it could pass the next Congress and be signed by President Biden. The only difference between single payer advocates and public option advocates is really over tactics.
“That promise is more likely to be passed . . .” by what metric? Have you seen a poll somewhere that shows a majority of the voters opposing the Hyde Amendment? It looks like an uphill climb to me.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that Auchincloss will try to get rid of it. But his stance on the Hyde Amendment undermines the argument you are making for his refusal to endorse M4A. There is no practical or political reason for preferring a less effective, less well understood alternative to single payer, at least not if you think politics means giving people what they want.
What’s his real objection to single payer? And please don’t tell me that this ex-marine is traumatized by what happened in Vermont.
What’s the difference between a regular public option and a robust public option? Flavor crystals?
6 6s!
I live in the 4th (Brookline) and, to be fair, if Auchincloss is moderately progressive he’ll be an improvement over Joe Kennedy. I do have misgivings about his level of commitment on numerous issues and I am not a fan of him being able to bank his run (same applied to Grossman and Leckey). I’m reasonably sure he’d have finished well off the pace if we had RCV. He certainly seemed unpopular with the people who didn’t vote for him.
Yet I can be won over, and I suspect that’s true of most of the district. Whoever won that race was going to have a lot to prove. I thought Natalia Linos was the only one in the mix with real star power, but she didn’t have the time or money to punch her way to the front. Mermell was a disappointing select person. Grossman was worked up about something, but I’m not sure what. Leckey seemed to view Berniefication as a marketing opportunity. Khazei never really had the answer for why he was the candidate this moment demands. So I’m willing to entertain Auchincloss’ leftward journey.
I’d like to see him make a mark on issues like transit and housing, particularly with an eye toward sustainability.
And the 4th should be redistricted, but just because it’s preposterously designed.
I am open to a non partisan commission redistricting all of the districts, if need be, to account for differences in population. I am against redistricting just one district to hurt a somewhat vulnerable incumbent some voters dislike. Hopefully MA does not lose any seats in the census.
It’s rare you can fix one district without tweaking many others. Personally I think it makes sense for CD4 to include all of Bristol County. Under current numbers it would have to bleed into Norfolk a bit to accommodate population, but if the Wyoming Rule were adopted (which I think it should be next January if Dems hold a federal trifecta), it would be just about the correct size to be a district unto itself. Certainly Fall River should not be split like it currently is. Newton and Brookline belong in a Greater Boston district.