Talking Politics

Silence of the Sam

DAVID S. BERNSTEIN — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 16:03:39 GMT

Want to know what your city council does? Sorry, they can't tell you.
A seemingly simple attempt to provide Bostonians a small measure of good-government reform ran aground this past week.

QUIET COUNCIL: An obscure 1947 law forbids Sam Yoon and other city councilors from publishing council activities.

A seemingly simple attempt to provide Bostonians a small measure of good-government reform ran aground this past week — foiled by a peculiar 60-year-old state law, of obscure origin and intent, that City Hall, apparently, was violating even as its lawyers were citing its relevance.

The saga began when at-large city councilor Sam Yoon proposed a couple of reforms, in light of recent ethics scandals, seeking to bring some sunlight into the often shadowy world of Boston city government.

One of Yoon's proposals was passed unanimously at the December 17 council meeting: a resolution calling for all city boards and commissions to publish their members, minutes, and schedule of meetings on the city's Web site.

That was a non-binding resolution, no less, which is about all the power the council has in relation to most other agencies.

But the council can pass binding ordinances governing its own behavior. So, Yoon proposed that the city council require itself to produce full, comprehensive minutes of each weekly meeting, and post them on the Web within two weeks — thus allowing ordinary citizens to learn what their elected representatives are actually doing up at City Hall.

Sounds fairly unobjectionable. Unfortunately, council staff discovered a problem: a state law, passed in May 1947, prohibits the city of Boston from publishing material from city-council debates.

At this point, you're probably thinking that this was merely an unintended consequence of some tangentially related law. Wrong. The law was officially titled "An Act prohibiting the publication of the substance of debates in the city council of the City of Boston."

The original purpose behind that law is, apparently, unknown, but it was passed at a rather extraordinary time in Boston's city governance. Mayor James Michael Curley was preparing to enter prison the following month. In addition, the council — then consisting of 22 members representing the wards — was mired in scandal, as Jack Beatty describes in his Curley biography, The Rascal King. In early 1947, Beatty writes, a Mattapan councilor openly accused others of taking kickbacks; councilor James Coffey of East Boston then leaped to his feet and declared that of course he and others were on the take: "I am probably the only one with guts enough to say I will take a buck."

Free for all

DAVID S. BERNSTEIN — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 18:48:25 GMT

Is Mayor Menino getting White-washed? Plus, Sam Yoon's not-so-friendly skies
Striking parallels emerge between the upcoming mayor's race and the historic race of 1983.

DÉJÀ VU: Twenty-five years ago, seemingly unbeatable Mayor Kevin White (right) was going for a fifth term, then dropped out of the race under pressure of a corruption investigation. Will Tom Menino (left) succumb to the same circumstances?

Obstacles and obstinacy

The current fire-department disability-claims investigation was prompted by reporting in the Boston Globe, which has recently looked at Mayor Menino's ties to the Boston Licensing Board at the center of the Dianne Wilkerson scandal, and at the troubled Columbus Center project backed by both Menino and Wilkerson.

In fact, some within the Menino camp tell the Phoenix they are increasingly convinced that the Globe is determined to bring down the mayor. Nevertheless, all signs indicate that Menino has every intention of running again, and winning, despite anything that US Attorney Michael Sullivan or the Globe might throw at him. In fact, some long-time Menino observers say that the more enemies he perceives, the more determined he will be to prevail.

Will Mayor Tom Menino pull a Kevin White? That's the question that some City Hall observers are asking themselves these days of the once-invincible-seeming four-term mayor, as striking parallels emerge between the upcoming mayor's race and the historic race of 1983. In the latter, considered one of the great mayoral campaigns in Boston history, White dropped out at the last minute under the withering pressure of a corruption investigation.

Back in 1983, it was long assumed that then-Mayor White was unbeatable in his quest to extend his 15-year hold on the office. But complicating the incumbent's path to re-election, White was increasingly under scrutiny from Massachusetts' ambitious Republican US attorney — a go-getter by the name of William Weld, who was determined to expose corruption in the White administration.

Weld ultimately indicted more than a half-dozen City Hall aides in his attempt to build a case against White. He never succeeded. But he did create enough pressure that White made the surprise announcement, in June 1983, that he was withdrawing from the mayoral race. White's last-minute withdrawal opened the door for a frenzied free-for-all election.

Slideshow: Obama celebration party

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 15:44:46 GMT

Subdued election party at the Hard Rock Cafe for Obama

Hard Rock Cafe
Boston, MA
Nov. 4, 2008
Photos by Erica Magliaro

OBAMA WINS!!!

BOSTON PHOENIX STAFF — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 18:59:24 GMT

Real-time coverage of Barack Obama's victory from Boston, Chicago, and Washington

Rise of the political bogeyman

DAVID S. BERNSTEIN — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:51:17 GMT

Impotent on the issues, the GOP turns to scare tactics. Be afraid!
The Republicans appear headed to a second straight national pummeling, which will leave it marginalized in the federal government and an increasing number of state houses. Many party faithful are already noting the need for the GOP to move back toward the moderate center to survive. But the conservatives with microphones are heading down a very different path — and their followers, who now dominate the Republican Party, are going right with them.

America's 25 scariest conservatives: Who will hold the most sway over the right-wing message machine in 2009, and beyond? By David S. Bernstein.

On his evening-drive radio talk show, WTKK-FM’s Jay Severin recently advised his listeners on how to deal with a Barack Obama presidency, which he increasingly considers inevitable. Severin’s prescription: use any means available to hinder the administration’s ability to operate. Stay on the attack, with any and all complaints and accusations and protests, to gum up the works and prevent Obama and the Democratic-led Congress from accomplishing anything on their “radical,” “socialist” agenda.

“Our job is to undermine him in every possible legal way . . . undermine and destroy his political ability to govern or to have any hope of a successful administration,” Severin expounded on his blog, comparing the task to Colonial minutemen resisting King George. “Start destroying Barack Obama['s] political credibility . . . until he gets elected on November 4th, and, even harder, every day, every minute, and every second after.”

The Republican Party appears headed to a second straight national pummeling, which will leave it marginalized in the federal government and an increasing number of state houses, as well as out of the Oval Office. Many party faithful are already noting the need for the GOP to move back toward the moderate center to survive; to refocus on a reasonable policy agenda, rather than a series of absolutist beliefs and paranoid accusations.

As Severin’s comments indicate, the conservatives with microphones are heading down a very different path — and their followers, who now dominate the Republican Party, are going right with them.

Rush Limbaugh has proclaimed that a John McCain loss will prove the failure of “big-tent” conservativism, and demonstrate the need for greater ideological rigor. Sean Hannity has essentially proclaimed the upcoming election an ACORN-rigged illegitimacy. The most popular conservative Web sites, publications, and voices — National Review Online, Free Republic, Michelle Malkin — obsessively traffic in the most slanderous and crackpot Obama theories, from his supposed lack of US citizenship to William Ayers’s alleged ghost-authorship of Obama’s books.

None of this is new to Republican politics. Indeed, the Republican Party seems stuck in the 1970s, rallying the “silent majority,” as Richard Nixon called his voters in 1969, against the counterculture: radical Vietnam protesters (Ayers), subversive socialists (“spreading the wealth”), Black Power movements (Reverend Jeremiah Wright), permissive free-love advocates (“teaching sex to kindergarteners”), and abortionists (“partial-birth” procedure).

Wacko patrol: America's 25 scariest conservatives

DAVID S. BERNSTEIN — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:49:03 GMT

The Phoenix ranks the individuals who will hold the most sway over the right-wing message machine in 2009, and beyond.
Imagine what will happen once the relatively sane folks now running the White House and the Republican National Committee pack up and go home?

The fire-breathing reactionaries already wield extraordinary influence on the right — imagine what will happen once the relatively sane folks now running the White House and the Republican National Committee pack up and go home? Here, the Phoenix ranks the individuals who will hold the most sway over the right-wing message machine in 2009, and beyond. You’ll recognize many, and wonder why others are missing. Bill O’Reilly, for example, doesn’t make our list, because he’s now more of a follower than a leader — when’s the last time he had an original thought, scary or otherwise?

25) KATON DAWSON, CHAIR, SOUTH CAROLINA GOP
The right tried to get him to run for Senate against Republican Lindsay Graham this year. He’s your likely next RNC chair. Buckle up.

Lost in the sound of separation

AL DIAMON — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 22:24:03 GMT

Politics and other mistakes
While it’s true that candidates’ falsehoods, fibs, and fabrications make a columnist’s job easier, I could still eke out a living even if every politician in Maine suddenly became a fountain of factuality.

I’m in favor of politicians telling lies.

Wait, that didn’t come out quite right.

While it’s true that candidates’ falsehoods, fibs, and fabrications make a columnist’s job easier, I could still eke out a living even if every pol in Maine suddenly became a fountain of factuality. That’s because most campaign discourse would still be laced with enough stupidity, ignorance, and arrogance to fill several volumes the size of the state budget.

Which, come to think of it, is itself a decent source of falsehoods, fibs, and fabrications.

So it’s not as if I’m defending untruthfulness simply to provide myself with job security. I have embarrassing video of the editor for that.

What I’m in favor of is letting candidates say whatever they want — true, false, or impossible to determine — and allowing voters to decide on its validity. It’s an odd concept found in the Bill of Rights called “freedom of speech.”

For more than a century and a half, this method of sorting the scummy from the scummier was standard procedure in Maine politics. It produced public servants such as Percival Baxter and Ed Muskie, as well as an entire political party whose name made it clear what it was offering: the Know-Nothings. Although today, I think they’re called Green Independents.

This system also gave us some schlubs, which is why the Legislature created the Joint Standing Committee on Legal and Veterans Affairs, so the clunkheads would have someplace to play where they couldn’t hurt anyone.

That setup worked well enough, until the latter part of the 20th century, when somebody (possibly the Joint Standing Committee on Legal and Veterans Affairs) decided that what this state needed was “ethics.”

At first, it seemed like an attractive concept. After all, who isn’t against stealing, cheating, and having sex with interns?

Aside from members of Congress, former presidents, and the occasional Clean Election candidate.

To make sure Maine had all the “ethics” it could stomach, the Legislature created the Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices and empowered it to enforce all kinds of silly laws.

In this way, the innocent voters were protected from Michael Mowles. In 2006, the ethics commission ruled that Mowles, a candidate for a state House seat in Cape Elizabeth, had violated the law by using two endorsements without the written consent of the endorsers.

Shocking, I know.

Mowles was running in the Republican primary against Jennifer “Fuddy” Duddy. He produced a campaign brochure, which included complimentary quotes from several people, among them GOP US senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. Their statements were left over from Mowles’s 2004 run for the Legislature, and he added a notation (in small type) to that effect.

Travels with Sarah

DAVID S. BERNSTEIN — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 10:56:33 GMT

As Palin tours New Hampshire, signs of Biblical calling, talent on the stump, and a shot at 2012
Apparently, the idea of Palin as the Queen Esther for our time has made it to New Hampshire.

I found the contraband signs in the damp grass. They had been rounded up and now lay in two piles by the opening in the chainlink fence where security and campaign officials had screened the 5000 or so people who came to see Sarah Palin speak at Salem High School’s Grant Field this past Wednesday, October 15. It was the third Palin rally in New Hampshire I had attended that day, and I knew that the security guards were keeping out more than just dangerous weapons — campaign staff was also filtering out signs, pins, and shirts that might, to a now highly attuned national audience, appear harsh or offensive.

So, while the crowd was still cheering Palin, who had finished her 30-minute speech and had begun signing autographs, I headed to that entrance and found about a dozen handmade cardboard signs. I don’t know whether other rejected slogans had already been removed, but most in these piles were pretty tame. The only potentially offensive phrase on one was “NOBAMA.” Another read “CONSERVATIVE WOMEN HAVE RIGHTS TOO.” “ACORN IS NUTS,” one claimed, while another, carefully lettered, declared “PALIN — BABIES GUNS JESUS.”

But the two most striking were adorned with Jewish stars. One read “PALIN — TRUE NORTH.” The other, “SARAH — FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS.”

That last phrase comes from chapter four of the Old Testament Book of Esther. Apparently, the idea of Palin as the Queen Esther for our time has made it to New Hampshire.

The theory has been around since before John McCain picked Palin in late August — it was circulating on religious Christian blogs in early June when news outlets reported that she was on McCain’s short list. After the announcement, it picked up steam — particularly after it was reported that Palin, at the suggestion of her pastor, had, upon becoming governor of Alaska, patterned herself after Queen Esther.

Soon after the Republican National Convention, an e-mail went viral in conservative Christian circles, in which Pastor Mark Arnold claimed to have found himself next to Palin at a rally in his hometown of Lebanon, Ohio. According to the account, Arnold came face-to-face with Palin, and God spoke through him, telling the governor that “God wants you to know that you are a present-day Esther. . . . Keep your eyes on God and know that He has chosen you to reign!”

City Hall domino effect

DAVID S. BERNSTEIN — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 14:51:26 GMT

Sam Yoon starts the MayorMania
Political prospects are being reassessed inside the rumor-hungry walls of City Hall, all because of an invitation to a party 3000 miles away.

Political prospects are being reassessed inside the rumor-hungry walls of City Hall, all because of an invitation to a party 3000 miles away.

A fundraiser for At-Large City Councilor Sam Yoon in Northern California was pitched by its hosts as a way to help elect Yoon “first Asian-American mayor of Boston.” One of the organizers posted the invite with those words to his personal blog, where it soon came to the attention of the Boston media.

Yoon fueled the fire by issuing a conspicuous non-denial — which he continues to stand by. “I haven’t made a decision,” he tells the Phoenix.

Some City Council insiders are convinced that Yoon has indeed decided to launch a mayoral bid. That complicates matters for fellow citywide councilor Michael Flaherty, who is widely believed to be planning his own campaign for mayor. Those same sources say Flaherty will run regardless of Yoon’s decision — though it would certainly affect his campaign strategy, and perhaps the timing of his final decision and announcement.

If Yoon and Flaherty both do take the plunge, that would create two openings among the four at-large seats — heightening interest in what is already likely to be an active City Council race.

Two candidates have announced their bids for next year’s at-large contest: Republican Doug Bennett, who works at the Suffolk criminal clerk’s office, and Haitian community organizer Jean-Claude Sanon. At least two others — Felix Arroyo Jr. and Tomas Gonzalez — are rumored to be considering campaigns. Meanwhile, the mayoral intrigue may be one contributing factor in district councilor Michael Ross having apparently lined up the votes needed to secure the presidency of the council next year.

The Phoenix has learned from several sources, including two councilors, that Ross has — at least for the moment — secured the necessary seven votes to succeed Maureen Feeney as leader of the 13-member body.

A rule adopted by the Council this past year, which limits councilors to two consecutive years as president, bars Feeney from retaining her post. Feeney has supported Steve Murphy to succeed her, with backing from Mayor Tom Menino, according to several sources. But Yoon and Flaherty are supporting Ross, say sources — some of whom speculate that the two mayoral hopefuls may believe the relatively independent Ross will give them a more open platform to conduct high-profile hearings critical of Menino’s administration. Others close to Ross strongly deny any such arrangement. (Yoon would not confirm for the Phoenix whether he has committed his vote, or to whom.)

Financial fallout

DAVID S. BERNSTEIN — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 23:40:05 GMT

The devastating wall street crisis has a potential silver lining — if you’re a Massachusetts politician looking for a foothold
The current US financial disaster will roil Massachusetts residents in myriad ways.

FREEFALL WINDFALL: Will Tim Cahill benefit politically from the economic crisis?

The current US financial disaster will roil Massachusetts residents in myriad ways. But while most of us worry about our jobs, our mortgages, and our heating oil, rest assured that some in the state are thinking hard about how all of this will affect their political careers.

Massachusetts State Treasurer Tim Cahill, for example, has been keeping a significantly high profile in recent weeks, doing on-air interviews with NECN and giving quotes to almost every publication in the area. That’s no shocker — in a massive financial crisis, the guy handling the state’s billions figures to have something useful to say.

But it’s hard not to see Cahill’s ubiquity as at least partly political. Cahill, a Democrat, is much rumored to be mulling a run for governor — against Deval Patrick in 2010, or sooner if Patrick heads to Washington as part of a Barack Obama administration. “Tim Cahill hasn’t been too shy about what his ambitions are,” says one close State House observer.

Of anyone in the state, Cahill arguably has the most to gain — or lose — politically from the subprime-mortgage catastrophe that has devastated both Wall Street and the US economy. He could be seen as the one who guided the state through rocky shoals, or as the guy in charge of the patient when it started to flat line.

The last treasurer who ran for governor — Shannon O’Brien in 2002 — was pilloried for the poor performance of the state pension fund after 9/11. “[Mitt] Romney basically blamed me for the stock-market crash,” says O’Brien. “You can be doing the best job in the world, and they’re only going to see the latest numbers.”

A cynic, then, might suggest that Cahill is trying to proactively ensure that he comes through this as a hero, rather than a goat. He made sure it was widely reported, for example, that he had to go through hoops to secure funds for the state’s local-aid payments at the end of September. He told that story both to illustrate the need for congressional action and to cast himself as the man whose expert action saved towns from ruin.

Cahill also has been criticizing the Patrick administration, and the state legislature, all year. He blasted the budget they passed this summer as unaffordable — which now looks prophetic, as Patrick seeks to strip hundreds of millions from it through “9C” emergency cuts. He further criticized the numerous bond bills enacted this year as potentially overloading the state’s debt.

Granite up for grabs

DAVID S. BERNSTEIN — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 18:32:45 GMT

Why McCain, Obama, and their supporters are swooping down on New Hampshire
Presidential candidates and their surrogates spend most of their time in high-population, close-contest areas.

‘All’ for none
This year, for the first time, New Hampshire voters will not be able to vote a straight party-line ballot in one motion. The state banned “straight-ticket voting” in July, which will force voters to fill in their ballots in each race — previously, they have had the option of filling in an “all Democrats” or “all Republicans” oval at the top. Roughly a quarter of all voters in the state used the straight-ticket option in 2006.

Both parties are claiming that the change will help them. Democrats say that, historically, straight-ticket voting has helped Republicans. GOP sources point out that, in 2006, thanks to intense anti-Republican anger, most straight-ticket voting was Democratic.

Presidential candidates and their surrogates spend most of their time in high-population, close-contest areas, swinging quickly on runs through Minnesota-Wisconsin-Iowa, for example, or Michigan-Ohio-Pennsylvania. But in the past week, Barack Obama, John McCain, and Joe Biden went out of their way to visit New Hampshire, a small prize far removed from any other 2008 electoral contest.

There is no big secret to the gush of interest in the Granite State, which has affixed itself to the short list of presidential battlegrounds. Had Al Gore received just 7000 more votes in New Hampshire eight years ago, he would have received the state’s four electoral votes — and there would have been no President George W. Bush.

The past two presidential contests went late into election night, as states tallied their razor-thin margins with the fate of the free world in the balance. With national polls again showing a dead heat, and electoral-college projections similarly neck-and-neck, it is very possible that a few votes in one state could again make the difference.

But not knowing which state — of at least a dozen close battlegrounds, according to analysts — holds that key, campaigns are going all out for every last possible vote, in all of them. They are fighting with street-by-street urgency not only in Florida and Ohio, but in Virginia, and Colorado, and, yes, in little New Hampshire.

“New Hampshire is obviously very important,” says top Obama campaign advisor David Axelrod, in Concord this past Friday evening with his candidate. “It’s a state we have to keep a strong focus on.”

The enthusiasm gap

DAVID S. BERNSTEIN — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:53:53 GMT

This election, with Obama having stoked pennant fever in Denver, it is the Dems who have cornered the excitement market
The selection of gun-shooting, anti-abortion, creationist, doctrinaire conservative Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as John McCain’s vice-presidential nominee has finally got the GOP’s conservative base excited.

The selection of gun-shooting, anti-abortion, creationist, doctrinaire conservative Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as John McCain’s vice-presidential nominee has finally got the GOP’s conservative base excited. The right-wing talk-show hosts and religious leaders who had been lukewarm over McCain — and fearful that he really might put Senator Joe Lieberman on the ticket — are beside themselves with glee.

Once again, as in 2000 and 2004, the Republican base will get fired up for November. Conservative religious groups will distribute fliers about abortion, homosexuals, and atheism. Evangelical churches will run busses to the polling places. Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity will warn, hour after hour, of the impending socialistic state of Barack Obama, and the inevitable nuclear attack on American soil.

Palin is part of McCain’s attempt to reclaim the Republican advantage in party-base enthusiasm, an edge which arguably won the past two presidential elections for the GOP. This year, that advantage was seen as heavily favoring the Democrats.

But not only has McCain started to energize his conservatives, fervor was also waning in recent weeks among Democrats, due to in-fighting, uncertainty, and tightening poll numbers — to the point that Democrats arriving in Denver this past week for their national convention seemed surprisingly nervous about the election, and noticeably cautious in their enthusiasm.

Like Red Sox fans in the 86 years of darkness, Democratic insiders bear the scars of past broken hearts, from times when they previously let themselves believe that their time had come — only to see victory elude them like a ground ball between the legs of Al Gore and John Kerry.

To mix Red Sox metaphors, it is as though they have come to expect that Karl Rove lurks in the batter’s box like Bucky Dent, always ready to drive one over the Green Monster and beat them in the end.

Obama needs his base — the delegates and party activists in Denver — to believe again that this is, really, the year his party’s dreams will come to fruition. He needs them to believe, so that they will be passionate speakers on his behalf back in their home states; so that they will fill his coffers with money; so that they will spend endless hours registering voters, making phone calls, and doing all the grunt work of the national campaign — in short, so that the enthusiasm gap this time works in the Democrats’ favor.

RNC 2008 Wrap-Up

ADAM REILLY — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:48:32 GMT

Protest-to-podium coverage of the Republican National Convention from our reporter in St. Paul

Opening-night jitters

DAVID S. BERNSTEIN — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 14:07:14 GMT

The DNC’s primary colors
The Democratic National Convention started off with a strange vibe that might be summed up in one word: restraint.

HIDE THE PRIDE: As Michelle Obama addressed the Democratic National Convention Monday night, many in the crowd admitted to holding back their emotions in an effort to sell Barack Obama as a candidate who transcends race.

DENVER — The Democratic National Convention started off with a strange vibe that might be summed up in one word: restraint. Much is being pent-up here; emotions are being held in check.

One obvious aspect of this comes from the Clinton-Obama rift, which is real, though generally misunderstood. In truth, there are two very separate issues that have been conflated: the reticence of many Hillary Clinton voters to commit to pulling the lever for Barack Obama, and the inner tensions among the elites, insiders, and activists.

The first is politically important but not extraordinary, and has little to do with the mood here in Denver. Remember that millions of people who are not particularly party-oriented took part in the super-hyped Clinton-Obama primaries; many millions voted for Clinton for reasons that do not transfer readily to Obama. The vast majority will ultimately vote for him (some 80 percent already say they will), but many will not; the same would have been true had any other Democrat emerged from that race. (And the same is true among Republicans for McCain.)

But what’s affecting Democrats in Denver is quite different, and as old as politics. Politics is a game of alliances and power, which can have very crass effects on the psyche that — at the risk of sounding psycho-analytical — often gets masked with self-righteousness, self-pity, and/or misdirected anger. Four years on, for example, some Massachusetts political players are now able to talk (privately) about how much they had, despite themselves, mentally already packed their bags for the inevitable jobs waiting for them in and around a John Kerry administration; and how long the disappointment and finger-pointing distressed them and their political relationships.

In simplified terms, a lot of that is going on with the Clinton camp right now, and it has people on all sides walking on eggshells. Many Obama delegates, and even many former Clinton supporters, are outraged at the concessions being made to Hillary and Bill — but they won’t be caught dead saying so on the record. Clinton delegates are biting their tongues as well, aware that every display of support for their preferred candidate will be seen as sabotage, and will hurt the party’s chances of winning in November.

Photos: Democratic National Convention 2008

JOEFF DAVIS — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 02:45:19 GMT

Protest-to-podium coverage from Denver. Updated daily.

ThePhoenix.com is blogging and Twittering live from the Democratic and Republican conventions. For real-time election updates, plus video, photos, and an archive of our coverage, visit www.ThePhoenix.com/Election2008.

Democratic National Convention, Denver
Barack Obama accepts the Democratic Presidential Nomination
August 28, 2008
Photo credit: Joeff Davis

Live from Denver

DAVID S. BERNSTEIN — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 17:45:42 GMT

Election 2008: Real-time updates from the Democratic National Convention

Regular readers of this blog know that we welcome "guest hosts" to offer their thoughts. Please feel free to submit to the host (me!) at any time.

Here are Matthew Sawh's thoughts on the first night of the convention:

The First Night: What Pundits Missed

Convention analysts all over the television and internet have been quick to criticize the relatively tame proceedings of the first night. Such coverage misses a crucial distinction: Barack Obama generally wins 80% of self-identified Democrats, John McCain has recently brought his GOP numbers to about 86% of self-identified Republicans. In other words, this is a convention targeted at Democrats, NOT Independents. The media has (again) followed the 2000 and 2004 playbook wherein Gore and Kerry had to win over independent voters and structured their conventions accordingly with Gore's appeals to moral clarity and Kerry's invocation of his service.

Now, it is more than possible that the undecided voter of 2000 or, 2004 has, in 2008, accepted the nominal ‘Democrat’ label but has not yet accepted Obama as their own. This is a valid possibility and meshes with the polling which shows a ten-point generic Democratic congressional lead.

Here is where it gets interesting though: Are these new Democrats cut from the cloth of independents? OR, Are they (as Team Obama projects) new, first-time registered voters of key Democratic leaning-constituencies? Naturally, a little bit of both (with more than a dash of Clintonites).

In that context, the choice to have a tribute to Teddy and, to do some retooling of Michelle Obama's image makes very good sense.

Teddy:

No great public policy issue has been untouched by Teddy. If Obama's goal is to rev-up turnout and, it operates on the assumption that they are largely benefiting from first-time voters, who better than Teddy? Rasmussen Reports has him listed as being seen as a liberal by 70% of the nation. Meanwhile, a recent Annenberg Survey notes that 34% of 18-29 year olds called themselves 'liberal or very liberal' as compared to only 25% of those aged 45-64.

Kennedy as the remaining brother of Camelot bridges the divide between those two gaps for several reasons. First, his ties to the first Catholic president. Second, he reminds the Hillary voters of their youth and, in so doing, softens them up and makes them more receptive to Obama's key message of change by undercutting the most salient criticism leveled about him by Clinton: his inexperience. Third, younger Americans who support Obama remember Teddy as the man who bucked the Clintons and, in so doing, garnered much respect.

The Problem:

Women on the verge

DAVID S. BERNSTEIN — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 19:54:34 GMT

Clinton die-hards have created a new-girls’ network bent on remedying decades of sexism by putting women in elected office
At next week’s Democratic National Convention in Denver, Hillary Clinton’s delegates will get just about everything they’ve wanted — aside from the nomination of their candidate, of course.

At next week’s Democratic National Convention in Denver, Hillary Clinton’s delegates will get just about everything they’ve wanted — aside from the nomination of their candidate, of course. Barack Obama has agreed to let them officially cast their votes for Clinton on an open ballot, rather than have the delegates nominate him by acclimation, as is often done when the other candidates have conceded. He has also given prime speaking slots to both Bill and Hillary, and agreed to concessions in the party platform that include an implicit acknowledgement of sexism during the primary battle (without assigning any specific blame).

Tsongas vs. Donoghue
This past year’s election of Niki Tsongas to US Congress was a triumph of gender politics — and a blueprint of how women can co-opt the locker-room style long practiced by Bay State boys.

“When the rumors started about Marty Meehan leaving, the phones of the women’s network were lighting up across Massachusetts — that this was our chance," says Jesse Mermell, Brookline selectman and former executive director of the Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus.

There were plenty of good women in the district, including several state senators and former Lowell mayor Eileen Donoghue. But only Tsongas, widow of former US Senator Paul Tsongas, had what matters to the back-room party insiders: personal connections, fundraising ability, and general-election name recognition.

So, well before the campaigns even started, the state’s most influential women began lining up the party apparatus behind Tsongas — and convincing other women not to run.

Donoghue ran anyway, but she was — just like the three men in the primary race — up against the state’s Democratic political machinery. Even EMILY’s List, a national organization supporting women candidates, actively raised money for Tsongas to beat another woman. It might not have been nice, or dainty, but the end result was a woman heading to Washington.

That should satisfy the 19 pledged Clinton delegates from Massachusetts — particularly the 14 women in that group, for whom the ability to register their vote next Thursday for a fellow female has come to symbolize both the progress and challenges of women in politics.

But when they come back home at the end of the week, they will return to a state that remains, for all its progressive reputation, a throwback when it comes to gender politics. Compared with other states that have seen far more advancement, Massachusetts is still a back-slapping man’s world, where women make up less than a quarter of the state legislature, a handful of mayors, and a small (though increasing) minority of back-room players such as staff, campaign managers, fundraisers, and lobbyists. Over the past 20 years, the number of women in Congress more than tripled, from 24 to 91 — while in Massachusetts the number stayed at zero until this past year.

The underdog

DAVID S. BERNSTEIN — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 20:28:52 GMT

Sara Orozco thinks she can beat all-American GOP superstar Scott Brown. Can she convince anyone else?
Sara Orozco and Scott Brown, total opposites, are perfect candidates for a State Senate district with political bipolar disorder.

K.Bonami

Sara Orozco and Scott Brown, total opposites, are perfect candidates for a State Senate district with political bipolar disorder. Challenger Orozco comes from the northern part of the Bristol, Norfolk, and Middlesex district, where liberal communities such as Wellesley and Needham elect lefty Democratic state reps like Alice Peisch and Lida Harkins. Incumbent Scott Brown comes from the south, where rock-solid conservative bastions like Wrentham and Attleboro send three of the state’s few Republicans to the House of Representatives.

The two candidates are, like the two parts of their district, ideologically split on almost every issue. With such a clear-cut distinction, in one of the few competitive races in the state, you might imagine that Democrats and progressive groups would have Orozco near the top of their list of priority causes.

That’s starting to happen, but slowly. They realize how high the stakes are — Democrats would dearly love to deal a deathblow to Brown’s political career, which many see leading to a run for governor or US Senate. But so far, many remain unconvinced that Orozco, a lesbian Cuban-American psychologist who has never held public office, has any real chance of knocking off the state’s current GOP poster boy.

She is up against an all-American incumbent straight out of central casting. Brown is tall and model-handsome (he in fact did model at one time), with the best head of hair in the State House. He is married to WCVB-TV reporter Gail Huff, with two daughters — one of whom starred on the Noble & Greenough basketball squad (and currently plays for Boston College) and was an American Idol finalist. Brown is involved in everything good and clean-cut, from the Wrentham Lions Club to the USA Triathlon Federation. He is a crusader against sex offenders, for which he has received recognition from the US Chamber of Commerce. For chrissakes, he was unavailable for interviews this past week because he was serving his National Guard duty — how all-American can you get?

Orozco is not from central casting — she is more of an indie-film character. A first-generation American born and raised in Miami, daughter of a Kmart employee and a cement-factory worker, she worked her way from nothing to a Harvard Medical School academic appointment, and eventually her own psychology practice. She is a breast-cancer survivor. She is a single mother of twin nine-year-old boys from her 12-year relationship with another woman — which ended in divorce two years after they finally achieved the right to marry.

Will race enter the race?

DAVID S. BERNSTEIN — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 17:52:47 GMT

Dianne Wilkerson and Sonia Chang-Díaz don’t talk about the racial split in their Senate showdown, but it’s likely to make its mark
Two years ago, when Dianne Wilkerson inexplicably failed to submit the necessary signatures to get her name on the Democratic primary ballot for re-election as state senator, a 28-year-old upstart seized the opportunity.

ROUND TWO: State Senator Dianne Wilkerson (left) and challenger Sonia Chang-Díaz (right) are again fighting to represent the Second Suffolk district. Their platforms are almost identical — will race be a deciding factor?

Two years ago, when Dianne Wilkerson inexplicably failed to submit the necessary signatures to get her name on the Democratic primary ballot for re-election as state senator, a 28-year-old upstart seized the opportunity. With both candidates running as write-ins, Sonia Chang-Díaz ultimately came within 700 votes of ousting Wilkerson from the Boston district she has represented since 1993.

Chang-Díaz is trying again this year, and your view of her chances depends largely on which candidate’s 2006 post-election spin you believe.

Some observers say that contest was close only because Wilkerson was then at her lowest ebb of popularity: the ballot-access flub seemed to punctuate a substantial history of allegations, oversights, and improprieties. But if voters re-elected her then, this pro-Wilkerson thinking goes, they will surely do so by a wider margin two scandal-free years later, against the same opponent.

Others argue that, despite the result, a substantial majority of voters rejected Wilkerson at the voting booth in 2006 — that she survived only because Chang-Díaz, an unknown, last-minute write-in challenger, was unable to get her name and stickers to enough of the electorate on Election Day. Chang-Díaz would have won easily, according to this interpretation, had she been able to reach just a small percentage of the 12,000-plus people who showed up at the polls to vote in the gubernatorial primary yet cast no vote for State Senate. If so, then in 2008, with both candidates’ names on the ballot, the anti-Wilkerson majority should carry the day.

A spokesperson for the Wilkerson campaign tells the Phoenix that its data supports the first assumption, and a Wilkerson re-election. A source with the Chang-Díaz campaign, however, says its polling conforms with the latter theory, and is corroborated by plenty of anecdotal evidence.

Voters are entering election season ready to replace Wilkerson, says Chang-Díaz’s camp. That could easily change once Wilkerson starts publicly making the case about what she has done with the two years they granted her last time around.

Perhaps more important, the careful, by-the-numbers analyses obscure an obvious racial dynamic: in ’06, black voters in the district went overwhelmingly for Wilkerson (who is herself black), while white voters resoundingly rejected her.

Senate shuffle

DAVID S. BERNSTEIN — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:16:19 GMT

Massachusetts hasn’t had a Senate-seat vacancy in nearly 25 years. Now we may have two. Let the speculation begin.
Don’t count Ted Kennedy out just yet, but the prognosis immediately set minds thinking about the inevitable departure of Kennedy from the US Senate, where he has served since 1962.

Don’t count Ted Kennedy out just yet. Several sources insist to the Phoenix that the liberal lion will be back in the Senate chamber before you know it; they say his staff has been told that he’s not going anywhere for a good long while. One source who has regular contact with Kennedy (caveat: a great many people consider themselves in that circle) says that this past week’s discovery of a brain tumor will not deter him from his plan to serve out his term — or even to run for re-election in 2012.

Maybe so, but the prognosis immediately set minds thinking about the inevitable departure — be it near-term or distant — of Kennedy from the US Senate, where he has served since 1962.

Although some are adamant that Kennedy will never leave voluntarily — and that he’s a long way from dying — others are more skeptical about the likelihood that the 76-year-old senator can continue to serve for long while undergoing treatment for cancer.

Some suspect he will soon have to retire, regardless of his determination to remain. One rumor even prior to this past week had him going to work for a new Democratic president next year — possibly choosing to finish out his career as ambassador to Great Britain, working with his good friend Prime Minister Gordon Brown, in the job that his father, Joseph Kennedy Sr., once held.

All of this is speculation — but regardless of what happens in the months or years ahead, people are thinking seriously about what comes after Kennedy leaves the Senate.

Electing a successor will take on enormous importance — and not just for Massachusetts, but for the country — because of the power that the Bay State has been accustomed to having in Washington. The void left will be immense. “You can’t underestimate his presence in the Senate,” says Thomas Quinn, who worked on Kennedy’s 1980 presidential campaign and is now a lobbyist with Venable in Washington. “He’s an overwhelming presence.”

Kennedy has so much influence in so many areas, his office serves as a kind of “one-stop shop” for lobbyists, says Scott Ferson, former press secretary for Kennedy and now president of the Boston-based political-consulting firm Liberty Square Group. Lobbyists can go to Kennedy’s office to plead their clients’ cases, whether they are looking for military contracts, education bills, or Justice Department grants. (Indeed, access to Kennedy is so valuable, people who are friends with, or have worked for, Kennedy have become among the most sought-after lobbyists in the country: Nick Littlefield, John Cahill, Gerald Cassidy, Jonathan Orloff, Tony Podesta, and Quinn, just to name a few.)