Category / Boston

by hereandsphere

MELEE IN MASSACHUSETTS : WHAT THE BLAZES IS CHARLIE BAKER THINKING ?

Image

^ serious politicking, at least this time : Charlie Baker (left)  joined the campaign of now newly elected, Western Massachusetts State Senator Donald Humason (center).

—-      —-       —–

The “brawl in Boston” being decided, attention now turns to the “melee in Massachusetts” : the first open race for Governor since 2006. It begins with Charlie Baker, because he has already run for Governor once, in 2010, and thus starts a fair bit ahead of the pack in terms of name recognition and state wide organization.

You would suppose that Baker, having already established himself as a credible governor — losing to Deval Patrick in 2010 by 6 points only — would be broadening his themes, addressing all the issues that face Massachusetts today, from transportation and infrastructure, to a higher minimum wage, to the needs of immigrants, environmental legislation, and serious reform of the legislature. You would indeed suppose that, but it seems that you would be wrong.

You might also think that he would be congratulating the US Senate for passing ENDA legislation, on a bi-partisan basis ; but so far, not a peep about ENDA from the man who in 2010 chose as his running mate Rich Tisei, the original Legislative sponsor of Massachusetts”s transgender rights bill (which is now Law, albeit without public accommodations protection).

For the past week I have regularly attended to Baker’s facebook pages and his twitter account, and all I can see is that (1) he visits lots of businesses (2) his tweets are re-tweeted by Tea types, including the  eliminate-a-social safety-net crusader Brad Marston (3) he has fewer twitter followers than a Boston City Councillor and (4) he has tied himself up in the demagogic and quite irresponsible movement to repeal the gas tax automatic adjustment — the tax with which Massachusetts will try to pay for at least some of the huge transportation and infrastructure needs that have accumulated during a decade and more.

If you don’t think that this repeal is irresponsible, just ask Jim Aloisi, who served as one of Massachusetts’s best informed Secretaries of Transportation.

Businesses are great, and it’s nice that Baker thinks so. but the impression he is giving is that he’s running for President of AIM, not Governor of Massachusetts.

Nobody likes to pay more taxes, but Baker’s lending his presence and name to the gas tax repeal suggests that he wants to be President of the Pioneer Institute or the Mass Fiscal Alliance, not Governor of Massachusetts.

Being liked by such as Brad Marston gives Baker the Marston vote, but it suggests that Baker seeks to become a fellow at the Cato Institute or the Koch Brothers’ several GreedPAC’s, not Governor of Massachusetts.

Of course it’s early in this campaign still. Maybe Baker is just fist bumping a few bumps on the Right Wing log.

Meanwhile, however, he has yet to respond to my Wednesday tweet : “what will you do as Governor to establish Innovation Centers in Roxbury and Hyde Park ?”

—- Michael Freedberg / Here and Sphere

NEXT : Martha Coakley

by hereandsphere

BOSTON MAYOR : A STUNNING SHIFT — AND WHAT PORTENDS ; THE CASINO PERPLEX

Image

^ New Boston versus a revolutionary “old Boston’ alliance : breakdown of Tuesday’s vote by WBUR

—-      —-      —-

Thanks to the superb interactive map posted by WBUR, my final article about the Boston mayor race that elected Marty Walsh two days ago is made simple. All of my readers should look at the WBUR map and study it. The whole story is in it.

But now to my final thoughts :

1.Marty Walsh achieved office by revolutionizing Boston’s political alliances.

Always heretofore, Boston’s communities of color had voted in alliance with the City’s patrician, high minded, urban reformers, based historically in Beacon Hill, Bay Village, and the Back Bay. This alliance was the core of the old Republican party grounded in Abolition, a GOP that has just about vanished from the scene. It had, until Tuesday, lived on strongly in Boston city politics, even though now entirely within the Democratic party, at least since the 2000 election.

Walsh succeeded at breaking this alliance. Though he won almost no votes among high minded urban reformers — Ward 5 (Beacon Hill, Back Bay, Bay Village) was his worst in the City, worse for him even than John Connolly’s home ward — Walsh won the City’s Wards of color decisively, every single one of them. (I can, in fact, find only one majority black precinct that Connolly carried : Fort Hill in Roxbury).

Never before in a city election had Boston’s wards of color voted with the City’s “old Irish’ wards of which Walsh is the epitome. An abyss of contention divided the two communities. To win one was almost to guarantee losing the other. Attempts were made; but none succeeded as did Walsh’s work. The divide transcended party. Walsh’s base is the most Republican-voting part of Boston, the wards of color the most Democratic. Yet on Tuesday the two areas joined up to give Walsh his unprecedented win.

Of course the Republican votes of today’s South Boston and “Irish” Dorchester are completely different from the Republican votes of forty, sixty, 100 years ago. This is pro-life, socially conservative Republicanism, not Abolition and high-minded reform. And of course, the voters of color who moved their wards to Walsh aren’t the old, high-minded, enterprising, church-based descendants of Abolition and reform; they are union workers and those who seek to be. And of course, that is the connection : it was union labor politics that has brought the two communities together — an achievement that Marty Walsh can claim as his unique contribution. I seriously doubt that any other labor union politician could have done it. None is trusted as profoundly as is Walsh, both within union politics and without.

2. High-minded urban reform is far from defeated; indeed, it is Boston’s fastest growing political movement.

Led by John Connolly, who practically created the new version of it by his campaign, high-minded, urban reform all but captured City hall on its first try. The movement forged a base more solid than even Walsh’s and moved to its side one part — Charlestown — of the old “Irish” Boston that would have once been Walsh’s for the taking. And in fact, though a smaller achievement numerically than Walsh’s, the move of Charlestown into the urban reform camp proved just as formidable. Only Ward 5 and one other ward of the City produced a larger percentage increase in voter turnout from the primary. (More about that ward later.)

The new urban reform movement — “NURM,” let us call it — with its agenda of school transformation, enterprise innovation, bicycles and parks, public safety, and the importance of listening to those who are crying out — has firmly taken hold of all of the Downtown core of Boston : ( 1 ) Chinatown ( 2 ) the Waterfront (3) the Seaport (4) the North End (5) all of the South End, including its extension beyond Massachusetts Avenue into what used to be called “Lower Roxbury” and (6) all of Ward 5. And, as I said, Charlestown too.

Add to this the half of East Boston from Day Square to the Harbor; Jamaica Plain west of the Orange Line; Allston and almost all of Brighton; and a strong majority of West Roxbury and a smaller but still majority of Roslindale, and you have a significant voting bloc. And please note : NURM Boston is growing, while the areas in Marty Walsh’s coalition are receding. Case in point : that Fort Hill precinct. Roxbury is changing. it is becoming more entrepreneurial, racially mixed, socially connected to itself. Four years from now — eight, twelve — much of Roxbury will be voting with the South End. The same can be said of South Boston. From primary to final, John Connolly improved his percentage of the vote in the South Boston precincts closer to the Seaport. Four to 12 years from now much of South Boston will be voting like the Seaport, not against it.

Entrepreneurs both white and Black were the vanguard of John Connolly’s urban reform voting bloc. They weren’t just donors to his funds. They took leadership roles on the front lines of getting votes. from Greg Selkoe to Darryl Settles, Clayton Turnbull to BostInno, Akrobatik to Phil Frattaroli, business innovators fought and often won the battle, in a way that I had not seen since the late 1960s.

Their numbers will grow. I suspect too that so will their front line activism.

Image

^ the Hyde park part of ward 18 : where the Connolly campaign was beaten

3. Ward 18 proved decisive, although it needn’t have.

The Connolly campaign got out-manoeuvered badly in ward 18 — 75,000 people, the largest ward in the City : all of Hyde Park and Mattapan and a part of Roslindale — and ended up losing every one of its 23 precincts.

Granted that none of Ward 18 is “new Boston” in any way, it was not at all assured to Marty Walsh.

Connolly’s problems in the ward began early. Because he announced his campaign while it still looked as if Tom Menino — who lives in ward 18 and was once its District Councillor — would run again, Connolly accorded the ward a lesser priority. Then, when Menino announced that he would not be running again, the area’s current Councillor, Rob Consalvo, stepped up. In the final, the area’s State Representative, Angelo Scaccia, endorsed Marty Walsh, along with several other local political leaders. And John Connolly ? He concentrated his effort so aggressively on the wards of color that, somehow, the power part of Ward 18 got back-burnered.

It should never have been thus. How can you plan to run for Mayor, even against a ward 18 man, and not assemble a ward 18 team early on ? Angelo Scaccia is not all-conquering. He has had many very close elections in his long career. So yes, you talk to Chris Donato, who almost defeated Scaccia not too many years ago. And yes, you pay a visit to Pat Tierney up on Fairmount Hill; you ask if her famous actress daughter Maura Tierney will consider doing a video in support of you. You go to Maureen Costello, Jack Scully, Paul Loconte, Bill Sinnott, Brad White, John Grady, Bill Broderick Jr., Tony Ferzoco, Al Thomas, Tim Lowney, Donny at the Bowling Alley, Joseph Pulgini (who ended up with Walsh, early too) — all whom I respected back in the day; probably I am missing many — and you say, “OK, I understand that you might not be with me if Tom runs but if he doesn’t run, are you with me ?” You do it early and you do it aggressively. And maybe many of the people I have named don’t join you; but some will. So, you build a team in the City’s largest Ward and you keep on building it.

John Connolly may have done some or even all of the above. But I saw no evidence of it. Connolly did, after the Primary, bring to his side Dave Vittorini, Councillor Consalvo’s aide; and Vittorini knows tons of people; but this was the Charlotte Golar-Richie situation all over again : the candidate’s workers went to Connolly, but the candidate him or herself either went to Walsh or stayed neutral.

Little wonder that Vittorini’s efforts were not at all enough to dent Marty Walsh’s Ward 18 campaign. Walsh brought Congressman Mike Capuano all the way from Somerville to Hyde Park to do his endorsement press conference. The Ward’s many BTU people — who loved Consalvo’s “the BTU agenda is my agenda” message — chose Walsh, of course. Thus it came about that on Tuesday Marty Walsh won ward 18 by at least 12 points. Won every precinct of it.

And now to the casino vote. Ward 1 — East Boston — almost doubled its primary vote total as 7324 voters cast casino yea or nay ballots. The nays had it. How was this possible ? How did a majority of people vote against jobs and money ? Who organized and paid for the “no casino’ campaign ?

The answer should be as obvious as the bad breath of a wino. Steve Wynn did it. I have no proof; nor do I need any. It was hugely in Wynn’s interest not to have a possible contending casino applicant right next door to his planned Everett casino — overwhelmingly approved by Everett voters. It would be malpractice for Wynn NOT to fund a “no casino” campaign in East Boston and, I have no doubt, to promise its organizers that there will be lots of juicy jobs in his Everett casino if the East Boston vote went to the “no” side. As it did.

Tuesday was a very very good day for Steve Wynn. Very good indeed.

—- Michael Freedberg / Here and Sphere

by hereandsphere

BOSTON MAYOR : MARTY WALSH WINS

Image

^ Boston’s new Mayor : Marty Walsh of Dorchester

—-      —-      —-

Yesterday at about 10 pm the result was in : Marty Walsh is the new Mayor of Boston.

John Connolly conceded at about that time and, in his final speech to about 500 supporters at the Westin Hotel, said “I know Marty wants to do good things for Boston. He WILL do good things for Boston. He has my full support.”

And so the long campaign ended.

Unofficial City results give Walsh 72,514 votes to John Connolly’s 67,606. The margin of victory for Walsh was 3.49 % : a small margin but a telling one.

John Connolly won only the following :  the reform-minded “new Boston” Wards — 3, 4, 5, 9, and 21 plus Fort Hill (Ward 11, Precinct 1) and the Seaport Precinct in Ward 6 ; his home Wards 19 and 20; and his special, personal bastion in Charlestown (Ward 2). The City map of results suggests that he also won Ward 22. Everywhere else it was Walsh’s day.

Walsh won large in South Boston and huge in Dorchester, took about a 15 to 20 point majority in Wards 12 and 14, carried Wards 8, 10 and 11, held Connolly’s margin down in some parts of Roslindale west of Washington Street; and then defeated Connolly in the decisive Wards : very narrowly in East Boston (Ward 1 — by 3803 to Connolly’s 3739) and strongly in Hyde Park-Mattapan (ward 18). Walsh did especially well in the Readville part of ward 18, where Tom Menino lives but also Angelo Scaccia, the long-time State representative whose endorsement of Walsh may well have proved the most significant of all. Next most significant was surely the quiet blessing given to Walsh by Speaker of the House Robert DeLeo, who won twice yesterday : he helped Walsh carry Ward 1 (albeit narrowly) and he now gets Walsh out of the House, where he has been a thorn in the side of the last two speakers.

This result is no surprise. it has been in the cards for three weeks at least.

Walsh won because :

1.he had almost unanimous support in his “traditional Irish” base

2.vast money and people support from Labor (although not from all Unions; Local 103 stayed neutral)

3.even vaster national Labor PAC support in money

4.endorsements by three of the Primary season’s major mayoral candidates — all of them of color, and thus significant to the City’s voters of color; but also all of them tremendously beholden to labor unions, SEIU 1199 especially. Charlotte Golar-Richie, Felix G. Arroyo, and John Fl. Barros together gave the Walsh campaign an air of racial inclusiveness. Who will ever forget that iconic picture of them and Walsh walking together up a Dorchester street ?

5.endorsements by State Legislators , several community groups, and two (2) Congressmen, also answering to Labor constituencies, one who cam aboard early (Stephen Lynch) and the other (Mike Capuano), who saw the above endorsements happening and calculated that they had better get on board too

6.the decision by many people on the margins of work that they need a better job first, better schools later

7.institutional and money support from developers and contractors whose profits depend on the Boston building boom which requires building trades workers in order to build

8.even more entrenched institutional support from the colleges, zoning lawyers, BRA administrators, and lobbyists whose profits, epansion plans, and just plain connections and co-operation in planning and zoning matters help each other to do their do’s

9.endorsement by about 22 “progressive” Legislators, whose support allowed Walsh to magnify his limited, albeit genuinely heroic, “progressive” credentials

10.his own, low key personality and confidence in his authenticity, which stands out maybe best when  he doesn’t have a ready answer for a question — moments that happened a lot in his campaign.

11.the campaign’s 40 position papers, written with contributions from (says the Walsh campaign) 600 people, who thus became invested in their success and so part of Walsh’s GOTV army. These position papers, unleashed in the last two weeks, made Walsh look authentically Mayoral.

Image

^ conceding : John Connolly speaks

Against this vast array of established support, John Connolly could muster only (1) a citizen reform movement, one that had barely existed until his campaign coalesced it (2) his two personal neighborhood bases, West Roxbury-Roslindale and Charlestown (3) demonstrable mastery of the City budget and (4) his opponent’s binding arbitration bill, which almost derailed the Walsh campaign and gave Connolly a major issue.

Connolly also raised big money. He actually raised a bit more than Walsh did, though less in the campaign’s “crunch time.” He obviously looked a winner to many.

But it was not to be.

The newness of the citizen reform movement begun by Connolly’s campaign, its vulnerablity to entrenched push back, its untested status, and Connolly’s own air of high-mindedness — so long unheard in Boston’s municipal politics that many voters, likely, did not know what to make of it — all put Connolly on the shade side of the election sundial as soon as the Primary was over and voters started to look closely at what was what.

Frankly, that Connolly came so close to actually winning yesterday sends a strong message, i think, to Marty Walsh that he has a lot to prove; and to entrenched Boston power that while its strength remains barely good enough to win, its days are almost surely numbered as we move forward into the new era of non-union work ; of nightlife and nerdy ways ; of  schools that either do their best or see themselves lose all public conscience (and rightly so); and of  small innovative units collaborating competitively via conferencing and social media — as un-institutional a life as one can possibly imagine.

The break-up of entrenched power is coming. The power knows it. This time, it has held on — just barely. Next time, the liberation.

—- Michael Freedberg / here and Sphere

STORY UPDATED 11/06/13 at 7:55 PM

by hereandsphere

BOSTON MAYOR : THE TWO CANDIDATES’ BEST MOVES

Image

^ brilliant move : making Marty Walsh “the union guy” into a 40-position paper policy wonk

—-      —-      —-

As the Mayor campaign finally heads, exhausted, to the big day tomorrow, it might be time to take a look at the moves that each candidate has made that have gotten them — whichever man wins — to the winner’s circle. Because both Walsh and Connolly have done events in their campaign that stand out for boldness, brilliance, and value to the city.

Walsh : to me his truly brilliant move was to commission no less than forty (40) position papers and to engage the input of over 600 contributors (number comes from spokesperson Joyce Linehan) to their content. First, having so many detailed position papers and policy plans showed that “the union guy” wasn’t just a union guy; that he might actually see the bigger city and have some idea how to address its concerns. Second, those 600 contributors became fully invested, intellectually and emotionally in a campaign that had asked for, and received, their sincere input. that’s a lot of policy opinion leadership and very Mayoral. Whoever suggested this tactic is a master of campaign presentation.

Image

^ the boldness of reform : John Connolly confronts head on the City’s most entrenched instititutional bureaucracy

Connolly : boldly challenging the City’s most entrenched institutional bureaucracy, its public schools, took huge risk. One never wants to set a huge city bureaucracy against oneself in a city election, because all its people will be sure to vote — against you, whereas you cannot be sure that those who want to change that bureaucracy will all vote FOR you. Yet Connolly did it. He confronted the public school institution directly, uncompromisingly, top to bottom, and personally set an example for what a teacher or principal should do ; and thus made himself the voice of reform generally, on many issues; and thus because the voice of all the new Boston interests that are rapidly re-making the central city — and rippling those changes out to the close-in neighborhoods as well.

Tomorrow we will find out which man’s most brilliant move tallies the bigger number.

—- Michael Freedberg / Here and Sphere

by hereandsphere

BOSTON MAYOR : THE LAST DAYS OF CITIZEN ACTION ?

Image

^ citizen action in a classic citizen campiagn ; john Connolly being blessed by the black Ministers’ Alliance three weeks ago

—-    —-    —-

As I look at where John Connolly’s campaign stands now, in contrast to Marty Walsh’s, the thought strikes me : these are last days of citizen action in Boston elections. No matter which man wins.

A true Citizen Movement — moms for school transformation — faces a vast army of interest groups, established powers, and institutional stubbornness. The candidate of Moms raised pretty fair money, but, until last week, when, faced with a sledge hammer of money opposite, he agreed to take his own “outside” money, he found himself confronted by an array of money scandalous in its immensity. This money array has not entered the vote arena out of any goodness of heart. It defends institutional hardball and, let it be said, ripens the thousands of people who staff the money-disgorging institutions which feel threatened by Citizen action.

It used to be, in America, that money had no place in elections; that its presence therein was considered scandalous, even criminal. Candidates shunned campaigning; it ws thought unseemly to stump and door-knock. The office sought the man, not vice versa. The common custom was that holding elective office was an honor and a duty, onerous and of necessity disinterested as much as possible. Obviously those days have long since vanished into bat belfry cobwebs.

Yet even once money came into politics — via Mark Hanna and his vast donation organization for William McKinley in 1896 — and even as the man began to seek the office, by Woodrow Wilson’s time at the latest — citizen action was still the driving force. Money paid for printing campaign lierature. it paid election day ward heelers. But money did not in that era invent interest groips, pay for think tanks, assemble voter profiles, control newspapers. Today money does all of these things.

Example : the Tea party, which would have been a very small, albeit extremely sulfuric, anger cult had not Freedom Works, the Koch Brothers, and the Heritage Foundation vacuumed millions of corporate dollars and spewed them out to the Tea party’s organizers. The Tea Party is fake citizen action. It gets all of its heft by way of media outlets (and their talk show charlatans) which exploit the Tea “movement” in order to generate advertising dollars. The entire thing is fraudulent, utterly bogus, a stain upon whatever honor remains in our political system.

Money endows the vast institutions of learning that have grown up in America ever since the 1862 Justin Morrill Act that created land grant state colleges. Money is the motive force behind the so-called churches whose talk-show host-type pastors have pushed so vociferously into our current politics. We like to think of academics and pastors as avatars of citizen action. They certainly were such in the Abolitionist movement and later in the 1890-1920 progressive era of social reform — the grand decades of true citizen reform action. Even then, of course, reform movements faced stubborn opposition; but with sledgehammer money absent from the fight, citizen action triumphed.

Not so today. At the Presidential level, Barack Obama trumped money institution oligarchy only because he represented a long prior citizen movement — civil rights — and was its climacric event. Once in office, however, Obama found himself blocked at every turn by fake ‘movements,” millionaired media, profit center “churches,’ and billionaired proganandists.

Here in Massachusetts, the cataclysmic US Senate race between Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren was a fight between money movements and only money movements. Even with outside money excluded, the Warren campaign based itself in the theory that how voters in other states voted for Senator should dictate how Massachusetts voters voted. This was a radical parliament-arization of a system set up to be nothing of the kind ; it should have been shown the door ; yet it resonated, because in nation as drowned by institutional flood, it now really does matter to voters in Massachusetts what Senator voters in Oklahoma or Wisconsin vote for. It matters because there really are no longer any states with state-specific interests. There’s only nationwide pressure groups funded by billionaire money streams.

Senator Warren’s vote-getting operation also drew upon an NSA-like data bank in which every voter found him or herself identified, categorized, boxed, and labeled. This we will all now have to live with. It is nice for a campaign to try to identify its voters; that’s how one gets elected. But to maintain a data bank as invasive as Warren’s — and which has now found its way into the Walsh campaign — is an invasion of privacy every bit as intolerable as the snooping done by the NSA. Voter data as invasive as Warren’s does not come cheap. It is fueled by huge money,. It is said that Warren raised 52 million dollars to defeat Scott Brown. 52 million ! In one United states Senate race !

I call it corruption. Not of the old criminal kind, to be sure. But corruption indeed. Corruption of the very basis of our electoral system.

So now we come to the Walsh campaign. If it looks to you like a labor union, State House, developers and deal makers, local version of the Elizabeth Warren campaign, do not scratch your head : you see exactly what is. The Walsh campaign is the artillery of institutional power, the infantry of entrenched buddy buddy, and — almost now an after thought — a scout platoon of local labor unions : upon all of which veessel is found a beautifully carved bowsprit named Marty Walsh, a man with a laudable life story and a reputation for integtrity.

Competing against this huge ship of state with its gorgeous bowsprit, we find the good ship John Connolly. What is Connolly’s camapign but a throwback to the days, almost 100 years gone, of citizen action ? Of reform, of betterment ?

Watching — and liking — Connolly’s campaign I am struck by its historicity. It’s the kind of camapign that I, decrepit old as I am, studied 50-60 years ago in school : a Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, it is. School moms want to dramatically reform the schools. Candidate wants to reform, even remake City Hall for a very different era. Candidate leads with passion and policy and decent but not obscene money. Moms in tennis shoes gather to help him.

This, dear reader, was what we of my day learned was citizenship.

We now see the result. The candidate of citizen action stands very much an underdog, while the candidate of institutional goniffs struts the streets as an over-dog.

I fully expect that even if John Connolly wins, he will, like Barack Obama since 2009, find himself and his citizen reformers blocked at every turn by immovable institutions employing tens of thousands of people hard-assing to defend their benefits, security, and control; by interest groups determined to chomp the city budget into morsels of pay raise; by the State House crowd, which has always wanted to dictate Boston’s governance; and by the money caches which in nasty secrecy are now pouring their mints into preventing the thing most dangerous to corrupt government : citizen action.

—- Michael Freedberg / here and Sphere

Image

^ institutional high hand : Tom Keady, whom i knew way back when, and as sharp a political mind as I have met in my life, now Boston College’s Director of Development, said tyo be “the architect: of the Marty Walsh campaign.

by hereandsphere

BOSTON ELECTION : CITY COUNCIL ENDORSEMENTS

Yesterday I posted our endorsements for Boston’s four at-Large Council seats. There was some push-back. Folks evidently do not grasp our method or else disagree that we should use it. The disagreement I can handle : these are our endorsements, so be it. as for comprehending, I will lay out my criteria once more :

1. We insist that a Councillor be independent of the Mayor, even in opposition to him. The Council has little enough power as it is. What good is a Councillor almost powerless if he or she does not stand free of the Mayor and criticize his agenda when it deserves criticism ?
2. We also want an at-large Councillor to demonstrate as much city-wide support as he or she can manage.
3. A Councillor should OF COURSE demonstrate knowledge of the main issues and be able to address them in speeches and on paper.
The above are all the criteria I have used in giving our endorsements. Simple.
On these criteria, there are three candidates who merit Here and Sphere’s unqualified endorsement. I also list their “score” on the two criteria on a scale of 1 to 5, 5 being the highest :

photo (10)

1. Jack Kelly.  Independence of Connolly : 4 Independence of Walsh : 3 City-wide support : 4 ability to address issues : 4
Total score : 15

photo (10)

2. Mike Flaherty : Independence of Connolly : 3 Independence of Walsh : 4 City wide support : 5 Ability to address issues : 5
Total score : 17

photo (9)

3. Ayanna Pressley : Independence of Connolly : 2 Independence of Walsh : 4 City wide support : 5 ability to address issues : 4.5
Total score : 15.5

Four of the five other candidates merit our endorsement, but a qualified one due to their perceived closeness to one or the other Mayor candidates or a lesser city-wide support than we see in the above three :

4. Marty Keogh : independence of Connolly : 4 Independence of Walsh : 1 City-wide support : 3 ability to address issues : 4
Total score : 12
5. Michelle Wu : Independence of Connolly : 2 independence of Walsh : 4 City-wide support : 5 ability to address issues : 3
Total score : 14
6. Annissa Essaibi George : independence of Connolly : 5 Independence of Walsh : 1 City-wide support : 3.5 ability to address issues : 3.5
Total score : 13
7. Jeff Ross : independence of Connolly : 2 Independence of Walsh : 4 City-wide support : 4 ability to address issues : 3.5
Total score 13.5

You will notice that we make no mention of Stephen Murphy. This is not to disparage Stephen, who has been a personal friend of this writer for many, many years. My reasons for leaving Stephen off the list are two : ( 1 ) I think that his best work — connecting “new Boston” constituencies to “traditional” Boston — is accomplished ; and ( 2 ) Steve was hardly a profile in boldness once the arbitrator’s BPPA award was brought back to the City Council for approval or disapproval. Steve : ya gotta lead, buddy !

OK, so there you have it : our Council endorsements. Now go ye and vote as ye think best.

— Michael Freedberg / Here and Sphere

by hereandsphere

BOSTON MAYOR : MEL KING ENDORSES MARTY WALSH

Image

^ to the levers of power : Mel King standing with Marty Walsh

—- —- —-

On Wednesday, Mel King, grand man of the Old Left, endorsed Marty Walsh for Mayor at a press conference in the South End. Joining him was former State Representative Royal Bolling, Jr, of Grove Hall, as well as Felix G. Arroyo and John F. Barros. All was friendly; all joined in a ring of hands as King declared that “I stand with Walsh” and “there’s a new rainbow coalition !” It was a moving scene. At age 85 King won’t have too many more such moments; but he is well entitled to this one. Thirty years ago he himself was in a Mayoral Final versus South Boston’s Ray Flynn…

Thirty years ago ! King’s history in Boston politics goes farther back than that. Like Walsh, he was a State Representative. Before that, he was a very vocal, confrontational activist, of a type then common, brought to prominence in the late 1960s by President Lyndon Johnson’s Anti-poverty program. There was lots of money in that program, and a great deal of community planning power — the Model Cities Program overlapped and abetted it — and King was at its center along with activists gentler and, it has to be said, more lastingly effective. Yet effective or not, King drew a following — devoted — on the Left and the Far Left, and this he kept intact, it following him into that 1983 Mayor election in which he lost badly, like Barry Goldwater an ideologue before his time.

Would it be too melodramatic to say that King’s time was yesterday’s press conference ? This was the not the first occasion that Mel King has endorsed a candidate from a constituency not close to his own — in 2009 he and Ray Flynn held a joint endorsement conference for Mike Flaherty; but that was a challenge to an entrenched incumbent, one whom King — and Flynn — both felt had overstayed his time or forgotten “the people.” This time King was endorsing in an open election : endorsing the candidate of established power. So the question presses for an answer : why did he do it ?

One is tempted to conclude that, as Walsh has successfully coalesced all the strands of Boston’s Labor Left, so King the Old Left icon simply joined the party — gave it his imprimatur, as it were. That’s the obvious answer. i think it’s the wrong answer.

For King, the Left is oratory. His objective has always been something else : get people of color to the levers of power. For King, the Left is a means to pry those levers away from the established forces. And Marty Walsh has finally been revealed, this week, not as “the union guy” (though he Is that) but as the quintessential levers of power candidate. The BRA insider candidate. The candidate of developers needing Building Trades union laborers, multi-million dollar money deals, zoning persuasiveness, and planning clout.

Thus the endorsement. The levers of power now reach out from Walsh to King and his fellow seekers of the elvers.

I do not mean to suggest that for King, union solidarity and power to the workers do not matter. They’re part of his life mission.

Prior to the Primary, King was closest to Charles Clemons, a radio station owner whose economic views aren’t much different from Herman Cain’s. King did not support Felix Arroyo — though 30 years ago he and Arroyo’s father Felix D. Arroyo were strong allies — nor did he support John Barros or Charlotte Golar-Richie. It is simple to figure out why : Clemons’s radio station is a lever of power. All media are levers of might. Barros, Arroyo, and Golar-Richie had none, or lesser such levers. Thus King’s support for Clemons, a candidate who was not going to get to the Final in any scenario. King seemed to be saying that he’d prefer to stand by a lever of power that he could count on rather than chance things with the other three.

The Primary proved his skepticism correct : none of the three made it into the Final. King was now free to choose a candidate on better odds : one of the finalists WOULD win. For an entire month he did not choose. But then came polls showing that the wind was blowing in the Walsh direction, and doing so because Walsh’s campaign was wielding goliath-an levers of Hulk power :
$ 2,400,000 — and counting — of special interest money is one hell of a power lever !

King’s choice was thus a simple one, and the man who made his reputation on confronting Irish politcians from the seaside Wards joined hands with one in a “new rainbow coalition.”

Keady beaming ... 10.30.13

^ high point of a thirty-plus year career in Irish Democratic Boston politics : Tom Keady praying that this is not just an illusion

And, symbol of the power levers thus levered, there was Walsh’s reported svengali, Tom Keady — now Boston college’s Director of Development, but long known to me from a time when, as a young political, he worked for then Speaker of the house Tip O’Neill, whose Congressional District included Keady’s home precinct in Brighton’s Ward 22.

Not for himself, at age 85, did King link to Walsh power.This was done, rather, for the next generation of King people. It was a gift from the Grand Old Man of “Arise Ye and take what is rightfully yours.” As such, it is likely to be a powerful endorsement, if it hasn’t come too late in the race in which the tide seems to have already turned..

— Michael Freedberg / Here and Sphere

by hereandsphere

BOSTON MAYOR : NEGATIVES DOMINATE 3RD DEBATE

Image

^ gulping down face to face the nectar of Negative Punch : Marty Walsh vs. John Connolly

—-    —-    —-

A month ago I wrote that the Final campaign had to go negative. 65 % of those who voted on Primary day did not vote for either Walsh or Connolly; each, and certainly the winner, would get the big majority of his votes from people who did not want him.

Last night at Debate Number three we saw that negative, at the beginning and at the end. It bookmarked the debate. Clearly both men were determined to assure that, of two men not liked by most voters, his opponent would be liked less.

Walsh attacked Connolly as a “corporate lawyer” and for not doing anything as a City Councillor. “Name one thing you have done,” Walsh challenged. “Did you as a Councillor bring any jobs at all to Boston ?” Connolly had a strong answer to that. Three strong ones, in fact.

Connolly attacked Walsh far more cogently, or at least I thought so. He cited Walsh’s now infamous House Bill 2467, which would take away City Councils’ power to approve or turn down labor arbitrators’ awards, and, at the end of the debate, he noted that Walsh, as chairman of the House Ethics Committee, “took no action” – Walsh’s own words, when asked — despite “one legislator going to jail,” as Connolly noted.

Listening to this attack, Walsh’s face grew grim, his eyes grimmer. If looks could kill…but he did not lose his temper, did Walsh, although at the grimmest point he seemed about to. He is said to have a terrifying temper. We almost saw it.

His record is open to substantial question; but so far the voters do not seem to care about what he has been and done. They want to know what he is going to DO. And during the middle of the debate — really more a Forum, with questions being asked by the moderator, than an actual debate — Walsh talked on and on about his policy proposals, numerous proposals — almost a policy wonk. It was very effective, because what newly watching voter expected “the union guy” to talk in detail about parks, young violence, the BRA, enterprise, budgets, etc etc ? Walsh talked abut them all. He sounded like a Mayor.

Connolly sounded like an insurgent; a challenger; the underdog. It was a shrewd role for him to adopt, as he did the day before the debate on the wings of his internal poll showing the race tied 43 to 43. It was also shrewd because the Walsh campaign’s attacks on Connolly, fueled by huge money, mailings, and an army of union door-knockers, had succeeded in getting voters to care a lot about what, said Walsh, Connolly has been and not much at all about what he would DO as Mayor. At the debate, Connolly time and again had to reassert that he is a City Councillor with a strong record of accomplishment.

It is never good when, at a campaign’s final debate, the man who looks like the challenger has to fend off accusations from the man who looks like the incumbent. But in this case, the man who talks like the incumbent isn’t. He doesn’t have a record to defend. Thus Connolly was punching not a bag but a might-have-been.

Today we found out, at 1:00 PM, exactly what the debate portended : a new UMass Poll finds Walsh now leading Connolly 47 to 40; that people really do believe that Connolly is a corporate lawyer, not a City Councillor; and that Walsh represents the poor and middle class.

Connolly’s hope is knowing that that poll did not take into accoungt the strong questions that he raised at the third debate about Walsh’s record and connections. Unhappily for Connolly, the poll does take in Walsh’s very weak performance at the second debate. If voters watching that debate did not decide for Connolly,. how will they decide for him now, after Walsh’s best debate performance of the three ?

Connolly has six days to change voters’ perception, to get them thinking about Walsh’s status quo attitude, his army of one interest group, his base in the city’s most unreconstructed communities — hardly a home plate whence to hit a home run for the future city. Can Connolly do it ? It’;s all up to him at this point.

—- Michael Freedberg / Here and Sphere

by hereandsphere

TO RID OURSELVES OF THE OLD POLITICS, WE REPEAT : JOHN CONNOLLY FOR MAYOR

Image

^ a fighting reformer, a transformer even : John Connolly addresses supporters at last night’s Debate watch party at Merengue on Blue Hill Avenue

—-    —-    —-

As this year’s race for mayor of Boston approaches voting day, it has become ever clearer that we are beset by the grip of old politics. We must shake off this dead hand, and do it now. Old politics thrives in old institutions set up long ago to address long-ago challenges. unhappily, the institutional drag survives long after those challenges have been met, its vested interests a grievous obstacle to progress. Such is the case in Boston’s mayor race. It’s why the Marty Walsh campaign looms large as we head to voting day.

Old politics are a curse. We have seen how old, reactionary politics of the Tea party have almost devoured the GOP, rendered it practically useless to most Americans. In the same way, as we wrote over a month ago, the campaign for Mayor has split the Democratic party between Obama Democrats and the Left. That split has now become as clear as the hulk of Godzilla stalking a japanese movie.

We like President Obama because he speaks for the innovation society that is already here and for the rise of new leadership from it, leadership that now takes on the task of transforming our schools, careers, social connections, lifestyles.

This innovation politics has, however,m divided the Democratic party, just as the rise, a decade ago, of pragmatic conservatism split the GOP.

In Boston, the Marty Walsh campaign has made its pact with the Left and its money. Granted that it had no choice. Facing John Connolly, a quintessential Obama Democrat, Walsh by himself had the votes only of union households and the City’s oldest political community (and not even all of that). Thus his move, after the Primary, using his leadership position in Boston Organized labor to bring to his side politicians with large numbers of Union households in their Districts, and, at the same time, union money and door-knockers from everywhere.

Walsh’s army is motivated by people who dare not risk what they already have. But people cannot just cling to what they have or know, because the economic and social world is changing faster than a speeding bullet. It is upon us all, and all of us must begin to move even faster.

This entails some risk; but the risk of not innovating, re-imagining, everything — schools, work, careers, connections, entrepreneurship — is far far greater.

The new economy is much, much bigger than the Democratic Left’s constituencies. Union households comprise about 14 % of all workers. Most work coming into being today is not union-appropriate. The careers of today and tomorrow come in small business units, laboratories of innovation, connected by co-operative competition. They aren’t assembly line. They aren’t low-skill.

We agree that low skill work needs enactment of a living wage, so that people who work such jobs can participate fully in the economy — and so that we the public aren’t forced to subsidize slave wage employers who need EBT and welfare in order to survive because hey aren’t paid enough. But the minimum wage is a State Legislature matter, not a mayor’s.

The mayor of Boston has a different mission : to guide the innovation economy into being, including innovated schools, policing, health care, social connectedness and an end to social segregation.

This is John Connolly’s message. It’s why today we proudly confirm the endorsement we gave to Connolly on October 7th.

John Connolly’s open door message  means innovation supporters as well. One of the features we most applaud about the John Connolly campaign is the newness of his following, Few of Connolly’s people have any history at all in Boston politics. Some come from the Obama campaign, some too from Senator Warren’s, and, yes, some from (Republican) Paul Cellucci’s years. But by far the most are brand new to political combat, and most of these come from communities themselves new to the arena. this we like. Like it a Lot. The newer the better, in fact. Because that’s what America is, at its finest : new, new, tomorrow, a future goal. Morning in America, as Ronald Reagan put it.

Morning means change and the unexpected, even the unpredictable. Into this morning, the politics of the Left needs to step, together with the Obama Democrats whose agenda the Left now recoils from, ominously.

And finally, as a coda to our endorsement, let us add this : the Democratic party cannot be split. Today it’s the only feasible party of national government. It needs to hold together, in Boston and nationally, to direct the new economy, the new society. Until such time as the GOP returns to the field of common sense and forward, splitting the Democratic party, as the Left seems now intent on doing, really is playing with fire.

— Michael Freedberg, editor in chief / Here and Sphere

by hereandsphere

BOSTON MAYOR : CONNOLLY SAYS “I’M THE UNDERDOG”

Image

^ the underdog in South Boston with St rep Nick Collins and, on the left, a man whom you may recognize —  and his son.

—- —- —-

After weeks of leading in the polls for Mayor of Boston, John Connolly today anointed himself the underdog. He even had a poll to prove it. This morning he allowed the Globe to observe as he gave a talk to his finance committee in which he revealed that his campaign’s internal poll shows the race now tied, 43 to 43. This, after a Globe poll last week found Connolly leading 47 to 38 (with leaners assigned). Connolly declared that poll “an outlier’ and said that in fact another poll last week, showing him ahead only 41 to 39, was more accurate.

The release, by Connolly himself, of a poll so bad for him puzzled many. Walsh people gloated that he, the “candidate of working families,” as his spin doctors put it, “had huge momentum.” And doubtless the news of said poll invigorated the already vigorous Walsh door-knockers. So why, then, did Connolly make such a move ?

The answer should be obvious.

By assuming the position of underdog, Connolly gave himself three huge advantages :

1.People who had simply assumed that Connolly would be the next Mayor now had to think again; to contemplate — envision — confront — Walsh as Mayor, with all of its implications, many of them not good for the fisc. This is why Connolly has been gradually stressing — and is now emphasizing — his mastery of the City budget, ahead of his original stance as “the education Mayor.”

2.Given the mountain of big-pol endorsements given to Walsh in the past 16 days, and reports of a tidal wave of Labor Union money from all over, Connolly said something like, “OK, Marty, you ant to be the overdog ? Go right head, be the overdog.  by all means — be my guest !”

3.People like underdogs. They want the small guy to beat the big guy. If not, Sylvester Stallone would not be a multi millionaire today. (As I mention a lot, it is 1959 all over again; John F. Collins with few endorsers against John E. Powers with all of them. Collins won.)

Lastly, with their man now drawing the underdog card, Connolly’s workers can no longer be complacent. Their man is NOT going to coast to a ten-point victory. They will have to work for it — work hard and long and with the foul winds of desperation at their backs. Connolly’s voters too. They know they can’t stay home on election day.

This is the mindset you want your organization to have going into the last week before election day. You want your people committed to aee you win. Connolly as underdog is putting his people to that test. As well he should.

As for Walsh’s people, they need to know this, and I am sure that the smartest of them already knows it : Walsh has bet the farm on his winning.

If he does not do so, likely it is that there will never be another significant Mayor campaign from a base tribally Irish and Union labor. Walsh’s city is receding into history. Indeed, even if Connolly does not win, the society whence Walsh’s core support arises will dwindle and calcify as stony as the statue of Paul Revere in the North End. There already IS a new Boston. entirely new. It is fresh and exciting, open and flush with innovation. It can only grow, and pollenate and bloom, because there is no other way forward. This the Walsh people sense. They’re in  a race against time.  It’s why they have felt such heat, all campaign long, as Connolly seeks to apply to his people, now, with all the marbles anted in.

— Michael Freedberg / Here and Sphere