Deval Patrick may be a guy from the Chicago housing projects who made good on scholarships at Milton Academy, Harvard, and Harvard Law. But he had to have more than fire in his belly to make his mark as a Clinton-era assistant attorney general and a top corporate lawyer. He had to have tenacity and a taste for political combat.
We believe that Patrick has the brains and the temperament, the drive and determination to make politics matter for the better in Massachusetts and — in the process — to make Massachusetts a better place to live. Patrick’s promise is our hope. That’s why the Phoenix urges you to vote in the Democratic primary for Deval Patrick for governor.
For lieutenant governor: Deb Goldberg
Just as Massachusetts is blessed to have two solid choices for a reform-style governor, so it has two strong candidates for the state’s second-highest-ranking job: Worcester mayor Timothy Murray and former Brookline selectwoman Deborah Goldberg.
The Phoenix thinks Goldberg would bring the most to her party’s ticket and the most to the state and urges voters to cast their ballot for her in the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor.
Goldberg is as knowledgeable as she is impassioned. Brookline may have a town-style government, but with its population density it faces city-size problems. Solving those problems is solid training ground for any higher office, but especially so for a job that, in recent tradition, has coordinated state and local affairs for the governor.
From public transportation and education to stem-cell research and environmental issues, Goldberg has thought about what matters to the future of the state and developed programs and policies that should inform any Democratic governor.
John Bonifaz |
For secretary of state: John Bonifaz
William Galvin has served shrewdly and — for the most part — ably as secretary of state for the past 12 years. That’s time enough. Massachusetts is ready for a change.The Phoenix urges you cast your ballot for John Bonifaz in the Democratic primary for secretary of state, a key constitutional office that supervises elections and helps regulate the local securities industry. If ever there were a natural-born reformer, it is Bonifaz. He is perhaps the only person ever to seek office in Massachusetts who is also the winner of a MacArthur “genius” fellowship for his pioneering legal work in voting-rights and campaign-finance reform. Where others see process, Bonifaz sees policy. He has the rare political ability to see life not as it is, but as it should be. He has the idealism and the energy to try to make our government better by making politics accessible to all, not just to the well connected and the well financed. If you think politics is plagued by cynicism and corrupted by cronyism, then a vote for Bonifaz is a vote for hope that the system, and society, can be made better.
For Congress: Phil Dunkelbarger
Congressman Steven Lynch enjoys a solid reputation as a lunch-pail Democrat, but Lynch’s solid support for President George W. Bush’s Iraq war and the Patriot Act, his consistent votes to make it ever more difficult for a woman to exercise her right to reproductive choice, his dodgy position on Net Neutrality, and his decision to validate the Republicans’ wild overreach of its authority in ordering the re-insertion of Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube compel us to urge Phoenix readers to vote for his challenger, Phil Dunkelbarger. Call it a shot across Lynch’s bow, or a prelude to a full-blown challenge by another candidate in two years, but a vote for Dunkelbarger might help Lynch make up his mind whether he’s a Democrat or a Republican in drag.
