BoMag Quick Takes

Published May 29 2007, 06:03 PM by David S. Bernstein

I got my hands on the new (June) Boston Magazine today, and it's got a few items of political interest -- although it's hard to divert one's attention away from John Gonzalez's openly salacious drool-fest on Maria Stephanos.

First up is wise former Phoenix political writer Seth Gitell arguing, in essence, that Deval Patrick's supporters need to accept that the new Governor will have to play the insiders' games in order to get the outcomes they want. Gitell has put his finger on a conundrum among the Patrick "grassroots," because for many of them the idea of changing that insiders' system was more important than any specific policy objectives. I would even suggest that this is a broader concern: you can hear the same change-the-game arguments from progressives looking for a candidate in the 5th congressional district and in the Presidential primaries. But what do they want when push comes to shove, principle or progress?

Next, Sasha Issenberg has an interesting piece on Democratic money-raiser Alan Solomont, and how fundraising for his new chosen favorite Barack Obama differs from the usual Clintonista machine.

And finally, Joe Keohane argues in a feature article that the Guardian Angels' high-profile entry into Boston forced Tom Menino, Boston's black ministers, and other key players into actually getting together to do something about the violence, to shut the Angels up and get back on top of the media cycle. I think that Keohane is right that Menino killed the over-hyped interest in the Angels by co-opting them. But I think Keohane makes two mistakes. One, he gives Menino and others too much credit for the anti-violence actions they took; and two, he underestimates how quickly the media would have dropped the "crime crisis" story anyway.