There is no question that economic times are dire and money is tight on Beacon Hill, as it is elsewhere. But this is not a frivolous expenditure. Same-day voter registration most likely will be the greatest boon to citizen participation since 18 year olds were given the vote in 1971. It could benefit as many as 250,000 citizens in this year’s presidential election, which is the most exciting and hotly contested in recent memory.
DiMasi’s measured response to the idea of same-day registration no doubt reflects the anxiety of some legislators who are nervous about the prospect of more voter participation, because they see it as a future threat to their jobs, their incumbency. Legislative leaders from time to time give cover to their less imaginative or more timid colleagues. Now that the bill has been fine-tuned to Galvin’s satisfaction, it is time for DiMasi to step out of the shadows and put an end to the legislative kabuki.
Wisconsin, Maine, and Minnesota have had same-day registration for 30 or more years. New Hampshire, Idaho, and Wyoming have had it in place since 1993. It is time for Massachusetts to join their ranks.
Yes, the New Yorker
A sense of humor, or at least a sense of proportion, does not seem to be among the many admirable characteristics of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Senator Barack Obama. During the course of this hard-fought campaign, Hillary Clinton has been outraged. John McCain has been outraged. And now it is Obama’s turn. He and his campaign are outraged at the New Yorker’s amusing cover showing Obama in Islamist-style garb giving dap (fist bumping) to his wife, who is depicted sporting an AK-47 and an attractive Afro. The setting is an Oval Office festooned with a portrait of Osama bin Laden hanging over a fireplace in which an American flag burns. At first glance the image is startling, but at second glance it is clearly a send-up of the paranoid and racist right-wing fantasies held by some. There has been a more or less predictable collective cry from the politically correct who worry about stereotyping. And there has been a perhaps less predictable outpouring of paternalism from those who recognize the satire but worry that the mass of the great American unwashed are not clever enough to get the joke. Oh, my! Satire that does not provoke, that does not outrage, is not worth its name. We suspect that when tempers cool and emotionalism abates, this cover will have done much to diffuse the notion that Obama is a dangerous radical. Inside the issue in question are two stories (by Hendrik Hertzberg and Ryan Lizza) that paint Obama not as someone from outside the system, but as a very savvy politician. Pieces like those might in the long run do more to dull Obama’s luster than any wild and crazy cover.
