In the same article I referenced in my last post, I wrote that Romney is signing on supporters who mean little to the average voter but send strong signals to inside-the-beltway movement conservatives. Today we get another of those names: Cesar Conda.

Conda's support of Romney should not be a total shock to observant locals: Conda is currently with Mike Murphy's political consulting firm, DC Navigators, which has received more than $200,000 from Romney's gubernatorial campaign committee over the past 18 months or so.

Conda is also one of the major movers of the free-market capitalist-libertarian agenda on the Hill. He was Dick Cheney's top domestic-policy advisor, is a certified friend of Grover Norquist, is a senior fellow at Dick Armey's FreedomWorks, contributes regularly to the National Review... you get the idea. He's got major conservative cred, at least on the fiscal side.

His name also came up during the Jack Abramoff investigation, when it turned out that one of Abramoff's personal visits to Cheney's office, revealed in Secret Service logs, was to Conda.

Conda is the right wing's man on privatizing social security, deregulating industry (particularly telecom), and pretty much everything else the left hates. That's a very, very good person for Romney to get on his team.

[by David S. Bernstein]

11/29/2006 2:39:13 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [0] |  

As I wrote in last week's issue, Mitt Romney keeps getting closer and closer to being the last viable conservative standing for the anti-McCain right wing to rally around for the GOP Presidential nomination. Today, he moved one step ahead; The Wall Street Journal's Washinton Whispers reports that Senator Bill Frist won't run.

Two years ago, at the Republican national convention, Frist was considered one of the most likely to get the nomination: he was solidly conservative but without the frothing Rick Santorum reputation, is one of the best fundraisers in the business, and had the apparent blessing of Bush insiders including Karl Rove.

Frist did everything wrong between then and now. Most notably, his Terri Schiavo shenanigans put the froth on his public perception.

Making himself Senate President made it easy for his fellow Presidential-minded Republicans to thwart his goals and make him look bad --  did he get to take credit for any significant legislation? Perhaps the most glaring example was when he got pushed into pressing the "nuclear option" of changing the rules to allow easier confirmation of reactionary judges... and then had McCain and others thwart him by negotiating a compromise that kept the old rules in place. Frist looked like an evil, rabid partisan to moderates, and like an ineffectual loser to the right wing.

Presiding over the GOP's loss of the Senate was probably the nail in his coffin, although he still could have made a very strong run at the nomination. His decision to stay out is a big help for Romney; expect to see him making a big play for Frist's fundraisers, staffers, and allies, particularly in the South.

[by David S. Bernstein]

11/29/2006 2:01:57 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [0] |  

11/28/2006 8:51:30 AM by Adam Reilly | Comments [1] |  

Mark the date, Mitt: August 11, 2007. That's when the Iowa Republican Party will hold its traditional Ames straw poll, according to yesterday's Des Moines Register. The poll is one of the big early media-grabbing opportunities for Presidential candidates.

The Ames fundraising event has long since become thoroughly unrepresentative of actual Iowa caucus voters -- campaigns bus people in from far and wide just to vote in the poll -- so now it gets hailed as importance evidence of the candidates' level of campaign organization.

And this time around, a whole slew of other states' GOP organizations are scheduling "straw polls" in conjunction with their annual meetings or special events, which may dull the impact of the results.

Nevertheless, you'd better believe Romney's folks have put a big red circle on that day in their calendars. They may have already called to reserve some busses.

[David S. Bernstein]

11/27/2006 5:45:15 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [1] |  

So, apparently Mitt Romney had been unaware that cutting funds from the program that provides winter shelter to the homeless would result in fewer homeless people getting shelter during the winter. All it took was someone pointing it out, and he quickly rectified the situation. Not his fault -- "some idiotic state bureaucrat couldn't see the people through the numbers," says Brian McGrory.

Well, if it worked for McGrory...

Governor, you may not be aware, but on November 10 you also cut $2,032,330 from line 5920-5000, the Turning 22 Program. This Department of Mental Retardation program provides transitional services for people with severe mental disabilities, when they lose their eligibility to residential services that the state offers through age 21. The program's budget had actually declined since you entered office, to just under $6.5 million, while the the number of applicants rose from 450 a year to 620. For the past couple of years, they have had to ask many of these applicants to fend for themselves until their names reached the top of the waiting list. The legislature increased the budget by $2 million for this fiscal year. You vetoed the increase, but they overrode you by the slim margin of 193 to zero. Now you have unilaterally yanked that $2 million back in your "emergency" budget cuts. Back on the waiting list!

So, now that I've pointed it out, I'm sure the governor will put the money back. Right?

Maybe not. He doesn't sound like he regrets the cuts to the Department of Mental Health budget, which, it turns out, will mean fewer mentally ill people getting treatment. Who knew? Romney's flack Eric Fehrnstrom blames the DMH administrators, saying that any "good manager" should be able to absorb the cuts without affecting services. (And who snuck those bad managers into the administration?)

So, when the severely mentally disabled individuals age out of their state-provided residences, and can't get help from the Turning 22 program, they will also find that state mental hospitals are no longer admitting new patients. I wonder where they'll end up?

Perhaps turned away from a homeless shelter -- but no! Romney is putting back that $400,000 for winter shelter for the homeless, so they'll have a place to stay. Like McGrory says: He made a difference.

[by David S. Bernstein]

11/21/2006 10:02:11 AM by Adam Reilly | Comments [1] |  

Democrats gained control of both chambers of the New Hampshire legislature in this month's election. This weekend, house Democrats picked Terie Norelli of Plymouth to be the next speaker. Over in the senate, they've already picked Concord's Sylvia Larsen as president.

Nationwide, only nine women have ever served as state senate president, three of them doing so now, and 20 have been state house speaker, including just two currently, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers.

And yet, this is the second time New Hampshire will have women in charge of both chambers. Democrat Beverly Hollingworth was senate president while Republican Donna Sytek was speaker of the house in 1999-2000.

[by David S. Bernstein]

11/20/2006 3:26:52 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [1] |  

According to the AP story about Mitt Romney's Big Dig press conference this morning, the built-in fire-detection system doesn't work properly, so "tunnel operators are spotting fires by relying on cell phone calls from motorists, or by noticing a reduction in their speed of travel."

Seriously, the first they'd know about a car engulfed in flames within a tunnel would be the traffic backing up? Yeah, I don't feel so great about that.

[by David S. Bernstein]

11/17/2006 6:00:07 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [1] |  

...about Borat. From an AP story:

The governor-elect admitted laughing at the journalistic spoof that has become No. 1 at the box office, but he added, “It was totally inappropriate at points.”

Or, as the Phoenix put it recently: "Tasteless and Offensive (and the funniest film of the year)."


[by David S. Bernstein]

11/17/2006 4:53:06 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [1] |  

[by David S. Bernstein]

As Deval Patrick puts together his team to run the state government, the Talking Politics blog will grade his appointments. We'll be keeping a close eye out for hackery, patronage, and incompetence, and whether Patrick seems to be fulfilling his promise to bring fresh, new perspectives to Beacon Hill.

Today, Patrick announced his chief-of-staff, Joan Wallace-Benjamin.

Grade: B+

Putting a woman at the top of the organizational chart certainly sends a strong symbolic message if nothing else. Meanwhile, it's a true sign of change that her color need be of little interest. Her appointment is also a strong sign that Patrick will reverse the funding cuts that have affected services to the needy -- cuts that Wallace-Benjamin has criticized. Wallace-Banjamin headed the Urban League of Massachusetts for 11 years, and is currently in charge of the Home for Little Wanderers, but her real strength is in her vast network of contacts, particularly women, in all industries and walks of life. She'll not only bring talent into the administration, but should dramatically expand corporate and individual participation in state-private partnerships. (Her husband, Milton Benjamin, the former president of Massachusetts Community Development Finance Corp., is an added bonus.)
    A potential downside is her perceived close affiliation to the Boston power structure, and Mayor Menino. But she has a reputation for being smart and well-liked, and for running a tight ship. Only her lack of experience in government keeps me from giving a higher grade.

11/17/2006 12:29:09 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [2] |  

[by David S. Bernstein]

The Hartford Courant is reporting that Democrat Joe Courtney has won the official recount over incumbent Republican Congressman Rob Simmons, by 91 votes, in Connecticut's 2nd district. This means that Christopher Shays, who won re-election with a whopping 50.9% of the vote in the Connecticut 4th -- the region way, way, down in the southwest tip of the state -- will be New England's only Republican member of the US House of Representatives in the coming session.

Or, to put it another way, you'll be able to start in Houlton, Maine and drive for about eight hours before entering a town with a Republican congressman.

11/15/2006 1:11:17 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [0] |  

[by David S. Bernstein]

The GOP has really learned its lesson, huh?

Let's see how many ways new RNC chairman, Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida, is connected to the scandals, embarassments, and unpopular policies that helped lead to the party's recent defeat. Let me know if I'm missing anything!

--The convicted influence-peddler Congressman Bob Ney has confessed to taking a bribe from convicted influence-buying lobbyist Jack Abramoff, in exchange for helping obtain awards for his Native American clients from then-HUD Secretary Mel Martinez in 2003. When Martinez left HUD to run for US Senate in early 2004, one of his first major fundraisers was thrown by Abramoff. After the scandals broke, Martinez returned $2500 Ney had contributed to his campaign, but declined to return the $250,000 Abramoff raised for him.

--Three executives of Florida's BPS&J Corp. pled guilty this fall to embezzlement and other crimes, including illegal funnelling of contributions to Martinez's 2004 Senate campaign.

--In November 2005, Martinez admitted to "flawed" finance reporting related to his 2004 Senate campaign, after the FEC had sent 15 letters demanding explanations and records.

--Martinez's finance director for that "flawed" Senate campaign was Kirk Fordham, who left his job with Congressman Mark Foley to work for Martinez, and then went on to become chief of staff for Congressman Thomas Reynolds, until being forced to resign for his role in covering up the Mark Foley page scandal.

--In 2005, Martinez's general counsel, Brian Darling, wrote the notorious memo arguing that Terri Schiavo's vegetative body offered Republicans a wonderful political opportunity. Darling was forced to resign, but not before Martinez co-sponsored the law federalizing Schiavo's case.

--That same Brian Darling, BTW, came to Martinez by way of Alexander Strategy Group, the lobbying firm founded by the chief of staff of another ethics-challenged Republican, Tom DeLay.

--In his 2004 primary campaign, Martinez labelled his Republican opponent "anti-family" for supporting stem-cell research. (He also accused that opponent of catering to the "radical homosexual lobby" for supporting a bipartisan hate-crimes bill.)

--In 2000, while co-chair of Bush's Florida election team, Martinez was also chairman of the Orange County commission, and thus its election supervisor; the Miami Herald reported that the county could only produce 639 of the 966 ballots that supposedly had recorded no Presidential vote. Later at HUD, Martinez hired a top GOP Florida-recount lawyer as his chief-of-staff.

--Martinez has voted the GOP position 94% of the time, including votes for the (pro-torture) Military Commissions Act of 2006; against the use of stem cells derived from embryos that would otherwise be destroyed; for a constitutional amendment against flag-burning; against creation of a commission on Katrina response; for extending the Bush tax cuts; and against increasing the minimum wage.

11/14/2006 5:25:13 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [0] |  

[by David S. Bernstein]

To the surprise of nobody, Darrell Crate will not seek another term as chairman of the Massachusetts GOP when his term ends in January. Crate deserves credit for the fiscal solvency of the party, no mean feat given the meager return it offers for the prospective contributor's dollar.

Crate's four-year tenure will be remembered as the time when the Republican Party went from near-irrelevance to total irrelevance in the state, and he is not blameless in that. Nor is he the primary reason for it.

A better way to judge him in the long term, however, might be the loyalty of the donors he brought in -- primarily fellow investors and financial managers. If they continue to support the state GOP committee, with Mitt Romney gone and Kerry Healey humiliated, they will provide the financial platform for a rebuilding period. If they don't, the next chair will have his or her hands full just trying to avoid bankruptcy.

11/14/2006 9:40:03 AM by Adam Reilly | Comments [0] |  

[by David S. Bernstein]

When I first wrote about ActBlue, the Cambridge-based web site connecting progressive contributors to candidates, it had processed about $250,000 of donations to 125 campaigns. (See "Two Schmoes," September 2004) Yet I wrote that it "may not be crazy" to think that ActBlue could, as its founders envisioned, move $15 to $20 million in the 2006 election cycle.

Guess what? ActBlue's co-founders, Benjamin Rahn and Matthew DeBergalis, say they have sent more than $17 million to well over 1000 Democratic candidates and committees -- including some $12 million in the six months leading up to election day.

That includes almost a quarter-million for state legislative leaders, which helped flip nine state chambers from R to D -- and earned ActBlue a grateful public acknowledgement from the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.

And now, ActBlue has won a ruling from the Federal Elections Commission that will allow it to begin raising money for potential Presidential candidates. So, you can, right now, set up an ActBlue contribution page for, say, "Draft Brack Obama," or whoever you prefer. If Obama enters the race, the donated money will go to his campaign committee; if not, it will go to the Democratic National Committee.

It looks more and more like the road to electoral success for Democrats runs through Rahn and DeBergalis. Nice job, guys.

11/13/2006 3:41:08 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [0] |  

[by David S. Bernstein]

I take Russ Feingold at his word, that his decision to forego a 2008 Presidential campaign was based on the greater good he can now do in the Democratic-controlled US Senate. Being a majority-party US Senator is a pretty good gig.

Will other senators think likewise? Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Barack Obama, Christopher Dodd, Joe Biden, and Evan Bayh have all made sure their names are in the '08 picture. Did last Tuesday change their calculations too?

My guess is that Biden, who is in line to be chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, might decide that a Presidential run will take him away from Washington when he could be holding hearings. Dodd could also decide to focus on his senatorial duties.

Of course, around here all eyes are on the junior senator from Massachusetts. If the senate turnover, and his "stuck in Iraq" blooper, convince him to stand for re-election in '08 rather than take his second run at the big prize, a lot of people hoping to run for his seat will be sorely disappointed.

11/13/2006 12:27:46 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [2] |  

[Note to readers from Adam Reilly: this entry you all love so much was actually written by David Bernstein.]

The right-wing phrase of the week is "San Francisco values," as in the kind that Speaker-in waiting Nancy Pelosi will try to impose  on America. Bill O'Reilly used the phrase repeatedly on the air; Newt Gingrich used it in a fundraising mailer; congressional candidates featured it in TV ads and mailers; and, in at least one case, a newspaper editorial used it in endorsing a Georgia Republican.

The "Massachusetts liberal" has been usurped as the caricature of dangerous ultra-leftism.

It's a longstanding battle between us and them (with Hollywood secularism and New York elitism also in the competition), but we had clearly taken the helm these past few years, what with John Kerry and those liberal activist judges and those gay marriages. (Remember SF's pathetic rush attempt to marry homosexuals before we did? Nice try -- but ours are legal.)

And it's not like we let down our guard. We re-elected Ted Kennedy with 70 percent of the vote. We elected a black liberal Democrat Governor. Barney Frank is going to be a major congressional committee chairman. Kerry even managed to make himself a national mockery, just to prove he's still got it in him.

But we won't be hearing those warning cries of "Massachusetts liberals" much anymore. It's all about the San Francisco values now.

We need a plan to get back to number one again.

11/9/2006 12:56:12 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [2] |  

[by David S. Bernstein]

I have one question to add to the discussion of why Healey lost:

Why didn't her people make sure -- way before the primary -- that there was an independent group ready to run attack ads against her opponent?

It should have been obvious that a candidate with her high unfavorables would have problems running attacks herself. A well-funded independent group could have blasted away at Songer and LaGuer (and Gabrieli in the primary), plus go after Patrick on affirmative action, illegal immigrants, taxes, AmeriQuest, and more that she couldn't dare to do as her negatives climbed.

11/8/2006 2:42:58 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [2] |  

First, the Turkey of the Day was unquestionably Hub Politics, which 1. insisted that the race would be relatively close and 2. reacted to Patrick's victory with overheated screeds like this:

While there may not be a Republican in the Corner Office, today was not about electing change. There is no change. Today in Massachusetts, democracy killed democracy. The voters of Massachusetts rejected two-party government; they rejected debate in the arena of ideas; they rejected the positive, and believed the negative.

Um.... Whatever makes you feel better, guys.

And now, the Big Winner Award goes to: Blue Mass. Group, which finishes the '06 election season as the 800-pound-gorilla of web-based political coverage in MA. The live-blogging from Patrick's post-election fete left me a bit cold, but that's less a reflection on the way BMG did it than on the genre itself, which is really, really hard to do well. (Maybe we can put a moratorium on live-blogging in '08? Or at least take it down a notch?) On the other hand, the reports from across MA were fantastic, and testify to just how influential BMG has become. Kudos, guys.

What else.... The Herald's Daily Briefing did a nice job reporting Boston's ballot shortage first, and the Globe did well to get a full-fledged article on the subject up on Political intelligence just a few minutes later. Also, the Herald's Kim Atkins was the first to report that exit polls portended a huge Patrick victory (no surprise there). But my favorite daily-paper-blog material came from the Globe's Matt Viser, who demonstrated a keen eye for idiosyncratic detail at the Healey and Patrick shindigs. (Love the bit about the melons carved into kissing swans at Healey's event, Matt.) Tell you what: let's all do the live-blog thing again in two years, but only if we collectively agree to come up with more gems like that.

Any major omissions? Care to agree/disagree? By all means, do.

11/8/2006 1:54:41 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [3] |  

W. just gave him the boot.

Rummy's replacement: Bob Gates, currently the president of Texas A&M and a former CIA head under both George the Elder and Bill Clinton. What's more, Gates was an assistant and depty. nat'l. security advisor to George H.W. Bush, and is currently a member of the Baker-Hamilton Commission.

At first blush, this certainly seems to hint that 43 is ready to listen to 41 a whole lot more than he has been. Time will tell.

11/8/2006 1:17:23 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [0] |  

Quick snapshot of what various national web eminences are talking about today:

--Josh Marshall warns that George Allen will try to steal the VA Senate election, if he hasn't already.

--Andrew Sullivan calls for Don Rumsfeld's firing and wonders if Bush will tap Joe Lieberman as Sec. of Defense, thereby allowing Repub. CT Governor Jodi Rell to appoint a Republican replacement--and keeping the Dems from controlling the Senate.

--At Hugh Hewitt's blog (he's conservative, kids), Dean Barnett blames the GOP for its own woes and urges George Allen not to litigate in hopes of keeping his Senate seat. Meanwhile, Hewitt himself salivates about all the fun conservative pundits are going to have over the next few years.

--The National Review's The Corner says a bunch of stupid shit, and seems totally unchastened (?) by yesterday's results.

--Daily Kos helpfully reprints an update on MT and VA futures from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, but doesn't do much else.

--And at MyDD, Matt Stoller cautions: don't hold your breath for bipartisanship.

11/8/2006 12:00:51 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [0] |  

Call me sentimental, but Sheldon Whitehouse's win over Lincoln Chafee in Rhode Island's US Senate race is the one Democratic victory I can't get excited about.

I know, I know--Whitehouse's victory could end up giving the Dems control of the Senate. So what's my damage? First off, when I interviewed Chafee for an article on his Republican primary race against Steve Laffey, he struck me as this odd, gentle, fragile figure. I thought Laffey (who is neither gentle nor fragile) would bump him off, and I was happy when he didn't. Now, odd as it seems, I kind of feel like giving Chafee a consolation call.

But it's more than that. While I'd like to see a Democratic Senate, I also like the idea of the moderate New England Republican tradition continuing, and Chafee was the embodiment of this dying culture. I also think it's remarkable that Chafee--despite his delicate mien--had the guts to vote against the president on the Iraq war. (He was the only GOP senator to do so.) And then there's the fact that, on the whole, Chafee is probably more progressive than Democratic Senate newbie/Rick Santorum slayer Bob Casey.

Anyway, what's done is done. I've heard good things about Whitehouse, and he may turn out to be an excellent senator. Still, I can't help wishing Chafee was going back to a Democrat-controlled Senate next year.

11/8/2006 10:54:10 AM by Adam Reilly | Comments [6] |  

[by David S. Bernstein] 

The cover of one New York tabloid blared “It’s Her Party” on the cover this morning, and the accompanying photo was of Hillary Clinton, not Nancy Pelosi. That was an outlier, even in NYC. Newsday put Pelosi on its cover with the words “It’s her House.” The Post said “Dems Clean House,” and relegated Clinton to a minor “Hill & Eliot Win” subhead.

The national nature of the election was bad luck for Hillary, on a night she certainly wanted to use as a launching pad for her expected ’08 Presidential run. She had an impressive night. It’s one thing to swoop in and use your husband’s popularity to win election the first time; it’s quite another to win re-election six years later -- by a nearly four-to-one landslide vote.

Her huge victory seals her bona fides as a Presidential candidate in her own right, and she gave a solid victory speech with big national themes; her catch-phrase is “a new course,” which nicely captures the current political mood of the nation. (And, at least to my ears, beats Barack Obama’s “Audacity of Hope,” and is certainly worlds better than John Kerry’s “…You get stuck in Iraq.”)

But the national spotlight proved elusive last night for Clinton -- although both MSNBC and CNN stayed with her when Joe “Party of One” Lieberman started his speech right in the middle of hers. The most common analysis of her speech, however, ran along the lines of: “I couldn’t take my eyes off of Bill, and that’s going to be a problem for her.” Meanwhile, Obama’s TV presence was so ubiquitous I expected to see him twirling across Dancing With the Stars. And for the forseeable future, the face of the Democratic Party -- the Sun’s opinion notwithstanding -- is undeniably Madame Speaker Pelosi’s.

11/8/2006 10:02:47 AM by Adam Reilly | Comments [0] |  

Throughout his campaign for governor, Deval Patrick made a point of saying that his candidacy transcended mere politics. Thanks to you, he told audiences again and again, a political campaign became a movement for change.

Last night, as he celebrated his landslide win over Republican Kerry Healey at the Hynes Convention Center, Patrick upped the ante: the existential revolution (my words) his campaign started could continue--would continue--when he takes over as governor. Here's the key passage, which bears quoting at length:

What I expect from you is that you keep this renewed sense of community alive, that you see your stake in each other every day, that you ask what you can do to make Massachusetts stronger and do it, that you don't let cynicism win, ever--even when I make mistakes. We didn't build up the grassroots just to win the election. I need you to govern in a new way, too, to make change real. That means both refusing the politics of fear and division "out there." But it also means some changes "in here," within the Democratic Party. We will learn to listen to those who want to help with what's wrong with Democrats just as openly as we do those who tell us what's wrong with Republicans. The grassroots is a power of citizenship all his own. It does not end with this election.

At the risk of being one of those cynics Patrick likes to rail against, here's the problem with this argument: campaigning and governing are two different beasts. As a candidate, Patrick didn't actually have to implement his vision for Massachusetts; he just had to share it with voters around the commonwealth, something he did with remarkable skill. (With this win, Patrick staked his claim as one of Massachusetts' great retail politicians.) But now comes the tough part. Can Patrick satisfy the infinite dreams of his supporters with the finite resources he'll have at his disposal? Which Patrick supporters will be gravely disappointed when Patrick submits his first budget--and will their support hold? How long will his various honeymoons (legislators, press, voters) last?

Of course, it's also possible to read the quote above as a bit of tough gamesmanship masquerading as New Age-y rhetoric. Maybe Patrick's words are really a warning to the Democrat-dominated Massachusetts House and Senate: Don't expect to run the show, guys, because I have a mandate--and I plan to use it. Interpret Patrick's remarks this way, though, and they still point up a fundamental paradox. As a candidate, Patrick inspired the public to dream big; as a governor, he can't make all those dreams come true.

I've been impressed by Patrick since I first interviewed him early last year, and I sincerely hope he's a terrific governor. Even if he is, though, making his revolution permament might be something even Patrick can't pull off.

11/8/2006 1:24:43 AM by Adam Reilly | Comments [6] |  

[by David S. Bernstein]

When the Kerry Healey folks assembled the Republican Party luminaries on the stage at the Copley Place Sheraton ballroom, in preparation for her concession speech, there weren't many household-recognizable faces; what few remain in the party are distancing themselves from her as rapidly as possible. (Up-and-coming state senator Scott Brown could be seen on TV, not far away at TV38's studios.)

And when Mitt Romney introduced Healey with the thought that "I think you'll be seeing more of her in four years," I think a few cringed.

At least Romney showed up. His track record now on getting people other than himself elected is pretty bleak. His all-out push to get Republican state legislators elected in '04 was a disaster. He blamed that on John Kerry Fever sweeping the Bay State. His hand-picked successor appears to have won barely a third of the vote tonight. Romney's spokesperson Eric Fehrnstrom told me that it "demonstrates how difficult it is for a Republican to win in Massachusetts"; or in other words, only a near-god like Romney can do it. That's not my hyperbole -- Fehrnstrom spoke of how Romney "descended from Mount Olympus" to win in 2002.

Romney was also, as chairman of the Republican Governors Association, in charge of getting GOP governors elected nationwide tonight -- and that looks like more failure. As I write this, the Democrats have gained five of those seats already, based on CNN projections, with several more looking like they're going that way as well.

So, perhaps Romney was at the Copley Sheraton because that's where the national cameras would not be. Best to lie low on a night like this.

As for the rest of the attendees, they were mostly consoling themselves with the belief that a Deval Patrick administration will be so horrible, that the state will turn back to the GOP. That is Patrick's burden now -- the voters have finally agreed, for the first time since Dukakis, to hand the state over to a Democrat. If they regret it, it might be another 16-year dry spell. That, at least, is the hope of the remains of the Massachusetts GOP.

 

11/7/2006 11:16:58 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [0] |  

[by David S. Bernstein]

Tonight's national vote seems to be, first and foremost, a massive denounciation of the current Iraq War policy. That would seem to put 2008 national Republican candidates -- like, oh, I don't know, Mitt Romney -- in a difficult spot.

So, I asked Romney's mouthpiece Eric Fehrnstrom whether, given tonight's vote, Republicans and Romney in particular will need to reposition themselves on Iraq, perhaps even in opposition to the President. The answer, in short: no.

"People want to win," he said. "They may not like the price that's being paid, but they want to win the war on terror.... The Governor supports the war on terror. In hindsight, there are some things that he would do differently."

What of the notion, held by more and more Americans, that the Iraq War was irrelevant to, and even detracted from, the war on terror? "Iraq is just one front of the war," Fehrnstrom said. "Regardless of the steps that led us into war, if we pull out now, we will hand the jihadists an enormous victory that will embolden them."

There you have it, the first post-'06 election (well, it was only 7:55pm, so not quite post-) Presidential positioning on Iraq, and Romney is lining up right beside President Bush. Smart strategy? Time will tell.

11/7/2006 10:30:33 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [1] |  

Via Boston.com.

I'd better head over to the Hynes.

11/7/2006 8:17:15 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [0] |  

Ted Kennedy's going to keep his seat, the Cable News Network is predicting.

Stop the presses.

Also, it looks like Kitty Harris A) won't be replacing Democratic Senator Bill Nelson in Florida and B) is officially the worst-dressed candidate of 2006. (Photo via Wonkette.)

11/7/2006 8:13:45 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [0] |  

Here's what Brian McNiff, spokesman for secretary of state Bill Galvin, told me a few minutes ago about ballot shortages in Boston:

"We understand that what happened was, some precincts ran low. They called in, and the Boston Police were shipping [additional ballots] out by cruiser. And anybody who is in line will get to vote, even if it's past 8 pm. If they're in line at 8, they vote."

Next I asked McNiff if some precincts had actually completely run out of ballots. His reply: "I think a couple did run out briefly, but they've been replenished."

Any Bostonians out there care to share what transpired when you hit the polls?

11/7/2006 7:57:27 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [4] |  

So says CNN, as of a few minutes ago.

To understand why a Democratic victory in the Ohio governor's race would be a big, big deal, check out this New Yorker piece. Blackwell is bad news.

11/7/2006 7:53:58 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [0] |  

So I get Boston's Election Department on the phone, and I ask what the deal is with the city running out of ballots.

"Right now, I have no idea," the woman on the other end replies. "Everyone's running around checking in voters." (City Hall's the polling place for Ward 3, Precinct 6, you see.)

So...do you guys still have ballots there?

"You know, I'm just a helper here, honey. I have no idea."

11/7/2006 7:35:55 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [0] |  

Just heard this from a reliable source. More to come when I have it.

Until then, ponder what this could do to Deval Patrick's margin in the governor's race.

UPDATE: The Herald (6:40 pm with a short blog post) and Globe (7:02 pm with a full-fledged story) have been on this for a while. Nothing on Blue Mass. Group yet. Also, nobody's picking up the phone at at City Hall right now.

Hyopethetically speaking: if Healey somehow beat Patrick in a squeaker, what would we do? Have a re-vote?

Forget Florida and Ohio--we've clearly got problems of our own here in MA.

11/7/2006 7:12:46 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [0] |  

I have it on good authority that the Healey camp expects to pull off an upset.

...

Just kidding! Seriously, at this point, all I can tell you is that David Bernstein and I will be hangin' with Kerry Healey and Deval Patrick tonight--in that order, thank goodness--and offering our reports later this evening. We'll also be weighing in on what goes down in this Battle for Congress that all the kids are talking about.

In the meantime, I'd like to share are some unsettling voting experiences. First off, when my wife and I went to vote this morning, we had a hard time identifying where exactly we were supposed to go inside Lynn English High School. Then, when we finally got there, the nice old lady who checked my wife in told her she wasn't on the registered voter list. After my wife was sent to some other nice old lady who was supposed to help her out, I gave my info to nice old lady #1. As she was looking for my name, I saw that my wife was on the list. Which prompted me to holler loudly to my wife, and her to come back to the check-in, and NOL#1 to chuckle amiably. See, it seems she didn't hear my wife's info correctly!

I know what you're thinking: "Well, what do you expect when you live in Lynn?" First, fuck off; and second, something even sketchier happened to a friend of mine in Cambridge. First, she had to give her name and address like three times to a confoundingly dense poll worker. And then--wait for it--my friend's roommate was GIVEN TWO BALLOTS. Just given them, for no reason. (She gave one back.)

Now, I'm sure that the Commonwealth is chockablock with voting venues where things have been humming along efficiently all day. Still, isn't that anecdotal evidence a tad disturbing?

11/7/2006 5:31:45 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [2] |  

The following interview with Jill Stein--the Green-Rainbow candidate for secretary of state, and the 2002 Green-Rainbow gubernatorial candidate--took place last Thursday, a couple days after Stein received an unexpected flurry of newspaper endorsements and one day before Stein's sixteen-minute debate with incumbent Democrat Bill Galvin. [NOTE: the debate actually ran 16 minutes, not 5; I originally wrote that Galvin had insisted on a 5-minute time limit, but moderator Jon Keller tells me I'm mistaken.]

In all honesty, I pretty much ignored this race after John Bonifaz was trounced by Galvin in the Democratic primary. My interview with Stein made me regret this. Galvin is an entrenched, extremely well-connected politician, and my guess is he'll have another lopsided victory this Tuesday. But Stein deserves to be taken seriously. Here's what she had to say:




Q. Why didn't you run for governor this time around?

A. I wanted to run in a race that I thought I could win. And my experience as a medical doctor, and a health and environmental advocate, has pointed me repeatedly to the issues of money in politics and influence peddling. And when I learned that in addition to having those really great issues, which I think are gateways involving all the other substantive issues--healthcare, housing, all that--when I learned that the race was likely to be otherwise uncontested, that is, a Democrat running alone and most likely an incumbent Democrat, I thought, Wow, this is too good to pass up.

Q. Do you think more people would have been paying attention to your campaign at an earlier date if John Bonifaz hadn’t challenged Bill Galvin in the primary?

A. That's probably true. Then again, maybe there'd have been no attention at all. I think there’s been an effort on Galvin’s part to just duck, and he would've been ducking me as much as he ducked John Bonifaz. I think the whole Beacon Hill machine did not want this race to surface, because it is a very clear choice between business as usual and a reform agenda. John Bonifaz presented that reform agenda as well, but being outside the party allows me to mobilize a lot of the opposition outside of the Democratic Party. I think there's a grave concern about wall-to-wall Democrats starting on November 7, in all the constitutional
offices, and in like 90 percent of the legislative seats. And that concern may be a real energizer in our race here in the last week.

Q. You talk bout the “Beacon Hill machine” not wanting this race to get a high profile. What do you mean by that? It sounds--

A. Conspiratorial? I don't believe there is a conspiracy where every one gets together across institutional lines. But I think there are strong pressures on many institutions--from the press to political parties and elected officials—there are very strong pressures within each of those institutions to stay the course, with regard to incumbency and with regards to the political system that currently prevails, where money, corporations, and political power really have converged.

The media is drawn up in that. I don't mean to say that there aren't very responsible and inspired journalists out there; there certainly are, but they have to fight institutional forces. Newspaper staffs have really been cut, so investigative reporting has pretty much come to an end. It's very hard, I think, for journalists to do more than amplify the hints and the direction that they're given from officeholders. And it's always at their peril that they question officeholders. It’s sort of the Judith Miller phenomenon, where the press needs to preserve its relationships in order to get story. You shake things up at your peril.

Q. Is it fair to say that you waited too long to start courting press assiduously?

A. Well, what I understand from my press person is that he's been making calls all along, and it's been very hard for him to get calls returned. We are a low-budget campaign. That's the reality of being outside the machine that has money. Were we not spread so thin, I would've been following up on unreturned calls myself. But I think nonetheless it's better late than never, and there are press that have been receptive, and that we've had a dialogue with.

Q. You talked about John Bonifaz’s reform agenda and your reform agenda. Are they one and the same?

A. We're coming from our diff experiences, and we have very different backgrounds. I come to the secretary's race as a healthcare advocate, and as a medical doctor in the clinic witnessing just an epidemic of preventable health problems, many of which are linked to environmental causes--in particular: asthma, cancer, learning disabilities. Just witnessing that as a physician, I moved into area of policy advocacy, to try to stop people from being thrown into the river instead of just dragging them out. I decided to go upstream and work on policy,. And when I worked on policy, I learned that all the facts and the values and the reason in the world doesn't move policy; money moves policy. And from there I went to working on clean elections to reform that. I learned--when clean elections was ambushed in the backrooms on a voice vote by the legislature, without a recorded vote--I learned that it's hard work to change the system. It's a fight. And from there I was recruited to run for office.

I carry those issues with me. I'm fundamentally rooted in health, environment, community economics--that's really where my experience lies. Essentially, I'm issue oriented, and I’m very concerned with the corruption in the system that prevents us from moving forward, that's really got us into a terrible backslide here in Massachusetts, where we're losing ground very rapidly.
The bottom line is, I'm very focused on money and influence peddling as an overarching issue, and I'm very concerned about voting rights as one aspect of our democracy, which is in crisis. But it's not my lead issue. My lead issue is that our democracy is in crisis, and there are many aspects to that. Money and influence is a big one. That's really where my focus is

Q. So how would you as secretary of state try to address that big issue?

A. Well, the secretary can play a very important role, because the secretary oversees the critical institutions of democracy--both the institutions that support it and the institutions that threaten it, the support being elections and public information, and the threats being the funding of those elections and lobbying and the behavior of corporations. So the secretary has enormous latitude to move those issues.

We organize our agenda in three parts: open up Beacon Hill; get the big money out; let the people back in. That's sort of our answer to the crisis of democracy that we're in. I can tell you a little bit about each. Open up Beacon Hill--let's apply the open meeting law. The secretary does not oversee the open meeting law, but the secretary does oversee  public records, and is the chief public information officer for the commonwealth. That really gives the secretary not just the ability but the responsibility to talk about the flow of information and the closed process on Beacon Hill. Few people out there are aware that the open meeting law does not apply to the legislature; nor does the public records law. That's why we can have major healthcare bills negotiated in back rooms, written by lobbyists for months at a stretch, and released the night before the vote—a 145-page bill, rammed through with a unanimous vote the next day, sight unseen, by the legislature. It’s just mind-boggling. And the extent of the betrayal in that healthcare bill is only now surfacing.

To my mind, that's a poster child of the influence-peddling process that prevails. The healthcare bill was written by insurance companies, and to some extent by the hospitals, but it's really an insurance company bill, and it provides a windfall for those companies at great expense to the health and economic security of the members of the commonwealth. This is the plan that somehow forgot to include children, a fact that only came to light a couple weeks ago. This is the plan that also makes it very easy for large businesses to basically back out of coverage of workers by providing an alternative system that costs them some $295, rather than some $6000 or $10,000. And this is the plan that forces people who can't afford insurance to buy stripped-down, useless health insurance policies that do not protect financial security or health. This is backroom politics at its worst, and it's such an illustration of the spin machine that's still patting itself on back, even as the plan is unraveling. If you're below poverty level and don't have healthcare, this plan is good, and that's some 40,000 people, something like that. But then there are about 500,000 others for whom this is a very bad thing.

Back to the open process which we do not have, and of which that is a case in point: if we had an open process, and people knew in advantage what these bills are that are coming down the pike, and we had hearings and time to dialogue with our elected officials about these bills, it would be transformative. That's one place to start--close the exemption.

Q. But there were hearings on the healthcare bill, right?

A. There were hearings on the subject, not hearings on the bill. And that's often used as a smokescreen by Beacon Hill. They'll have hearings, they'll have listening sessions, but you don't see the bill. The surplus land bill, which was an effort to offload up to 40,000 acres of very critical state-owned land, currently protected by some degree of process and community input--all those safeguards were going to be thrown away in a bill that I was very involved in watch-dogging. There was a hearing early on—the bill wasn't even written when that hearing was held. The secretary is the chief public information officer, so the secretary can direct  public attention where the secretary thinks it's vital to the public interest, and nothing is more vital to the public interest than an open and accountable state government.

The first thing I will do as secretary is propose legislation to close the exemption on the open meeting law. This needs a system fix, and as the bills come along where the incredible cost to taxpayers and families of this kind of closed and wasteful influence peddling [is evident]--this closed system where influence peddling prevails--I would be pointing that out as secretary. For example, the Globe published the day after the healthcare bill passed, unanimously except for two votes, the information that 7.5 million dollars had been spent on lobbying for the purpose, essentially, of buying the right to draft the bill by the health insurance industry. I don’t know anybody who read that and wasn’t absolutely outraged about it. In Wisconsin, with the click of a mouse, you can find out exactly who is lobbying on which bills in real time, in advance of votes and that’s a central thing that I would do to open up the process and get the big money out. We need openness: not only open meetings, but we need openness on this engine that is truly the driver in our political system, and that is money. Money below the table, money below the radar. That’s not to say that it is illegal, but it certainly does not serve the interest of the people of the commonwealth. How do we discourage that? Well, Wisconsin begins to get us there. We need a one-click system for clarifying who’s lobbying, who’s behind
which bills, what portion of their budget is going toward it.

Q. Does the Wisconsin system let you see which legislators have been the recipients of lobbying money?

A. No, it does not. That’s step two for us. I think our OCPF system is a very good beginning, but it needs two things in my view. Say you go to look up the insurance companies’ campaign contributions--more oft than not, you can’t do it, because you can’t find the business and the employer for many contributors. That information is requested, but candidates are not required to get it. In California, you must provide that information within sixty days; if you don’t, you give the money back. It would be very nice to see our regulations amended. And it may take a law to do that, and it may be very hard to move such a law in the current environment. Nonetheless, at the end of the day it’s people who move laws, and the secretary can help clarify for people that this is not just a so called good government issue. This is not an abstraction, this is whether you’re getting screwed on your healthcare, and I think the issue needs redefining in the same way that the secretary’s office needs redefining.
Bill Galvin would like us to think that it’s an office of number crunching, of bureaucracy, of doing the Census. What he cites as his major achievement is that he gets the Census done. Great. People need to understand that the secretary is—should be—a watchdog for our democracy, and an advocate for the reforms that we desperately need to get democracy back on track, and to get the influence peddlers off our back, because right now that’s where they are. And we are paying an enormous cost as taxpayers for that influence peddling.

Q. Secretary Galvin also points to the work he’s done on securities regulation. Do you think he’s done a decent job in that area?

A. Yeah, I think so. He has a very good attorney who oversees that department who’s been doing a great job. This has been--if you look at the secretary’s web site, this is usually the headline, so this appears to be his chief priority. And that’s important, but it’s also important to remember that securities fraud grows out of a permissive culture of political influence peddling.

Q. In what sense?

A. Think of Enron, and think of the influence peddling that enabled Enron to get away with what it got away with as long as it did. That could be a long and extended discussion in and of itself. To my mind, the important point is that the secretary has a slew of responsibilities, and taking care of investors should not take the place of taking care of voters. Investments are very important, particularly for our pensions and so on, but most people who are gaining the major benefit from investments--it’s a relatively small fraction of the population. Whereas everybody’s at risk all the time from the threats to our democracy, which I think are big time, and I would love to jump there for a minute.

Q. Sure. I’m surprised Diebold hasn’t come up yet.

A. That’s a piece of it. It’s a very ominous threat on the horizon. There are other threats that are right here that are having a devastating impact right here and now. Let me point to what we call the vital signs of democracy, here in Massachusetts, some of the vital statistics. If you look at money in politics, it’s big, it’s going up rapidly, you need to be a multimillionaire to run an effective statewide campaign in the current system. Look at competitiveness, which has taken a nosedive in this state, under Galvin’s watch, in fact. In 1990, something like 66 percent of our legislative races were contested. Now it’s about 25 percent that are contested. We’ve fallen much farther and much faster than most states; now we sit at the bottom of the heap in uncontested elections. So by that criterion we are in tough shape. Look at our incumbent reelection rate of about 98 percent. We’re in effect a Soviet-style democracy, where legislators rotate into office every two years, if they so choose. It’s a pretty shocking rate that most people are not aware of. But few incumbents are not reelected if they choose to run.

Q. But is it the secretary of state’s job to create an atmosphere of democratic foment?

A. Well, I think the secretary needs to be the watchdog for our democracy, and there are many ways that the secretary can advocate for restoring our democracy. And again, I speak to the vital signs only to clarify that we’re in tough shape by those measures. And I would include in them that lobbying is high. The most recent cross-state comparison, which was a couple years ago, by the Center for Public Integrity, basically put Massachusetts at the top in lobbyist expenditures per capita, and gave us a 7-1 ratio of lobbyists per legislature. By several counts, our democracy is not doing well. Add to that now this routine of lobbyists writing legislation in the backrooms, secret until the 11th hour, and then rammed through with unanimous votes, Democrats and Republicans voting together, one big happy family…. This happens not only with the healthcare bill. The economic stimulus package, the budget--major legislation is tending to move in this direction. This is not good. This is not what democracy looks like. This is what the Soviet Union looked like.

Q. The Soviet analogy strikes me as a risky one, because—

A. We have protections they didn’t have.

Q. I don’t worry that if I write something negative about Mitt Romney or Bob Travaglini, that I’m going to be trundled away in a truck. I understand why you use it, but it strikes me as the sort of analogy that makes your average Democrat say, Jill Stein’s way out there. I’m not going to take her seriously.

A. Let me stop you, because usually this is a joke in passing. I say it half facetiously, because as I described the system to a Russian scholar, that was his comment: Gee, this sounds like the Soviet Union. We say that our democracy is in crisis, and it is. We don’t say it’s a Soviet style dictatorship. But on the other hand, this is not what a democracy looks like.

Q. So what could you do to as secretary to create more competitive elections?

A. Open the system up; we talked about the open meeting law. Get big money out. How do we do that? One piece is just disclosure. The movement of money beneath the radar is clear. If we can begin to link the lobbyist database that connects you from a bill to a lobbyist with the corporations database, which connects you from corporations hiring lobbyists, to the membership of that corporation, to the campaign contributors database that allows you connect names to political donations, then voters and watchdogs can begin to say to their legislators, How are you voting on this bill? I’ve noticed that there’s a lot of money pouring in from the health insurance industry to your political campaign. I want you to understand that I’ve read the bill; I know what’s in that bill. And the next time an election comes around, if your vote has been bought by the insurance companies on this, you’ve lost my vote, and I’m going to work to get you out. Suddenly we have power as voters and taxpayers to connect the dots. Right now those connections do not exist, but they are very real. Everyone knows who’s funding political campaigns. Everyday people are the exception, if they’re contributing $25 or $50. The usual suspects—insurance companies, financial services, utilities—the usual suspects; that’s who funds the political system, essentially. So simply by creating disclosure we empower voters to make our democracy work.

The other piece of getting big money out is advocating for public financing for political camps that agree to forgo big money contributions. The voters enthusiastically supported the clean elections bill. It was ambushed on a voice vote. It would have cost us $12 million a year. In lieu of that, we pay a billion dollars a year as energy consumers. You may recall the deregulation bill which was pushed by the lobbyists--that’s a lobby tax. Every household in Massachusetts is paying up to 30 percent on their energy bill thanks to the lobby tax that clean elections would be an alternative to. Look at the cost of pharmaceuticals. We passed bulk purchasing, but the industry conducted a lobbying campaign to keep it from being implemented; they poured money in and they succeeded. How much more are we paying as a result? Off the street, you’re paying twice as much, maybe three times as much as you’d be paying in Canada, so we’re paying a big price as health care consumers.

Look at the single payer healthcare system, the sort of Medicare-for-all that has three percent overhead. In Massachusetts, one of the most recent studies suggests that we’re paying 39 percent overhead. That’s our healthcare surcharge. Look at transportation. We’re being hit with the debt from the Big Dig, which itself was product of influence peddling. That debt’s being shifted onto us as taxpayers. Whatever they’re saying right now, there are many indications that there are new tolls around the corner; they’re going to expand, they won’t only be on the Mass. Pike. The gas tax increase is likely around the corner, to the tune of $270 million, which will be on the taxpayers’ backs. And the T, the MBTA above all. Fares are skyrocketing because the Big Dig debt was transferred to the T, and that’s outrageous, that people who aren’t using the Big Dig are paying for it to the teeth right now. And all this is kept very quiet. These are very questionable creative bookkeeping techniques, which are so begging for scrutiny. The bottom line here is that we were going to pay $10 million or $12 million a year. Instead, we are paying billions each year.

Another one: healthcare costs from environmental pollution are said to be about a billion a year in terms of asthma, lead, mercury, learning disabilities, pesticide exposure, and so on. Huge, incredible costs that are imposed on families and all of us as taxpayers. The list goes on and on, but we are paying big time for the influence peddling tax. That influence peddling tax just dwarfs by orders of magnitude the very small amount we would pay to liberate our election system from stranglehold of big money. So as secretary, as chief public information officer, as the person responsible for fair elections, I will be a relentless advocate for the reforms that people already support.

Final thing: bring the people back in, get the money out and let the people in. That’s where I support really all the reforms that John Bonifaz talked about, the reforms to remove obstacles between voters and voting. We need people to vote, particularly people who are most strapped, who are most oppressed by our very unforgiving economic system which makes it hard to leave your job and get to the voting booth. Same day voter registration, Election Day holiday—these are no-brainers. Support for linguistic minorities so they have proper translations. Instant-runoff voting, or so-called ranked choice, so that voters aren’t blackmailed into voting for their second worst choice. I think on the whole people have greatly appreciated the range of debate in the governor’s race. That should be the rule not the exception. And if people feel like they need more time to hear the candidates, let’s give them more time! I’d very much like to see media and the corporations of media held to a higher standard--and I mean particularly TV and cable--a higher standard for public interest airtime. The secretary doesn’t have much to do with that at this point, but I think that’s a critical piece of the puzzle.

And then, last but not least, voting machines, I think it’s pathetic that we are bringing the Diebold TSX into Massachusetts just as other states are barring it. I don’t know if you listen to NPR’s Science Friday, but this was the subject just last week, not just Diebold but the Diebold TSX. And now Bill Galvin’s saying it’s a different TSX. If it is, well, Ira Flatow’s expert guest had not heard that the TSX had been miraculously reformed and is now reliable. This is Diebold’s standard line: you didn’t like our track record for the past three years? Well, never mind, we’re now completely reliable! Hello?

We should not be bringing Diebold in. You probably know about Maryland ordering, on an emergency basis, its 1.6 million ballots after Diebold failed. Bill Galvin is claiming this model has printer, but the Diebold TSX has had a printer attached to it for a while, and it’s a lousy printer. It’s a printer with a thermal tape, which is rather fallible; you need a magnifying glass to read it. Unless you’re doing an audit, the paper trail is meaningless. If Mr. Galvin doesn’t know that, where’s he been? There’s no necessary connection between the paper trail and what the machine is automatically recording; the only way to know is to do an audit. It defies common sense--not to mention that he has failed the disability community, to whom he promised and for whom he’s required to provide assistance [under the Help America Vote Act]. That doesn’t mean the unreliable, tamper-friendly, touch-screen voting machines; there are many other options here. The disability community needed to be a part of this conversation and to be involved in the choice, and from what I hear they didn’t have a whole lot to say about it. And here we are providing one training session for poll workers who are pretty stretched as it is, whose average age is 72, many of whom are not computer literate, and now they have to learn to manage a pretty temperamental computer. This does not bode well. The good thing is that the machine is an option; it’s not something that voters are going to have to use. But the Diebold should not be a contender here, and it’s really reprehensible that Bill Galvin got himself in this position of having neglected the disabled community, and now he’s in a rush at the 11th hour to try to do damage control.

The bottom line is, I have a different vision of the office. I don’t see the office as a bureaucrat. And as much as [former Florida sec. of state] Katherine Harris showed us how the office can be used for harm, it has that much potential to be used for good. The office should not confine itself to the bureaucracy of the status quo, which is really where it’s been. We need a new vision for the office, because our democracy is in a brave new world right now, which we all pay the price for; as taxpayers, as people who use the healthcare system we can no longer afford. At our peril, we would continue along this course. And I hope as secretary to help take our democracy back, to be a watchdog for waste and influence peddling, and to blow the whistle so we can turn this around and get Beacon Hill back to work for the families and the communities of the commonwealth.

Q. Jill, thanks for taking the time to talk with me.

A. Great.

11/6/2006 9:33:17 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [1] |  

[Guest blogging: David S. Bernstein]

Sandra Reavis was attacked Wednesday night, but not by a creepy stranger in a dimly lit parking garage. She was allegedly stabbed to death by her husband in their Dorchester home, a far more common scenario. Indeed, we have a virtual epidemic this year of women being killed by men they know, if Kerry Healey is interested. Dominique Samuels was allegedly strangled, doused in gasoline, and set on fire by an acquaintence in her Roxbury apartment. Keslea Owens of Wilbraham was beaten to death with a hammer, allegedly by a friend. Valerie Oransky was beaten to death, allegedly by a co-worker, in the bathroom of the New Bedford restaurant where they worked. Rachel Richards was bludgeoned to death, allegedly by her husband, in the bedroom of their Rowley home. Elaine Romero was found stabbed to death, allegedly by her husband, on a neighbor’s sun porch in Pocasset. Carla Souza and her 11-year-old son were beaten to death, allegedly by her husband, in their Framingham house. Michelle Barclay was fatally shot in her Swampscott condo, allegedly by her husband. Bonnie Poku of Springfield was allegedly stabbed to death by her son.

Hey, I’m just getting warmed up -- I know of 31 women murdered in Massachusetts this year. By July, Jane Doe Inc. had already counted as many domestic-violence homicides as it did all last year.

Here’s another interesting item from a murder late Tuesday night in Lowell. The victim, a 21-year-old man, was out on probation after serving two years for raping a 13-year-old girl.

If under the Romney/Healey administration convicted child rapists are out drinking at Halloween parties two years later, just how much worse could “Free-‘em-all” Deval make things than Kerry the Kriminologist has?

11/3/2006 4:52:26 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [4] |  

Something I should have mentioned in my story this week, but didn't: the Herald got the better of the Globe when it came to blogging the governor's race. As a rule, the Herald's Daily Briefing--written mostly by reporter Kim Atkins--was A) more substantial and B) a better read than the Globe's Political Intelligence, a team effort led by political editor David Dahl.

P.I. had its moments, but there weren't enough of them. And the Globe's refusal to allow reader comments didn't help.

If you spotted any other glaring omissions, please let me know.

11/3/2006 10:08:01 AM by Adam Reilly | Comments [0] |  

Does she have one? In Massachusetts politics, I mean?

It's hard to think so. Healey's dour, angry, off-putting performance in last night's final debate was a fitting coda to her dour, angry, off-putting campaign. (Dan Kennedy has already said as much.) Not many people seem to like Healey these days, and even her fans say she's been a bad candidate.

Then again, maybe I'm being too hasty, as a former Healey apologist who's recanted with a vengeance. So what say you, readers? Could Healey make, say, a credible challenge for a congressional seat a few years down the road? Or--as a Democratic operative told me a few weeks back--will Jane Swift have a better chance at a political comeback than Healey after the votes are counted next week?

11/2/2006 3:24:18 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [3] |  

Does the Muffster really believe this stuff? From an AP story that ran this afternoon:

Republican gubernatorial candidate Kerry Healey deflected criticism that she has run a negative campaign, saying she never intended so much attention to be paid to ads featuring a woman being stalked and highlighting her Democratic opponent's advocacy on behalf of a convicted rapist.

Healey told The Associated Press in an interview on Wednesday that it was the media that played up her opponent's support for a convicted rapist — and not her campaign's ads.

"The media has spent too much time focusing on this one issue and therefore we as a campaign have ended up spending more time talking about this one issue than about many of the many other substantive issues," Healey said.

Whatever gets her through the night, I guess.

11/1/2006 6:16:55 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [1] |  

He gets the lede--over Harold Ford!--in a story on how race is/isn't impacting the '06 elections.

Expect a lot more of this in the coming months.

Also, the New Republic's recent piece on Patrick is worth a read, too, even though it's a bit credulous. (What is this Republican "machine" Patrick is supposed to be slaying, exactly?)

11/1/2006 11:56:44 AM by Adam Reilly | Comments [0] |  

Look, you can say John Kerry's stupid "stupid" joke was supposed to be about George Bush. But arguing that Kerry's handling of the post-joke ruckus could somehow help Democrats? Charley, I agree with you 90-plus percent of the time, but that strikes me as incredibly far-fetched.

Jon Keller thinks Kerry can kiss 2008 goodbye if this debacle ends up hurting the Democrats in the midterms. I'll agree, and go further: this whole episode will put the kabosh Kerry's '08 dreams, no matter what happens next Tuesday. And it should. He's not the right standard-bearer for the Democratic Party.

11/1/2006 11:09:30 AM by Adam Reilly | Comments [4] |