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DAVID S. BERNSTEIN

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Just Say No

Lefty activists at the Massachusetts Democratic Convention and Netroots Nation are finding it easier to fight the right wing than to champion their own
The key to understanding American politics these days is recognizing that it's easier to oppose a candidate or policy than it is to promote one of your own.

By: DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | June 13, 2012

Can Netroots make a difference in November – and beyond?

Rallying the troops
Online progressive activists have grown and developed to the point where they are ready to play critical roles in 2012 elections all over the country.

By: DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | May 30, 2012

From the penitentiary to the presidential race, it’s our annual Memorial Day roast of Massachusetts pols

Surveying the Damage
Welcome to the fourth annual Boston Phoenix Memorial Day Roast of Massachusetts politicians! I love looking around the room every year, seeing so many familiar faces of elected officials.

By: DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | May 25, 2012

A More Perfect Union

By embracing full marriage equality, President Obama both reflected and hastened real change on many fronts
People will surely debate for years to come whether President Barack Obama's self-described "evolution" on universal, legal, same-sex marriage caused, or simply reflected, a turning point on the issue in the United States.

By: DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | May 18, 2012

Mitt & the GOP Boys’ Club

Romney needs to reach out to women voters, but his party has few who can help him do it
Last week, Barack Obama's re-election campaign launched a Web slide show, "The Life of Julia," depicting a woman helped throughout her years by Obama policies, and warning that — if elected — Mitt Romney would undo all of them.

By: DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | May 10, 2012

Could the Bay State’s Ron Paul-loving delegates ruin Romney’s coronation?

Mitt’s Massachusetts Massacre
Saturday was an embarrassment of epic proportions for Mitt Romney and the Massachusetts Republican Party — an organization that, as I've chronicled in recent months, is essentially an extension of the Romney machine.

By: DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | May 02, 2012

Prescription Pothole

For the sick in need of medical marijuana, it looks like the people will have to provide the relief that their representatives won’t
It seems strange to say that politicians lack the courage to pass a bill that's favored by the vast majority of their constituents. But that's where Massachusetts stands on its long, strange trip to legalize distribution of medically prescribed marijuana.

By: DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | April 25, 2012

Mitt bulks up

Up to Old Tricks Dept.
If there's one thing the Mitt Romney team excels at, it's manipulating campaign-finance rules.

By: DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | April 18, 2012

Five years into Therese Murray’s tenure as president, the State Senate seems to have run out of steam

Sleepy Senate
Therese Murray's fifth anniversary as State Senate president passed by with little fanfare last month.

By: DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | April 05, 2012

Ranking and rating the possible successors as Senate president

Who's next
State senators insist that nobody is thinking about succession when Therese Murray's tenure as Senate president ends.

By: DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | April 04, 2012

Romney can live with the ‘Etch A Sketch’ gaffe, but not without the guy who said it

Fehrnstrom ex machina
In late November, Mitt Romney sat for a rare interview, with Bret Baier of Fox News.

By: DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | March 28, 2012

The Massachusetts Republican Party is undergoing massive disruption — or finding the right balance, depending on your view

Chaos theory
The stereotype of Massachusetts Republican State Committee members, at the local or state level, is of genteel, moneyed Brahmins discreetly delivering their contribution checks during a pleasant social gathering over wine and brandy.

By: DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | March 26, 2012

Democrats are gleeful over Mitt Romney’s bruising primary path, but Romney is still the fight Barack Obama doesn’t want

Bland ambition
Back in mid January, when the presidential primary season began and interest in the Republican candidates spread beyond the tight community of political junkies, Mitt Romney's previously untarnished reputation with the general public took a nasty turn.

By: DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | March 14, 2012

Great Scott

New polls show Scott Brown winning re-election to the Senate. That’s no accident; he’s been out earning it.
After months without new polling on the high-profile Massachusetts Senate race, four firms took the pulse of the race in February — all finding incumbent Republican Scott Brown ahead of presumed Democratic nominee Elizabeth Warren.

By: DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | March 07, 2012

All signs go for Joe

So far, the family mystique is working entirely in favor of Joe Kennedy III's Congressional bid — but recent events show how unpredictable Camelot can be
In his well-executed congressional-campaign launch two weeks ago, Joe Kennedy III took advantage of the intense media interest generated by his family bloodline to convey the message that he wishes to be viewed independently of those family ties.

By: DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | February 29, 2012

The Feds bus convicted former speaker Sal DiMasi to Worcester, sending Beacon Hill into a panic

Sal's baaaaaack!
For nearly a year and a half, Beacon Hill has been operating under the specter of the Massachusetts Probation Department patronage scandal.

By: DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | February 22, 2012

Mitt's Charlie Card

It's no surprise that Barack Obama would copy from Deval Patrick's re-election playbook. But why is Mitt Romney making Charlie Baker's mistakes?
Last week, Mitt Romney stood uncomfortably to the side as he accepted the endorsement of reality-show blowhard and occasional birther Donald Trump in Las Vegas.

By: DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | February 22, 2012

The Massachusetts legislature is the principal roadblock to putting the state's criminal-justice system on the right track

House of Incorrections
As you read this, Beacon Hill is debating a "three-strikes" crime bill, while waiting for the US Attorney's Office to hand down indictments in the scandal over patronage at the probation department.

By: DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | February 01, 2012

The Dr. Phil Years

Before she became a political phenomenon, Elizabeth Warren grew beyond academia to take her message to the public
The pundits and politicos have had a tough time analyzing Elizabeth Warren as a candidate in the coming race for US Senate with Republican incumbent Scott Brown.

By: DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | January 25, 2012

America's Next Top Kennedy

Joe III is the new Kennedy on the block, and his campaign for Congress inevitably has Bay Staters thinking of Camelot
We are all mere mortals, Massachusetts pols like to say, and they are Kennedys.

By: DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | January 18, 2012

Bus stopped?

The iconic campaign bus is no longer full of newspaper reporters writing for the folks back home. Are the political-junkie Web sites filling the void?
The media mob will have high-tailed it out of New Hampshire by the time you read this.

By: DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | January 11, 2012

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