Talking Politics

City Hall domino effect

DAVID S. BERNSTEIN — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 06:06:30 GMT

Sam Yoon starts the MayorMania
Political prospects are being reassessed inside the rumor-hungry walls of City Hall, all because of an invitation to a party 3000 miles away.

Political prospects are being reassessed inside the rumor-hungry walls of City Hall, all because of an invitation to a party 3000 miles away.

A fundraiser for At-Large City Councilor Sam Yoon in Northern California was pitched by its hosts as a way to help elect Yoon “first Asian-American mayor of Boston.” One of the organizers posted the invite with those words to his personal blog, where it soon came to the attention of the Boston media.

Yoon fueled the fire by issuing a conspicuous non-denial — which he continues to stand by. “I haven’t made a decision,” he tells the Phoenix.

Some City Council insiders are convinced that Yoon has indeed decided to launch a mayoral bid. That complicates matters for fellow citywide councilor Michael Flaherty, who is widely believed to be planning his own campaign for mayor. Those same sources say Flaherty will run regardless of Yoon’s decision — though it would certainly affect his campaign strategy, and perhaps the timing of his final decision and announcement.

If Yoon and Flaherty both do take the plunge, that would create two openings among the four at-large seats — heightening interest in what is already likely to be an active City Council race.

Two candidates have announced their bids for next year’s at-large contest: Republican Doug Bennett, who works at the Suffolk criminal clerk’s office, and Haitian community organizer Jean-Claude Sanon. At least two others — Felix Arroyo Jr. and Tomas Gonzalez — are rumored to be considering campaigns. Meanwhile, the mayoral intrigue may be one contributing factor in district councilor Michael Ross having apparently lined up the votes needed to secure the presidency of the council next year.

The Phoenix has learned from several sources, including two councilors, that Ross has — at least for the moment — secured the necessary seven votes to succeed Maureen Feeney as leader of the 13-member body.

A rule adopted by the Council this past year, which limits councilors to two consecutive years as president, bars Feeney from retaining her post. Feeney has supported Steve Murphy to succeed her, with backing from Mayor Tom Menino, according to several sources. But Yoon and Flaherty are supporting Ross, say sources — some of whom speculate that the two mayoral hopefuls may believe the relatively independent Ross will give them a more open platform to conduct high-profile hearings critical of Menino’s administration. Others close to Ross strongly deny any such arrangement. (Yoon would not confirm for the Phoenix whether he has committed his vote, or to whom.)

Financial fallout

DAVID S. BERNSTEIN — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 23:40:05 GMT

The devastating wall street crisis has a potential silver lining — if you’re a Massachusetts politician looking for a foothold
The current US financial disaster will roil Massachusetts residents in myriad ways.

FREEFALL WINDFALL: Will Tim Cahill benefit politically from the economic crisis?

The current US financial disaster will roil Massachusetts residents in myriad ways. But while most of us worry about our jobs, our mortgages, and our heating oil, rest assured that some in the state are thinking hard about how all of this will affect their political careers.

Massachusetts State Treasurer Tim Cahill, for example, has been keeping a significantly high profile in recent weeks, doing on-air interviews with NECN and giving quotes to almost every publication in the area. That’s no shocker — in a massive financial crisis, the guy handling the state’s billions figures to have something useful to say.

But it’s hard not to see Cahill’s ubiquity as at least partly political. Cahill, a Democrat, is much rumored to be mulling a run for governor — against Deval Patrick in 2010, or sooner if Patrick heads to Washington as part of a Barack Obama administration. “Tim Cahill hasn’t been too shy about what his ambitions are,” says one close State House observer.

Of anyone in the state, Cahill arguably has the most to gain — or lose — politically from the subprime-mortgage catastrophe that has devastated both Wall Street and the US economy. He could be seen as the one who guided the state through rocky shoals, or as the guy in charge of the patient when it started to flat line.

The last treasurer who ran for governor — Shannon O’Brien in 2002 — was pilloried for the poor performance of the state pension fund after 9/11. “[Mitt] Romney basically blamed me for the stock-market crash,” says O’Brien. “You can be doing the best job in the world, and they’re only going to see the latest numbers.”

A cynic, then, might suggest that Cahill is trying to proactively ensure that he comes through this as a hero, rather than a goat. He made sure it was widely reported, for example, that he had to go through hoops to secure funds for the state’s local-aid payments at the end of September. He told that story both to illustrate the need for congressional action and to cast himself as the man whose expert action saved towns from ruin.

Cahill also has been criticizing the Patrick administration, and the state legislature, all year. He blasted the budget they passed this summer as unaffordable — which now looks prophetic, as Patrick seeks to strip hundreds of millions from it through “9C” emergency cuts. He further criticized the numerous bond bills enacted this year as potentially overloading the state’s debt.

Granite up for grabs

DAVID S. BERNSTEIN — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 18:32:45 GMT

Why McCain, Obama, and their supporters are swooping down on New Hampshire
Presidential candidates and their surrogates spend most of their time in high-population, close-contest areas.

‘All’ for none
This year, for the first time, New Hampshire voters will not be able to vote a straight party-line ballot in one motion. The state banned “straight-ticket voting” in July, which will force voters to fill in their ballots in each race — previously, they have had the option of filling in an “all Democrats” or “all Republicans” oval at the top. Roughly a quarter of all voters in the state used the straight-ticket option in 2006.

Both parties are claiming that the change will help them. Democrats say that, historically, straight-ticket voting has helped Republicans. GOP sources point out that, in 2006, thanks to intense anti-Republican anger, most straight-ticket voting was Democratic.

Presidential candidates and their surrogates spend most of their time in high-population, close-contest areas, swinging quickly on runs through Minnesota-Wisconsin-Iowa, for example, or Michigan-Ohio-Pennsylvania. But in the past week, Barack Obama, John McCain, and Joe Biden went out of their way to visit New Hampshire, a small prize far removed from any other 2008 electoral contest.

There is no big secret to the gush of interest in the Granite State, which has affixed itself to the short list of presidential battlegrounds. Had Al Gore received just 7000 more votes in New Hampshire eight years ago, he would have received the state’s four electoral votes — and there would have been no President George W. Bush.

The past two presidential contests went late into election night, as states tallied their razor-thin margins with the fate of the free world in the balance. With national polls again showing a dead heat, and electoral-college projections similarly neck-and-neck, it is very possible that a few votes in one state could again make the difference.

But not knowing which state — of at least a dozen close battlegrounds, according to analysts — holds that key, campaigns are going all out for every last possible vote, in all of them. They are fighting with street-by-street urgency not only in Florida and Ohio, but in Virginia, and Colorado, and, yes, in little New Hampshire.

“New Hampshire is obviously very important,” says top Obama campaign advisor David Axelrod, in Concord this past Friday evening with his candidate. “It’s a state we have to keep a strong focus on.”

The enthusiasm gap

DAVID S. BERNSTEIN — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:53:53 GMT

This election, with Obama having stoked pennant fever in Denver, it is the Dems who have cornered the excitement market
The selection of gun-shooting, anti-abortion, creationist, doctrinaire conservative Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as John McCain’s vice-presidential nominee has finally got the GOP’s conservative base excited.

The selection of gun-shooting, anti-abortion, creationist, doctrinaire conservative Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as John McCain’s vice-presidential nominee has finally got the GOP’s conservative base excited. The right-wing talk-show hosts and religious leaders who had been lukewarm over McCain — and fearful that he really might put Senator Joe Lieberman on the ticket — are beside themselves with glee.

Once again, as in 2000 and 2004, the Republican base will get fired up for November. Conservative religious groups will distribute fliers about abortion, homosexuals, and atheism. Evangelical churches will run busses to the polling places. Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity will warn, hour after hour, of the impending socialistic state of Barack Obama, and the inevitable nuclear attack on American soil.

Palin is part of McCain’s attempt to reclaim the Republican advantage in party-base enthusiasm, an edge which arguably won the past two presidential elections for the GOP. This year, that advantage was seen as heavily favoring the Democrats.

But not only has McCain started to energize his conservatives, fervor was also waning in recent weeks among Democrats, due to in-fighting, uncertainty, and tightening poll numbers — to the point that Democrats arriving in Denver this past week for their national convention seemed surprisingly nervous about the election, and noticeably cautious in their enthusiasm.

Like Red Sox fans in the 86 years of darkness, Democratic insiders bear the scars of past broken hearts, from times when they previously let themselves believe that their time had come — only to see victory elude them like a ground ball between the legs of Al Gore and John Kerry.

To mix Red Sox metaphors, it is as though they have come to expect that Karl Rove lurks in the batter’s box like Bucky Dent, always ready to drive one over the Green Monster and beat them in the end.

Obama needs his base — the delegates and party activists in Denver — to believe again that this is, really, the year his party’s dreams will come to fruition. He needs them to believe, so that they will be passionate speakers on his behalf back in their home states; so that they will fill his coffers with money; so that they will spend endless hours registering voters, making phone calls, and doing all the grunt work of the national campaign — in short, so that the enthusiasm gap this time works in the Democrats’ favor.

RNC 2008 Wrap-Up

ADAM REILLY — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:48:32 GMT

Protest-to-podium coverage of the Republican National Convention from our reporter in St. Paul

Opening-night jitters

DAVID S. BERNSTEIN — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 14:07:14 GMT

The DNC’s primary colors
The Democratic National Convention started off with a strange vibe that might be summed up in one word: restraint.

HIDE THE PRIDE: As Michelle Obama addressed the Democratic National Convention Monday night, many in the crowd admitted to holding back their emotions in an effort to sell Barack Obama as a candidate who transcends race.

DENVER — The Democratic National Convention started off with a strange vibe that might be summed up in one word: restraint. Much is being pent-up here; emotions are being held in check.

One obvious aspect of this comes from the Clinton-Obama rift, which is real, though generally misunderstood. In truth, there are two very separate issues that have been conflated: the reticence of many Hillary Clinton voters to commit to pulling the lever for Barack Obama, and the inner tensions among the elites, insiders, and activists.

The first is politically important but not extraordinary, and has little to do with the mood here in Denver. Remember that millions of people who are not particularly party-oriented took part in the super-hyped Clinton-Obama primaries; many millions voted for Clinton for reasons that do not transfer readily to Obama. The vast majority will ultimately vote for him (some 80 percent already say they will), but many will not; the same would have been true had any other Democrat emerged from that race. (And the same is true among Republicans for McCain.)

But what’s affecting Democrats in Denver is quite different, and as old as politics. Politics is a game of alliances and power, which can have very crass effects on the psyche that — at the risk of sounding psycho-analytical — often gets masked with self-righteousness, self-pity, and/or misdirected anger. Four years on, for example, some Massachusetts political players are now able to talk (privately) about how much they had, despite themselves, mentally already packed their bags for the inevitable jobs waiting for them in and around a John Kerry administration; and how long the disappointment and finger-pointing distressed them and their political relationships.

In simplified terms, a lot of that is going on with the Clinton camp right now, and it has people on all sides walking on eggshells. Many Obama delegates, and even many former Clinton supporters, are outraged at the concessions being made to Hillary and Bill — but they won’t be caught dead saying so on the record. Clinton delegates are biting their tongues as well, aware that every display of support for their preferred candidate will be seen as sabotage, and will hurt the party’s chances of winning in November.

Photos: Democratic National Convention 2008

JOEFF DAVIS — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 02:45:19 GMT

Protest-to-podium coverage from Denver. Updated daily.

ThePhoenix.com is blogging and Twittering live from the Democratic and Republican conventions. For real-time election updates, plus video, photos, and an archive of our coverage, visit www.ThePhoenix.com/Election2008.

Democratic National Convention, Denver
Barack Obama accepts the Democratic Presidential Nomination
August 28, 2008
Photo credit: Joeff Davis

Live from Denver

DAVID S. BERNSTEIN — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 17:45:42 GMT

Election 2008: Real-time updates from the Democratic National Convention

Regular readers of this blog know that we welcome "guest hosts" to offer their thoughts. Please feel free to submit to the host (me!) at any time.

Here are Matthew Sawh's thoughts on the first night of the convention:

The First Night: What Pundits Missed

Convention analysts all over the television and internet have been quick to criticize the relatively tame proceedings of the first night. Such coverage misses a crucial distinction: Barack Obama generally wins 80% of self-identified Democrats, John McCain has recently brought his GOP numbers to about 86% of self-identified Republicans. In other words, this is a convention targeted at Democrats, NOT Independents. The media has (again) followed the 2000 and 2004 playbook wherein Gore and Kerry had to win over independent voters and structured their conventions accordingly with Gore's appeals to moral clarity and Kerry's invocation of his service.

Now, it is more than possible that the undecided voter of 2000 or, 2004 has, in 2008, accepted the nominal ‘Democrat’ label but has not yet accepted Obama as their own. This is a valid possibility and meshes with the polling which shows a ten-point generic Democratic congressional lead.

Here is where it gets interesting though: Are these new Democrats cut from the cloth of independents? OR, Are they (as Team Obama projects) new, first-time registered voters of key Democratic leaning-constituencies? Naturally, a little bit of both (with more than a dash of Clintonites).

In that context, the choice to have a tribute to Teddy and, to do some retooling of Michelle Obama's image makes very good sense.

Teddy:

No great public policy issue has been untouched by Teddy. If Obama's goal is to rev-up turnout and, it operates on the assumption that they are largely benefiting from first-time voters, who better than Teddy? Rasmussen Reports has him listed as being seen as a liberal by 70% of the nation. Meanwhile, a recent Annenberg Survey notes that 34% of 18-29 year olds called themselves 'liberal or very liberal' as compared to only 25% of those aged 45-64.

Kennedy as the remaining brother of Camelot bridges the divide between those two gaps for several reasons. First, his ties to the first Catholic president. Second, he reminds the Hillary voters of their youth and, in so doing, softens them up and makes them more receptive to Obama's key message of change by undercutting the most salient criticism leveled about him by Clinton: his inexperience. Third, younger Americans who support Obama remember Teddy as the man who bucked the Clintons and, in so doing, garnered much respect.

The Problem:

Women on the verge

DAVID S. BERNSTEIN — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 19:54:34 GMT

Clinton die-hards have created a new-girls’ network bent on remedying decades of sexism by putting women in elected office
At next week’s Democratic National Convention in Denver, Hillary Clinton’s delegates will get just about everything they’ve wanted — aside from the nomination of their candidate, of course.

At next week’s Democratic National Convention in Denver, Hillary Clinton’s delegates will get just about everything they’ve wanted — aside from the nomination of their candidate, of course. Barack Obama has agreed to let them officially cast their votes for Clinton on an open ballot, rather than have the delegates nominate him by acclimation, as is often done when the other candidates have conceded. He has also given prime speaking slots to both Bill and Hillary, and agreed to concessions in the party platform that include an implicit acknowledgement of sexism during the primary battle (without assigning any specific blame).

Tsongas vs. Donoghue
This past year’s election of Niki Tsongas to US Congress was a triumph of gender politics — and a blueprint of how women can co-opt the locker-room style long practiced by Bay State boys.

“When the rumors started about Marty Meehan leaving, the phones of the women’s network were lighting up across Massachusetts — that this was our chance," says Jesse Mermell, Brookline selectman and former executive director of the Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus.

There were plenty of good women in the district, including several state senators and former Lowell mayor Eileen Donoghue. But only Tsongas, widow of former US Senator Paul Tsongas, had what matters to the back-room party insiders: personal connections, fundraising ability, and general-election name recognition.

So, well before the campaigns even started, the state’s most influential women began lining up the party apparatus behind Tsongas — and convincing other women not to run.

Donoghue ran anyway, but she was — just like the three men in the primary race — up against the state’s Democratic political machinery. Even EMILY’s List, a national organization supporting women candidates, actively raised money for Tsongas to beat another woman. It might not have been nice, or dainty, but the end result was a woman heading to Washington.

That should satisfy the 19 pledged Clinton delegates from Massachusetts — particularly the 14 women in that group, for whom the ability to register their vote next Thursday for a fellow female has come to symbolize both the progress and challenges of women in politics.

But when they come back home at the end of the week, they will return to a state that remains, for all its progressive reputation, a throwback when it comes to gender politics. Compared with other states that have seen far more advancement, Massachusetts is still a back-slapping man’s world, where women make up less than a quarter of the state legislature, a handful of mayors, and a small (though increasing) minority of back-room players such as staff, campaign managers, fundraisers, and lobbyists. Over the past 20 years, the number of women in Congress more than tripled, from 24 to 91 — while in Massachusetts the number stayed at zero until this past year.

The underdog

DAVID S. BERNSTEIN — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 20:28:52 GMT

Sara Orozco thinks she can beat all-American GOP superstar Scott Brown. Can she convince anyone else?
Sara Orozco and Scott Brown, total opposites, are perfect candidates for a State Senate district with political bipolar disorder.

K.Bonami

Sara Orozco and Scott Brown, total opposites, are perfect candidates for a State Senate district with political bipolar disorder. Challenger Orozco comes from the northern part of the Bristol, Norfolk, and Middlesex district, where liberal communities such as Wellesley and Needham elect lefty Democratic state reps like Alice Peisch and Lida Harkins. Incumbent Scott Brown comes from the south, where rock-solid conservative bastions like Wrentham and Attleboro send three of the state’s few Republicans to the House of Representatives.

The two candidates are, like the two parts of their district, ideologically split on almost every issue. With such a clear-cut distinction, in one of the few competitive races in the state, you might imagine that Democrats and progressive groups would have Orozco near the top of their list of priority causes.

That’s starting to happen, but slowly. They realize how high the stakes are — Democrats would dearly love to deal a deathblow to Brown’s political career, which many see leading to a run for governor or US Senate. But so far, many remain unconvinced that Orozco, a lesbian Cuban-American psychologist who has never held public office, has any real chance of knocking off the state’s current GOP poster boy.

She is up against an all-American incumbent straight out of central casting. Brown is tall and model-handsome (he in fact did model at one time), with the best head of hair in the State House. He is married to WCVB-TV reporter Gail Huff, with two daughters — one of whom starred on the Noble & Greenough basketball squad (and currently plays for Boston College) and was an American Idol finalist. Brown is involved in everything good and clean-cut, from the Wrentham Lions Club to the USA Triathlon Federation. He is a crusader against sex offenders, for which he has received recognition from the US Chamber of Commerce. For chrissakes, he was unavailable for interviews this past week because he was serving his National Guard duty — how all-American can you get?

Orozco is not from central casting — she is more of an indie-film character. A first-generation American born and raised in Miami, daughter of a Kmart employee and a cement-factory worker, she worked her way from nothing to a Harvard Medical School academic appointment, and eventually her own psychology practice. She is a breast-cancer survivor. She is a single mother of twin nine-year-old boys from her 12-year relationship with another woman — which ended in divorce two years after they finally achieved the right to marry.

Will race enter the race?

DAVID S. BERNSTEIN — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 17:52:47 GMT

Dianne Wilkerson and Sonia Chang-Díaz don’t talk about the racial split in their Senate showdown, but it’s likely to make its mark
Two years ago, when Dianne Wilkerson inexplicably failed to submit the necessary signatures to get her name on the Democratic primary ballot for re-election as state senator, a 28-year-old upstart seized the opportunity.

ROUND TWO: State Senator Dianne Wilkerson (left) and challenger Sonia Chang-Díaz (right) are again fighting to represent the Second Suffolk district. Their platforms are almost identical — will race be a deciding factor?

Two years ago, when Dianne Wilkerson inexplicably failed to submit the necessary signatures to get her name on the Democratic primary ballot for re-election as state senator, a 28-year-old upstart seized the opportunity. With both candidates running as write-ins, Sonia Chang-Díaz ultimately came within 700 votes of ousting Wilkerson from the Boston district she has represented since 1993.

Chang-Díaz is trying again this year, and your view of her chances depends largely on which candidate’s 2006 post-election spin you believe.

Some observers say that contest was close only because Wilkerson was then at her lowest ebb of popularity: the ballot-access flub seemed to punctuate a substantial history of allegations, oversights, and improprieties. But if voters re-elected her then, this pro-Wilkerson thinking goes, they will surely do so by a wider margin two scandal-free years later, against the same opponent.

Others argue that, despite the result, a substantial majority of voters rejected Wilkerson at the voting booth in 2006 — that she survived only because Chang-Díaz, an unknown, last-minute write-in challenger, was unable to get her name and stickers to enough of the electorate on Election Day. Chang-Díaz would have won easily, according to this interpretation, had she been able to reach just a small percentage of the 12,000-plus people who showed up at the polls to vote in the gubernatorial primary yet cast no vote for State Senate. If so, then in 2008, with both candidates’ names on the ballot, the anti-Wilkerson majority should carry the day.

A spokesperson for the Wilkerson campaign tells the Phoenix that its data supports the first assumption, and a Wilkerson re-election. A source with the Chang-Díaz campaign, however, says its polling conforms with the latter theory, and is corroborated by plenty of anecdotal evidence.

Voters are entering election season ready to replace Wilkerson, says Chang-Díaz’s camp. That could easily change once Wilkerson starts publicly making the case about what she has done with the two years they granted her last time around.

Perhaps more important, the careful, by-the-numbers analyses obscure an obvious racial dynamic: in ’06, black voters in the district went overwhelmingly for Wilkerson (who is herself black), while white voters resoundingly rejected her.

Senate shuffle

DAVID S. BERNSTEIN — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:16:19 GMT

Massachusetts hasn’t had a Senate-seat vacancy in nearly 25 years. Now we may have two. Let the speculation begin.
Don’t count Ted Kennedy out just yet, but the prognosis immediately set minds thinking about the inevitable departure of Kennedy from the US Senate, where he has served since 1962.

Don’t count Ted Kennedy out just yet. Several sources insist to the Phoenix that the liberal lion will be back in the Senate chamber before you know it; they say his staff has been told that he’s not going anywhere for a good long while. One source who has regular contact with Kennedy (caveat: a great many people consider themselves in that circle) says that this past week’s discovery of a brain tumor will not deter him from his plan to serve out his term — or even to run for re-election in 2012.

Maybe so, but the prognosis immediately set minds thinking about the inevitable departure — be it near-term or distant — of Kennedy from the US Senate, where he has served since 1962.

Although some are adamant that Kennedy will never leave voluntarily — and that he’s a long way from dying — others are more skeptical about the likelihood that the 76-year-old senator can continue to serve for long while undergoing treatment for cancer.

Some suspect he will soon have to retire, regardless of his determination to remain. One rumor even prior to this past week had him going to work for a new Democratic president next year — possibly choosing to finish out his career as ambassador to Great Britain, working with his good friend Prime Minister Gordon Brown, in the job that his father, Joseph Kennedy Sr., once held.

All of this is speculation — but regardless of what happens in the months or years ahead, people are thinking seriously about what comes after Kennedy leaves the Senate.

Electing a successor will take on enormous importance — and not just for Massachusetts, but for the country — because of the power that the Bay State has been accustomed to having in Washington. The void left will be immense. “You can’t underestimate his presence in the Senate,” says Thomas Quinn, who worked on Kennedy’s 1980 presidential campaign and is now a lobbyist with Venable in Washington. “He’s an overwhelming presence.”

Kennedy has so much influence in so many areas, his office serves as a kind of “one-stop shop” for lobbyists, says Scott Ferson, former press secretary for Kennedy and now president of the Boston-based political-consulting firm Liberty Square Group. Lobbyists can go to Kennedy’s office to plead their clients’ cases, whether they are looking for military contracts, education bills, or Justice Department grants. (Indeed, access to Kennedy is so valuable, people who are friends with, or have worked for, Kennedy have become among the most sought-after lobbyists in the country: Nick Littlefield, John Cahill, Gerald Cassidy, Jonathan Orloff, Tony Podesta, and Quinn, just to name a few.)

California matters

DAVID S. BERNSTEIN — Wed, 21 May 2008 18:57:01 GMT

Massachusetts may have had gay marriage first, but California changes everything. Are Obama and Clinton listening?
For four years, and 10,000 same-sex nuptials, Massachusetts has had a monopoly on gay marriage in the United States.

For four years, and 10,000 same-sex nuptials, Massachusetts has had a monopoly on gay marriage in the United States. The virus, as its opponents might see it, had been effectively contained: the Bay State was issuing licenses only to its own resident homosexuals, and almost no other states recognized their marital status outside the Massachusetts borders.

That changed in a flash at 10 o’clock Pacific Daylight Time this past Thursday morning, when the top court in the biggest and most important state in the country also gave the green light to same-sex marriages. Beginning June 14, 30 days after the ruling, California will issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Reports on the ruling lacked the furor and intensity that surrounded the onset of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, or even the first civil unions in Vermont, in 2000. That seems understandable: the second to do something is simply not as newsworthy as the first.

But this is an exception to that rule. Massachusetts was first, but California matters.

It matters partly because of its size, and its central place in American culture. (Within days, for example, most Americans knew that both Ellen DeGeneres and George “Mr. Sulu” Takei planned to wed same-sex spouses in California, which is two more gay vow-takers than they could name after four years of legal same-sex marriages in Massachusetts.)

It matters because it will immediately affect statewide politics, which in California automatically sways national politics. It matters because, unlike Massachusetts, where voters have never weighed in on the issue, Californians will do so before the end of the year, in a ballot initiative that seeks to amend the constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage — at the same time that the state, and the country, chooses the next president.

And it matters because this ruling, unlike the one in Massachusetts, goes far beyond redressing unequal marriage laws, and implicitly accuses opponents of gay rights generally, and gay marriage specifically, of outright, unacceptable, unconstitutional discrimination. And by doing so, it may usher in a new era of equality and gay rights.

Two of those gay-marriage opponents, unfortunately, are Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. If they recognized the watershed importance of this past week’s ruling, they chose to remain on the side of discrimination. Given their own status as personal symbols of racial and gender accomplishment, it’s a shame they can’t or won’t embrace equality at the last remaining civil-rights frontier.

DiMasi’s sheep

DAVID S. BERNSTEIN — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 18:15:00 GMT

How Stepford politics rule Beacon Hill
DiMasi’s overwhelming victory in the recent casino vote — in which only 34 of 140 Democrats voted against his plan to banish the bill for further study — was actually, as meager as it was, an unusual show of dissent.

Railroading the law
House leadership, stressing the need to pass the transportation-bond bill without delay this week, told members not to propose any amendments — but then asked them to approve the inclusion of 17 amendments tacked on by the Senate. Only three House Democrats rose to complain about it — two of whom, Frank Hynes and Paul Casey, are not seeking re-election this fall. (Martin Walsh was the third.) Most did as instructed, adopting the entire batch of Senate amendments on a vote of 114 to 40 Tuesday.

A state representative recalls approaching a veteran House member this past year and asking how he intended to vote on an upcoming roll call. “I have this philosophy about voting,” replied the representative, a committee chair. “I look up on the board and see how the Speaker voted — and that’s how I vote.”

This appears to be the governing philosophy, quite literally, under the State House dome during the reign of Speaker of the House Sal DiMasi.

DiMasi’s overwhelming victory in the recent casino vote — in which only 34 of 140 Democrats voted against his plan to banish the bill for further study — was actually, as meager as it was, an unusual show of dissent.

Prior to the casino vote, Democrats in the House of Representatives had cast a total of just 567 votes in opposition to the Speaker in the current legislative session that began in January 2007, according to a Phoenix analysis. That’s an average of about four dissents per member, or one out of every 40 roll-call votes on bills, amendments, and rulings.

That’s a breathtaking decline even from the previous session, which saw nearly 3000 instances of Democrats “voting off,” as it’s called in the chamber. In the session prior to that, under Speaker Tom Finneran, that figure was greater than 5000.

The lock-step floor votes are only one manifestation of the lack of dissent, debate, or even discussion in the lower House, as described to the Phoenix by aides, close observers, and quite a number of Democratic legislators themselves — nearly all of whom, naturally, agreed to speak only with the promise of anonymity. Even members supportive of DiMasi don’t want to be caught talking about this topic. Several members were quite specific about how generically the Phoenix must refer to them (no reference to the area of the state they hail from, any committee they serve on, or even their gender), and more than one insisted on being called only on personal cell phones, for fear that State House secretaries are snitching to the Speaker about incoming calls.

No side bets

DAVID S. BERNSTEIN — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:17:01 GMT

The governor’s gaming legislation crapped out, but are casinos still alive in a compromise? Plus, a school-budget crisis could start a political firestorm.
Opponents of legalized gaming in Massachusetts are celebrating the death this past week of Governor Deval Patrick’s bill to license casinos, which was crushed by a seemingly decisive margin of more than two-to-one.

Opponents of legalized gaming in Massachusetts are celebrating the death this past week of Governor Deval Patrick’s bill to license casinos, which was crushed by a seemingly decisive margin of more than two-to-one. But the apparently devastating vote was not a reflection of stiff resistance to houses of gambling iniquity. It actually seems that more legislators want gaming than don’t. (It may, in fact, just be a matter of time — next year’s session, perhaps — before a compromise position can be reached that would likely have the necessary support to legalize casinos in the Bay State.) The question then is whether, amid the showdown between the governor and House Speaker Sal DiMasi, they and other parties have dug themselves in so deeply that they are unable to move toward middle ground.

Patrick’s bill died in some measure, according to several observers, because until the last moment the governor resisted any modifications to his proposal. Some House members would have supported it if they could have amended his bill to connect revenues from gambling more directly to local aid, while others wanted to add an allowance for slot machines at existing race tracks, turning them into so-called racinos.

By the time Patrick did open up to those options, DiMasi was in no mood for compromise — if he ever had been. By a narrow margin, a joint committee sent the bill to the floor without the option of amendment, leading to the overwhelming vote by the full membership to bury the bill for the remainder of the year, essentially dooming it.

“They used inside-baseball procedures to kill it without any debate, any amendment, any compromise,” says Tim Sullivan, communications director for the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, which favors expanded gaming.

To win the negative recommendation he sought from the committee, DiMasi reportedly agreed to allow a racino bill to come to a floor vote. On the surface, that was a big win for racino proponents, such as Representative David Flynn of Bridgewater and, crucially for the committee vote, Representative Richard Ross of Wrentham. They have seen support for their proposal grow in recent years, particularly with the reality of racino-style gambling just minutes from the state border at Rhode Island’s Twin River. (In fact, a significant number of representatives who voted to kill Patrick’s bill support allowing slot machines at existing race tracks.)

But on its own, the racino measure looks equally doomed. In the eyes of many legislators who voted against Patrick’s bill, racinos provide all of the social ills of casinos with far fewer jobs and revenues.

Whither the GOP?

DAVID S. BERNSTEIN — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:25:44 GMT

With Democrats in total control of state government, the Massachusetts GOP should be a rising voice of dissent. Instead, it seems more impotent than ever.
Ask people to name the leading voice of opposition on Beacon Hill these days, and you’re likely to be told House Speaker Sal DiMasi.

Runs in the family
The GOP’s emphasis on fiscal conservatism is not every Republican’s idea of a winning ticket. “There are groups out there that are trying to get people to run for representative and Senate offices on family values,” says A. Richard Hersum, executive director of the Association of Massachusetts Republican Committees. One such candidate is Sandi Martinez, former state director of the socially conservative Concerned Women for America organization, and a newly elected state committeewoman, who is now running for Susan Fargo’s Waltham-area Senate seat.

Ask people to name the leading voice of opposition on Beacon Hill these days, and you’re likely to be told House Speaker Sal DiMasi — or Governor Deval Patrick, depending on which of the two is considered the current locus of political power.

That’s not the way the playbook was written for the Massachusetts Republican Party. By solidifying one-party control of state government, Patrick’s election was supposed to fuel a forceful dissenting voice. Just as Michael Dukakis in the late 1980s gave rise to William Weld and a surge in GOP legislators in the early 1990s, so the Patrick administration was supposed to have birthed a strong opposition party.

It may happen eventually, but it hasn’t yet. In fact, the GOP is barely acknowledged — media reports rarely bother even quoting Republican voices on the issues of the day. Meanwhile, a string of special elections have been won by Democrats, including four state-representative races earlier this month — at least two of which were in districts where their party should have been competitive, Republican insiders concede.

Even bleaker for the GOP, with just more than a month before signatures are due for candidates running this November, the Republican crop of candidates so far looks like one of the weakest yet.

There’s no sugar-coating the problem. “It’s daunting,” says Brad Jones, house minority leader. “The party certainly has its work cut out for us.”

“I don’t think it’s gotten any better” since Patrick’s election, says State Senator Robert Hedlund, a Republican from Weyland.

The ineffectuality of the Republicans can be attributed to many things, one of which is the ongoing battle between Patrick and DiMasi on such high-profile issues as casinos, corporate taxes, and local-options taxes on meals and hotel rooms. (This is the latest example of Democratic dysfunction that, curiously, seems to only enhance the party’s monolithic control of Beacon Hill.) That feud has given the impression, say some Republicans, that both sides of every issue are being fought for — and that the bad-government fears about one-party rule have not materialized.

Obama outside the Boom

DAVID S. BERNSTEIN — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 19:05:28 GMT

The first political leader of my generation acts nothing like the rest of us — which might be how he’s gotten where he is
A year ago, when I saw Obama speak on the Durham campus of the University of New Hampshire, he did not sound the way he does now.

A year ago, when I saw Obama speak on the Durham campus of the University of New Hampshire, he did not sound the way he does now. Yes, his signs read HOPE and CHANGE, but off the cuff he spoke like a pragmatist, answering questions with references to commissions and Senate floor-vote procedures. It was not what the audience — screaming, sign-waving Millennials and hopeful anti-war Baby Boomers — wanted to hear. They fell silent for long stretches.

Obama is a fast learner. Today, his every sentence, his cadence and rhythm, are perfectly attuned to his audience. He radiates hope, optimism, and idealism. But it did not come naturally to him. And why would it? He is one of my own: the cynical, pessimistic, ironic, pragmatic slackers sometimes known as Gen-X.

Barack Obama, born in 1961, is six years my elder and the first potential president from my generation. When I graduated from Tufts in 1989, he was two T stops away, studying at Harvard Law School.

We are the kids outside the Boomers — squeezed between the self-indulgent post-war demographic bulge and their pampered offspring, the Millennials. We were born, roughly speaking, between 1960 and 1973. Our parents date to the Great Depression and World War II — mine were children of the ’30s; Obama’s mother, who raised him, was born in 1942.

Lost in the shadow of that multitudinous sea of Boomers, my generation long ago turned away from the public sphere built by and for our predecessors.

Strange for us, then, to see our first successful leader embody hope, change, optimism, idealism, and belief. On the campaign trail, Obama seems to reject every attitude that my friends and I ever adopted. But I’ve come to believe that Obama is more like the rest of our generation than he looks.

What he has done, perhaps, is discover a sneaky way to get Boomers and Millennials — whose votes decide elections — to put their faith in a Gen-Xer.

Like once-moderate Mitt Romney adopting the rhetoric of social conservatives, Obama is going where the votes are. But when you look closely, I think you’ll find he’s really a Gen-Xer at heart.

Pessimistic, but happy
This presidential election was shaping up as one in which the Millennials — who, some estimate, already double my generation in voting strength — would tip an election among prospective candidates who defined themselves 40 years ago. In 1968, Hillary Clinton shifted from Republican to activist Democrat by joining Eugene McCarthy’s presidential campaign; John McCain entered solitary confinement in Hanoi’s Hoa Loa Prison; Ralph Nader organized young lawyers into “Nader’s Raiders”; and Michael Bloomberg took his Harvard MBA to Wall Street.

IG Report on State Senate Prez takes a convenient dive

DAVID S. BERNSTEIN — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 22:56:19 GMT

Fails to deal with tourism controversy
After a full year investigating a Boston Phoenix article about State Senate President Therese Murray, the state’s Inspector General released a report today finding “no evidence of impropriety” in the legislature’s awarding of $11 million worth of contracts for international-tourism marketing.

After a full year investigating a Boston Phoenix article about State Senate President Therese Murray, the state’s Inspector General released a report today finding “no evidence of impropriety” in the legislature’s awarding of $11 million worth of contracts for international-tourism marketing.

The report, however, fails to even address many of the key elements of the Phoenix story, while agreeing in almost every respect with the article’s claims. It seems Inspector General Gregory Sullivan — a former legislative colleague of Murray, whose budget is controlled by the legislature she oversees — goes out of his way in the report to avoid addressing — let alone criticizing — many of the most important actions described in the article.

Sullivan’s report disputes or contradicts only a few minor claims in the article — one of which — a mention of Murray having traveled to Italy — the Phoenix retracted two weeks after the story ran, almost one year ago. Nevertheless, the IG’s office “reviewed Senator Murray’s passport…and found no evidence of any entries into Italy.”

But while conceding that she had not, as we erroneously reported, gone to Italy, the Phoenix stood by the broader assertion in the article — which Sullivan’s report failed to even address — that:

…Murray had become personal friends with state tourism officials and industry leaders, who regularly took Murray on state-paid international junkets to promote Massachusetts, say people in the field.

The 3500-word Phoenix article, published in February 2007, described the process through which Murray and representative Daniel Bosley privatized the international-tourism marketing function previously run by the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism (MOTT) — and ensured that the contract would be awarded to an individual named William MacDougall. As the article said:

“If your average taxpayer knew that you can take $11 million, give it to a couple of friends, with no oversight or supervision, and get away with it, they would go crazy,” says one individual who was directly involved in the bidding process for the state grant. “But that’s what happened.”

Murray and Bosley championed MacDougall, the article reported, even though he had been forced to resign from MOTT after the state auditor’s office accused him in 2001 of inappropriate use of state money, failure to report gifts, personal use of state frequent-flyer miles, and thousands of dollars of questionable reimbursements.
The IG’s report mentions nothing about these apparent irregularities of MacDougall, his association with Murray and others involved in helping steer the contract to him, nor other objections and complaints that had been raised about him in the Phoenix article.

Cash carousel

DAVID S. BERNSTEIN — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 19:38:44 GMT

Many things changed this year on Beacon Hill, but not the power of the almighty dollar
Even though the dollar has taken an international whupping of late, there remains at least one place where the love of the greenback remains strong: Beacon Hill.

Even though the dollar has taken an international whupping of late, there remains at least one place where the love of the greenback remains strong: Beacon Hill.

Despite it being an electoral off-year for state officeholders, 2007 saw incumbents collect millions in contributions, a Phoenix analysis of campaign-finance reports found.

Much of that loot — hundreds of thousands of dollars — came from registered lobbyists. Those lobbyists, meanwhile, found themselves taking in more money than ever from their special-interest clients.

The more things change, it seems, the more they stay the same — and there was undoubtedly a mighty change on Beacon Hill in 2007, as the first Democratic governor in 16 years took office. That wasn’t all: Senate President Robert Travaglini and Senate Minority Leader Brian Lees both left office; John Walsh replaced Philip Johnston as head of the state Democratic Party; and Peter Torkildsen took the reins of the state Republicans.

A whole new set of policy issues came to the fore, including casinos, auto insurance, telecom taxes, criminal-record reform, and energy conservation; while others, particularly gay marriage and health insurance, seemed to be put to bed for the time being.

So, while a Boston mayor set the fundraising bar — more on that later — state legislators found the money flowing in, even without an upcoming election.

State senators — not including the two newly voted in through special elections during the year — raised more than $3.2 million in 2007, for an average of around $85,000 each. State representatives raised close to $5 million, an average of about $35,000 per candidate.

Those are big numbers for a non-election cycle — comparable, in fact, with what incumbent candidates raised in 2006, when they were all facing re-election.

Then, 38 incumbent state senators raised $3.4 million; 146 representatives seeking re-election raised a combined $5.4 million. Clearly, they didn’t take the off-year as a year off from fundraising.

Moving up the leadership ladder paid off for several legislators, as it always does. Fundraising for Travaglini’s successor, Therese Murray, jumped from $232,000 to $390,000. New Senate Majority Leader Frederick Berry and new Senate Ways and Means chair Steven Panagiotakos both joined the elite $100,000 club, while new Ways and Means co-chair Steven Tolman came close to that mark.

On the Republican side of the aisle, new Senate Minority Leader Richard Tisei’s booty jumped from $104,000 to $153,000.

Otherwise, though, Massachusetts’s always-endangered Republicans have little to smile about in the year-end financial reports.

Can Obama lasso the Bay State?

DAVID S. BERNSTEIN — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 20:05:50 GMT

Once considered sure Clinton country, the Massachusetts primary is now a shootout
Nobody around here forgets that Deval Patrick swiped the gubernatorial nomination from the establishment-backed Tom Reilly.

Registering Anti-Mitt? Independents Could Kick Romney to the Curb
One phenomenon might complicate the Massachusetts Democratic primary on February 5, say political observers. According to anecdotal evidence, they say, large numbers of registered Democrats in the state re-registered as unenrolled before this past week’s voter-registration deadline.

The reason? In Massachusetts’s semi-open primaries, unenrolled voters may vote in the Republican primary, but registered Democrats may not, and — sources speculate — many Massachusetts Democrats want to actively help stop Mitt Romney’s presidential dreams by voting against him in his home state.

These Democrats, and many people already unenrolled and eligible to vote in either primary, would probably be happy with any of the top Democratic candidates. So they may leave that decision to others, while taking one last opportunity to vote against their former governor.

On February 5, more than 20 states will vote in the presidential-nomination process, with roughly half the total delegates at stake. That single day is shaping up as the big showdown between New York senator Hillary Clinton and Illinois senator Barack Obama, as both vie to be the Democratic Party’s standard-bearer in the 2008 election. And Massachusetts, which holds its primary on that Tuesday, is among the biggest prizes.

Thanks to its heavy Democratic leanings, Massachusetts is the fifth-richest delegate prize on Super Tuesday for that party’s candidates, with a total of 121 — 93 of whom will be chosen by the voters that day. (The others are un-pledged “superdelegates.”)

And given Clinton’s home-field advantage in New York and New Jersey, and Obama’s in Illinois, Massachusetts can be viewed as second only to California among February 5 battleground states for the Democratic contenders.

That’s why, even though things have been quiet here so far, both camps tell the Phoenix that Massachusetts is a “tier one” Super Tuesday state, meaning it will get a full complement of staff and resources. Neither side will tip their hand about advertising, personal visits from the candidates, or other specific strategies yet, but you can certainly expect to start seeing yard signs, receiving mailers, and getting phone calls as the primary approaches.

The state is supposed to be locked down tight for Clinton; local political observers say she’s a heavy favorite to win. The former first couple is enormously popular here, both among the rank-and-file Democrats who still pine for the Golden ’90s, and among the elite FOBs (Friends of Bill) who have spent many a summer afternoon sipping chardonnay with the Clintons on Martha’s Vineyard.