The conventional wisdom is that Governor Charlie Baker will glide to re-election but amidst this Democratic Party gloom comes the director of Democrats for Education Reform Massachusetts with the secret to thrashing Baker: just attack unions and all will be well! This is not surprising since DFER MA is more an anti-union front than an…
Category: Massachusetts Politics
Margaret Heckler: she didn’t wait her turn
Margaret Heckler didn’t wait her turn. Had she done so, she may well have never scaled the heights of American politics from Congress to the Cabinet to an Ambassadorship.
The Gifford Giveback. Or When Does a Pol Have to Return the Money?
The Boston Globe is reporting that Rufus Gifford, a Democratic candidate for the open Third Congressional District seat, is repurposing a campaign contribution from accused #MeToo miscreant CBS chief executive officer Leslie Moonves to Planned Parenthood. Good for him. But this raises the question, when does a pol have to give back dirty money? I…
#MaPoli Endorsements: the definitive list
Forget silly season or the dog days of August. With just over a month before our primary election and a few months before the general election, campaigns and candidates are in the midst of Endorsement Season. Every election year in Massachusetts, I re-up my piece on political endorsements in the Commonwealth. Note that the categories…
A Tale of Two Challengers
Much has been made of the similarities between the two women running in Democratic primaries this year against the Bay State’s two longest-serving U.S. House members, but the differences between the challengers are actually more significant. Both are benefiting from the surge of progressivism in the Democratic Party nationally as well as the anti-establishment fervor…
SouthCoast Rail: A 20th Century Solution for the 21st Century?
This week, Commonwealth Magazine ran a story with the headline: “South Coast Rail Optimism Grows.” The article details the recent approval of $28 million to complete the design for the $1 billion first phase of the SouthCoast Rail project that will bring commuter rail from South Station to New Bedford and Fall River via Middleborough. …
Springfield Republican Editors Choose Pandering over Persuasion
The editors of the Springfield Republican newspaper believe that Bay Staters should be embarrassed by the fact that the state legislature is the only one in the country that did not pass an annual budget by June 30th, the last day of the fiscal year. So you might wonder, why should this be embarrassing? What…
Massachusetts Senate Race Diehls-In Trump Immigration Policy: Will It Work?
Were it a normal political summer in the Bay State, we would currently be treated to awkward photos of politicos eating ice cream at their favorite in-district shoppe. These are not normal times. Rather, much of the MA political eye has been on Washington and the Trump Administration’s policy of stripping undocumented children from their…
Seaport Undermines Climate Resilience
For those interested in climate change adaptation policy, 2018 will no doubt be remembered as a banner year for Massachusetts. Spurred by the historic flooding caused by this winter’s bomb cyclone, policymakers redoubled their efforts to promote climate resiliency. In June, the Massachusetts House of Representatives passed a sweeping $2.2 billion climate adaptation bond bill,…