Lessons From the U.S. Senate Special Election

Now that State Senator Scott Brown has defeated Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley in the special election for the U.S. Senate seat by a margin of around six percentage points, it's time for me to join the chorus of armchair politicos to draw lessons learned from the election.

Base Elections are the Exception, Not the Rule. Politicos like to point to Karl Rove's electorate base strategy in 2004 as the model for an effective presidential campaign, but that strategy worked well because so many states had anti-gay marriage constitutional amendments on their ballots that year. President George W. Bush won running towards the middle in 2000; Senator John McCain lost running towards the right in 2008; while now-President Barack Obama in 2008 had a platform full of progressive policies, in many ways he won in the middle (52-44% of moderates) using conciliatory language and vows of bipartisanship.

If you look at the mailings and phone calls in this campaign, it is plainly obvious that Coakley was contacting pretty much only Democratic voters while Brown was going for unenrolled (independent) voters. It is absolutely amazing how stark the difference was. Coakley seemed to make no attempt to contact unenrolled voters -- who make up more than 50% of registered voters -- while Brown did so repeatedly. Polls in the week before the election showed Brown winning unenrolled voters by 2:1 or 3:1 margins.

The 2004 presidential election was an outlier. Independent voters continue to be where close elections are won or lost -- even in liberal Massachusetts.

The Third Maxim of Politics. The first maxim of politics is that All Politics Are Local. The second maxim is that You Have to Ask People For Their Vote.

Now we have learned the third maxim: You Have to Shake People's Hands. Not hide away in your campaign office or substitute meetings with members of town school committees -- even though they are elected officials. Shake people's hands; don't ever say that it isn't important to do so. And then shake some more hands.

Massachusetts Corollary #1: Sox with an "x," tot "cks". Not only shake people's hands, but don't make fun of people who shake voters' hands outside Fenway Park -- or mock Red Sox legends like Curt Schilling. That'll kill you with the crowd that is looking for any reason to say that you're Out Of Touch.

Establishment Candidacies Are Bad News In This Political Climate. Coakley ran a campaign that was amazingly similar to then-Senator Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign in 2007-8: the establishment candidate whose election is inevitable. Until that inevitability hits a big pothole, that is. Even though Clinton wrapped up lots of Democratic superdelegates early in the primary and caucus season, then-Senator Barack Obama eventually caught up with her on that score; meanwhile, Obama had churned out substantially more elected delegates.

You don't need to lock up the support of every single member of a school committee, board of selectmen, water district board, union organizing committee, or ward committee. There are far more voters out there than there are selectmen. Meet some ordinary voters, shake their hands, and ask them for their vote.

Don't Make Easy Assumptions: They Can Be Wrong. People assumed Coakley, as the woman in the race, had the women's vote wrapped up. But at least one poll in the past week broke down the numbers and showed she was surprisingly weak among women voters. I wouldn't be surprised if that were true back in the December 2009 primary, too. Do the Capuano, Khazei, or Pagliuca campaigns have polling to share on this point?

Coakley's Future In Doubt. Coakley's amateurish campaign immediately makes her appear vulnerable this fall -- from either a Republican or a Democratic challenger. Coakley is now perceived as such a weakened candidate for state-wide office that a challenger is inevitable.

I will venture a bit close to the precipice and make a bolder prediction: Democratic Party leaders in Massachusetts will quietly pull Coakley aside and suggest that she not run again for attorney general. Those leaders talking to Coakley will not be the leadership in the state legislature, however, since they are all scared to death that Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin will run for Attorney General -- and get subpoena power. They would rather see a no-name Republican as attorney general than Galvin.

I predict that Galvin moves forward with a run for the seat and scares Coakley into not running for re-election -- just like 2002 when Mitt Romney drove then-Acting Governor Jane Swift out of the race for governor.

OT: Predictions for the 2008 Presidential Race

The Iowa caucuses will take place tonight, so now's the time for predictions in the races for the Democratic and Republican parties' nominations for president. Everybody else seems to be making predictions, so I wouldn't like to be left out. Is there a Brighton angle? Not exactly, but there is a Massachusetts one.

• Three Democrats and four-to-six Republicans will still be in the race on the morning of February 5th. The conventional wisdom is that the first contest (Iowa or New Hampshire alternating for the honor) whittles down the field to no more than three, while the other contest further narrows it down to no more than two candidates per party. This year's races are so wide open, and the primary/caucus calendar so compressed, that more candidates will be hanging in until the large batch of primaries on February 5th.
  
  Where would I get such a crazy idea? Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and John McCain will do well enough in Iowa and New Hampsire (combined) that they'll stay in the race. Huckabee is staying until at least South Carolina's primary, since those voters are closest among early primaries to his core supporteres. Rudy Giuliani is ignoring the early contests (save Florida), so he'll stay in the race until Super Tuesday. So that's at least four Republicans until February 5th. And Ron "Jackpot" Paul is buried in cash trying to figure out where to spend it -- since Romney has been buying up all the available TV ad time in Iowa and New Hampshire; Paul makes a possible fifth Republican. And Fred Thompson is a question mark; who knows how long it will take the actor to read his lines in the tea leaves -- he is a possible, albeit unlikely, sixth Republican going into February.
  
  Among Democrats, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will both continue through February 5th; John Edwards will join them if he can get two decent finishes in Iowa and South Carolina.
  


• Romney edges out Huckabee in Iowa; McCain edges out Romney in New Hampshire; Clinton edges out Obama in Iowa; Clinton/Obama toss-up in New Hampshire. You think that Allston-Brighton residents don't vote? Compare Iowa caucus-goers: they'll be lucky to get much more than 10% percent of the 2 million eligible registered voters. When turn-out is that low, organization counts. Highly-organized, on-the-ground efforts by Romney and Clinton favor them regardless of contrary polling results -- because polls are poor trackers of actual caucus-goers.
  
  New Hampshire is different: polls give a reasonable indicator of the vote. But polls typically try to predict likely primary voters based on voting history, while the electorate is fired up about Obama -- just witness his consistently large crowds any time he speaks. Many newer voters are poised to come to the polls for Obama. New Hampshire voters like independently-minded politicians, which is why McCain really will pull out the comeback.


• Democrats will have clear nominee before their convention; Republicans will not. The Democratic race will turn into two candidates after February 5th, but one will likely take a significant lead in the races after the early March contests; the second-place candidate, either Obama or Clinton, will step out of the race in early March. If the primary contests are dead even or lean Clinton, then she gets the nomination due to overwhelming support of the super-delegates; if Obama has a strong lead in primary delegates (3:2 or better) by the Ides of March, then Clinton calls it quits.
  
  Republicans, however, will have three candidates (McCain, Romney, Giuliani) -- possibly four (with Huckabee) -- splitting up the vote through early February and quite possibly through early March. That means no clear victor. The Republican convention will be entertaining, with no one winning the nomination on the first vote. Think of all the horse-trading and wagering on who will make it into the second round of balloting. If Huckabee gets lots of primary delegates (possible, but unlikely), then the convention will be an absolute mess because all the super-delegates will be allied against him -- they just won't know who to rally around.
  


• Massachusetts makes major mistake moving primary up to February 5th. Yes, Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin was worried that we'd be left out of the primary races if we voted in March. See above, however, where neither race is decided before the early March primaries. Whoever is voting in those early March states, when the primary calendar is less-crowded, will get lots of attention nationally; as it is, Massachusetts will get lost among 23 states on February 5th on a day that produces no single winner for either party's nomination. On February 6th we'll all decide that Secretary Galvin should have kept his hands off of the Massachusetts primary date.
  
  
• November general election. There ain't no way I can predict the outcome of the November election given how uncertain the races are today. But this thing is certain: if the Republican party nominates Mike Huckabee (some call it Huckacide), they'll lose in November. The editorial cartoonists, however, will win. And we'll have two months of crazy Huckabee quotations about international affairs this Fall preceding his party's fall.
  

As is usual, laugh without mercy as these naive predictions are proven wrong. Historically, my predictions for local races have been close or a bit off the mark.

Brighton Challengers for Mayor Menino?

Mayor Thomas Menino has been flexing his fund-raising muscle this fall, despite the fact that he was not on the ballot. Many are viewing this as a sign that he wants to run for re-election in 2009. More evidence? David Bernstein of the Boston Phoenix couldn't get anyone to speak on -the-record, but provides this nugget ("Menino's Hit List"):

Sources also say that Menino’s people — particularly former chief of staff David Passafaro — are warning off anyone who provides aid and comfort to a potential rival. Those who contribute to a rumored mayoral candidate’s campaign committee, or who make introductions at ward committee meetings for a rumored candidate, these sources say, receive a reproachful call from Passafaro.

Who is poised to take on an incumbent Mayor Menino in 2009? Bernstein has a top-40 list. A number of Brighton residents show up in the list -- some real possibilities, others unlikely (Brighton residency given in the Phoenix article, not by my research):

6. Peter Meade, 61, Executive Vice President, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts
11. Steven Tolman, 53, State Senator
12. Joe Kennedy, 55, Chairman, Citizens Energy; former Congressman
18. William Galvin, 57, Secretary of the Commonwealth
37. Kevin Honan, 49, State Representative
38. Michael Moran, 36, State Representative

It is a big step to go from a local district to a city-wide Mayoral race, so I find ranking our local representatives as quite a leap. On top of that, both Rep. Honan and Rep. Moran appear genuinely devoted to local issues and constituent services, as opposed to constantly aspiring to higher and higher office. That said, Secretary Galvin made the leap to state-wide office quite effectively.

Senator Tolman is an intriguing possibility: connections from brother Warren could be very useful for the vast fund-raising required by a city-wide election. But why hasn't Senator Tolman been raising much money in recent years? He had only $88,677.63 in his account as of year-end 2006, less than you would expect for someone thinking about getting a bigger office and poised to take on a powerful Mayor. Those connections of Tolman's may not be as profitable as you might think at first.

Former Congressman Kennedy and Secretary Galvin would be strong contenders if they had any interest in being Mayor; the Phoenix provides no evidence of such interest, so I find their inclusion in the list as odd. Secretary Galvin's associates may also be stinging a bit from their inability to throw a local election to their favorite candidate.


How About Flaherty?

My odds-making? The Phoenix's #1 pick, Councilor Michael Flaherty, has a shot only if he can knock off the Mayor neighborhood-by-neighborhood by aggressively adopting those residents' key local issues as his own.

He has to go to East Boston and take the residents' side by fighting hard against the Mayor on having a casino at Suffolk Downs. Go to Allston-Brighton and take the residents' side by fighting hard against unchecked expansion by Harvard and Boston College and their facilitator, the BRA. Walk the streets of Dorchester and Mattapan every night, arm-in-arm with community leaders, railing against rising violent crime rates and how City Hall isn't doing anything about it. Help South Boston residents replace garbage cans in the streets, after City workers remove them, thereby reserving their shoveled parking spaces. (OK, maybe a bad example.) Blame every major woe in every neighborhood on the Mayor, even if it isn't quite true.

That's the only way someone like Councilor Flaherty could take on incumbent Mayor Menino in 2009: on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis, standing alongside the local residents on their biggest issue, and all-the-while blaming it everything on the Mayor. It would be a fun election to watch, but bound to be immensely negative.

Greg Glennon a No-Show in Allston-Brighton Candidates Forum

Greg Glennon, candidate for the Allston-Brighton District 9 City Council seat, was a no-show for the Candidates Forum Monday night at the Brighton Elks Lodge -- and nobody could figure out why. Abigail Furey, organizer and listed contact for the event, received no notification of his cancellation. Several of the other candidates said that Glennon has often been late to other joint events, so they didn't seem surprised.

The irony of the situation couldn't be more striking: a question at the forum was waiting for Glennon and two other candidates who had not attended any meetings of the BRA's Allston-Brighton institutional task forces in 2007 before deciding to run for the City Council.** Two of those three candidates -- including Glennon -- also failed to submit public comments in response to Harvard's request for a MEPA phase one waiver and science complex DPIR filed with the BRA. ***

It's hard to under-emphasize this point: in a neighborhood under seige by institutional expansion, attending public meetings and submitting public comments on regulatory filings are the bread-and-butter work of the A-B District City Councilor.

A-B District 9 City Council candidate Greg Glennon is now not only a no-show on institutional expansion -- he's AWOL at a candidates forum with a question about his no-shows.

Is he laying low, thinking that he would do better not facing the questions and the public? As I noted in a post several days ago, Patrick Galvin, brother and campaign manager to Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin, recently put a Glennon sign up on his front lawn. Secretary Galvin had only one opponent in 2006 -- Green-Rainbow candidate Jill Stein -- and refused to debate her at all. Well, actually, for the record, he allowed CBS4's John Keller to query Galvin and Stein for 16 minutes in a hallway in the Boston Athenaeum, which made a number of bloggers unhappy, to say the least. So if one or more Galvins are supporting Glennon in front or behind the scenes, then their apparent contempt for debates could be one explanation for Glennon AWOL Monday night. If so, I suspect they've not only given Glennon bad campaign advice, but they've handed him to gun to shoot his own foot.

EDIT (9/18, noon): Glennon has not yet responded to a request for comment on his no-show. Another journalist also reports the same.

EDIT (9/18, 1pm): A press release out of the Rosie Hanlon campaign about James Jenner's decision to withdraw from the race states that "organizers later learned that [Glennon] was attending a campaign fundraiser." Actually, we hadn't heard... although a different, unnamed source has since hinted it was a fundraiser downtown. Maybe it will help him pay for better phone surveys. But there was a rumor circulating at the Elks Lodge right after the debate that Secretary Galvin had told Glennon not to show. In retrospect, just a rumor wafting out from the bar.


** According to documents provided by the BRA through a request under the state's Public Records Law. The documents consist of audience and task force sign-in sheets for meetings of the Harvard Allston, Boston College, and St. Elizabeth's Medical Center Task Forces between January 1 and April 30, 2007, i.e., before Councilor Jerry McDermott announced in early May that he would not seek relection.

*** The other two candidates (who showed up!) who received the same question during the forum gave honest and reasonable answers. Their names, and their responses, will be provided in the audiotape and transcript of the forum; I think it inappropriate to name them at this time without also providing their response.

One Lawn Sign That Will Vote -- Many Times

"Lawn signs don't vote; people do." That is a standard mantra of local politics, an indication not to judge a political campaign by counting signs.

Over in Ward 22/Precinct 8, however, I recently saw a lawn sign that I think will vote -- and may bring a lot of votes along with it. It's a red sign for Greg Glennon for the Allston-Brighton District 9 City Council race, and it's on the front lawn of Patrick Galvin, brother and long-time campaign manager for Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin.

The Galvins, their inner political circle, and their broad base of supporters (Bill Galvin represented the neighborhood for many years in the State House prior to his election as Secretary) provide a base as big as anything over on Wallingford Road or Portina Road. And the Galvin team carries connections to those constituencies, too. Then Representative Galvin worked with the Brighton Orthodox community to build its eruv (completed in 1993), a point which they clearly remember. And sandwiched between the two Galvin's houses is none other than Mark Alford's house, who participated in a May 8 meeting with the Orthodox community over Boston College expansion -- and was a candidate in the A-B City Council election until he pulled out suddenly on July 3 (the last official day to get off of the ballot). For the record, neither Alford's nor Secretary Galvin's houses have sprouted campaign lawn signs; nobody yet knows publicly how they lean.

The Galvin-Alford-Galvin trifecta have long ties to the Brighton neighborhood, lists of campaign supporters from Secretary Galvin's decades of running for elected office, and a behind-the-scenes influence that is hard to match. While Secretary Galvin's list of six Allston-Brighton campaign contributors (search on CFPID 10176, City of Boston, and year 2006; then count 02134 and 02135 addresses) might have been thin during his most recent re-election campaign, those guys no doubt have an extensive database of supporters ready to be mobilized.

If one move has the potential to mix up this race, Patrick Galvin's lawn sign might be it. Two candidates are probably the least pleased with this development: Mark Ciommo and Rosie Hanlon. Why? Those two are long-term residents who have been splitting the "old boy" neighborhood vote of long-term A-B residents. I don't have enough digits -- even after removing my shoes -- to count the number of men who have told me they were going to vote for Ciommo solely based on knowing him since they were kids. Hanlon's connection to the neighborhood is not quite as deep, but no doubt growing -- her five kids (with the web of school and friend connections that brings), and her work with the Brighton business community, reaches all across the established residents of the neighborhood.

Glennon has comparatively far less of that traditional support in the neighborhood -- except for some of the inherited supporters of former state Representative Brian Golden. Patrick Galvin's lawn sign may indicate that some of Ciommo and Hanlon's long-term resident support may now be split with a third candidate, Glennon. A three-way split for the "old boy" vote may actually work to the benefit of Tim Schofield -- or probably more so for Alex Selvig, who could eke out a second-place finish if he can mobilize large portions of the anti-institutional expansion and under-40 crowd.

Finally, I wonder if my "phone survey" last night from the Glennon campaign had anything to do with this lawn sign over in 22/8? Best left as speculation.


Of Whales and Elephants

I previously commented on how there were too many lawn signs up during this campaign season, and that I was praying for rain to disintegrate some of them. The recent rain did just that to at least a few signs. I'm gonna continue my backyard dance to summon a nor'easter and clear these signs away.

There Are Too Many Campaign Signs in Allston-Brighton

I think it is fair to say that there are too many campaign signs in front yards in Allston-Brighton.

So many that, a week or so ago, my 4-1/2-year-old daughter asked me why there were so many signs in people's yards. I asked her to point out the ones she meant; she identified the campaign signs, not the realtor signs.

We have spent the last week or so identifying those candidate signs everywhere, and she pretty much has the names and colors down pat. She is assisted, of course, by the fact that she has met most of the candidates -- more than once -- so she can connect names with faces with signs and colors.

What is disturbing is her play during bathtime last night. She wanted the (male) elephant plus a series of whales (and shark) for the tub. She lined them up, called them the Water Animals Mayor and City Councilors, and assigned names to each one. (I think she actually meant the candidates for the Water Animals City Council.) I only had to remind her of one name she had missed. Here are her associations:



Not bad, eh?

Obviously, there are too many lawn signs if they are causing young children to play-act with the candidates' names. Ah, but that's democracy in action.

Secretary of the Commonwealth Stick Mosquito convinced a Federal three-judge panel that Boston need not include Chinese transliterations of candidate names on the ballots. I propose we do something a little different: let's use their water animal identifications on the ballot instead. Killer Whale Rosie Hanlon vs. Manatee Tim Schofield vs. Beluga Whale Alex Selvig... you get the drift. Put the images right on the ballot to avoid any confusion whatsoever.

The heavy rains in the last couple of weeks have caused a number of candidates' signs to fall apart and off of their wood posts, including the Ciommo sign next door and a Jenner sign on the next block. Maybe we should pray for rain to get rid of all these signs.

Penny Democracy vs. Million-Dollar Democracy

The City's election overseers are complaining to the Boston Globe that the Councilor-At-Large race will require a city-wide preliminary election in September -- to narrow the number of candidates from nine to eight. A city-wide preliminary election is currently required when there are nine or more candidates on the Councilor-At-Large ballot vying for the four seats. The cost of a city-wide election is approximately $500,000.

"The law requires us to do it," said Geraldine Cuddyer, Boston's election commissioner. "So we'll just have to do it."

The City's elections are currently being overseen by the Secretary of the Commonwealth, William Galvin, after the embarrassing November 2006 elections in which many precincts ran out of paper ballots for up to a few hours.

Matthew Geary is a UMass-Boston undergraduate who is on the ballot, yet has only $0.01 in his campaign war chest.

"I've heard of $1, but one penny, that's a new low," Galvin said. "That doesn't strike me as a likely success story. Presumably someone is going to need more than one penny to get a message across. Assuming that person even has a message to get across."

I believe that democracy doesn't require war chests of $1,789,842.67, like Secretary Galvin reported at the end of 2006. Doorbelling costs no money, and I would much rather meet my candidates than have them spending awful amounts of money on attack ads.

Speaking of which: I met one of Matthew Geary's campaigners already and talked to him about Geary's candidacy. That is more than I can say about all of the other eight candidates for Councilor-At-Large, or either of last year's candidates for Secretary of the Commonwealth. Geary is clearly a serious candidate in my estimation, even if he might be very inexperienced. I'll take penny democracy any day over million-dollar democracy.

The Globe also ran a front-page story about At-Large Councilor Felix Arroyo who, it notes, has only $2,728 in his campaign account. I wonder if he's raised enough money that could get his message across and make him a serious candidate? Hmmm... well, he did place 2nd in the 2005 race for Councilor-At-Large... Maybe money-raising ability isn't the key criterion to establish viability of a candidate. Maybe Mitt Romney can get those dollar bills he's raised to vote? Then he can do better than 4th-place Republican candidate nation-wide.

So I say to the Boston Elections Department and its Overseers: go ahead and spend the $500,000 on the city-wide election. Then let's get back to talking with our candidates about the issues we care about.

Secretary Stick Mosquito Tries to Block Mayor Imbecile From Ballot

The 2005 agreement between the U.S. Justice Department's voting rights division and the City of Boston Elections Department required the City to print ballots in Chinese, including both Cantonese and Mandarin dialects.

The problem, according to Secretary of State Stick Mosquito, is that proper nouns are usually translated into Chinese using Chinese words or characters that are phonetically similar to the sounds of the names, according to today's edition of the Boston Globe. Many candidates' names are then transliterated to sound like good, unfavorable, or nonsensical strings of words in Chinese, according to Secretary High Prominent Noble Educated, who has taken oversight of the City's elections department after embarrassing events of the 2006 election.

Secretary Stick Mosquito wants to keep Mayor Barbarian Mud No Mind of His Own off of the ballot, instead inserting the boring the name of Mayor Thomas Menino in its place. Secretary Stick Mosquito also wants to avoid having Mayor Imbecile or Mayor Sun Moon Rainbow Farmer on the ballot, as well as Former Governor Uncooked Rice Sunny Nun of Massachusetts and/or Utah, Senator Whole Boundary Oh Bus Horse of Illinois, and Former Senator Virtue Soup of Tennessee.

According to Glenn Magpantay, whose name I cannot determine as being romanized or transliterated Chinese, these kinds of transliterations into Chinese have worked well in other big cities with large Asian populations, like New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. This "success" is quite apparent, since all have Chinese-Americans serving as Mayor.


Note (added 7/6/07): The Boston Herald has picked up the story. Secretary Stick Mosquito's argument is "ignorant":

“It’s like saying that an English speaker would see the name ‘Mr. Green’ and think he is a green man,” activist Lydia Lowe said. “The argument that transliteration has all these other meanings is actually quite ignorant.”

Globe and Herald Editorials on Possible Archdiocese Office Move to Braintree

The Boston Globe and the Boston Herald have both published editorials today which offer support for the Archdiocese's possible (or probable) move of it administrative offices from the Brighton Chancery to Braintree. Mayor Menino is unhappy with the idea of a move, but the Herald says that the Mayor "picked the wrong fight here."

The Globe's piece put the issue into a wider context of the institutional expansion that Boston College is pursuing onto the former Archdiocese property now being referred to as BC's Brighton Campus. They note that land has "buffered the Brighton neighborhood from the growth of Boston College." Secretary of State Bill Galvin, a Lake Street resident, expresses neighborhood sentiment about BC's expansion plans: "There is a lot of concern -- use and density." The Globe editorial concludes that Mayor Menino "needs to balance the need for college expansion with the neighbors' concerns."