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Election roundup: Hello, sweetheart, get me rewrite
By adamg on Wed, 09/24/2014 - 3:01pm
Karyn Polito says at least Baker apologized for calling a female reporter "sweetheart."
Jerold Duquette writes that since Baker is not emphasizing his role as a Republican, he has to be extra careful about stuff like this:
Baker’s route to the corner office has always been a steep climb. Every time he loses his footing like this his chances diminish.
WBZ hosts a gubernatorial debate on Oct. 7.
The liberal case against expanding the bottle bill.
Voters are digging the idea of the ballot question that would require sick time, WBUR reports.
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Meanwhile Coakley can help
Meanwhile Coakley can help people get away with stealing from sick children, ignore corrupt politicians, and prosecute innocent people with no consequences.
But calling people names oh my political DEATH SENTENCE!
Ugh
The last thing he needed. Clearly this proves he hates women, just like every other Republican out there.
How does that prove he hates
How does that prove he hates women? Sweetheart is a term of endearment.
I think that was sarcasm
I think that was sarcasm
While there are some groups...
... (especially in the South) that use terms like "honey" and "sweetie" quite routinely, I am pretty sure that such practice is not nearly so common among Northeastern bluebloods like Baker.
He's going to get a lot of practice
Because every political reporter they send to speak to him between now and the election is going to be a woman.
I feel bad for you political junkies this year.
It's a dismal race between an empty corporate suit and a flailing lifer attorney.
I'm ruthlessly partisan and would vote for a dead skunk with a D next to it, assuming it could hold office. After inflicting Cheney on us and the Tea-hadists, I really don't trust those idiots with a wet gob of pigeon shit..
It's not that the office is any prize and neither of these ciphers are going anywhere afterwards.
Is anyone else puzzled why the office is such a biohazard that no one with any vivacity or public service merit wants anything to do with it?
And what exactly are you progressives doing to convince the people who elect the legislative rogues at the bottom of it all that ward heelers are a thing of the past?
Where do our most crooked hacks come from? Why were they allowed to bully their way to the top of the slop pile?
How are you going to convince their constituents that their hack sucks AND find someone else from their area that they'll vote for?
And what'll you do if you can't find anyone who'll pass the purity smell test?
Just sayin. The governor is the least of the problems the Democratic party faces here. If it wasn't such a motley pile of strange bedfellows and shabby accommodations, the party would own this place. It's amazing that something as sucky as the GOP can even survive here.
Donald Berwick offered a clear alternative...
.. to the two Democratic career politicians -- and countless hordes of voters stayed away from voting for him in the primary. ;~{
Yes I know.
Something similar happened with Robert Reich who I hold in the highest regard.
There is a disconnect between the blue collar townie side of the party, which may be or may not be union based, and the professional college credential side. You run in different circles.
They tend to be shrewd pragmatists and get exasperated with progressive purity. Good lord, it took an effort to get my friends on that side to warm to Elizabeth Warren because of her popularity with progressives. Progressives are a liability in many places.
There is an underlying insecurity about like mindedness that seems to make for social isolation in echo chambers. Berwick was hosed but is anyone asking why at this big picture level?
Here in Cambridge, my friend mix over time is old school blue collar townies who would seem 'conservative' to a typical progressive or they are terrifying patrician Maoist Noam Chomsky fans. One of my old friends is the son of Chomsky's former dept head.
The townies and the radicals can roll with each other but no one likes the progressives.I'm trying to be kind here and I'm just wondering why as I am sort of rooting for you all.
Perhaps if we didn't have this
nonsense of forcing voters to declare a party affiliation to allow them to exercise their Constitutional right to vote, then there would be a higher turnout in the primaries.
Put ALL eligible candidates on a single ballot - that would give voters the maximum choices available, streamline the polling process, and keep a person's vote truly secret.
I have no idea.
I guess there is something to the years of effort to build out a party structure and I don't know how far wheel reinvention will get us.
If we had a grown up system like a parliament that would be the order of it all anyway. That sort of system compels people to get along and form coalitions.
But we have a more simple minded bully/toady structure where winners get to lord it over everyone else and the legislative line up owes a lot to the particulars of where a legislator comes from.
I think of it as like ripples from a dropped pebble in a puddle.
In the center it may be progressive Valhalla or Glibertarian Utopia in some forward thinking urban core, but further away it is like going back in time.
Old bedroom cities still have old school machines and rural areas trend more conservative even within a party.
Parties are not monolithic and two centuries of party experiments have not been encouraging. What ever became of the Know Nothings, The Bull Moose, Whigs, Greens, Federalists and so on?
It eventually settled into this binary pattern we have. The most useful potential of more fragmentation would be a more accurate demographic sorting of outlook preferences, but if they are all in their respective bubbles there won't be much useful going on in a system that has no way to accommodate the fragmentation when it needs to cohere.
What i'm proposing is NOT reinvention
of the wheel. Rather, it's simplification of an existing system. I'm not saying eliminate the party system entirely. What I am saying is to replace the multiple primary ballots with ONE primary ballot. The choices in the final election would still come down to the top representative from each party.
The difference with a one primary - one ballot system from what we have now is that the voters would the maximum choices available to them on the ballot.
In my 35 years as a registered voter (independent), one theme I've seen pop up during every election cycle is the increasingly low turnout for primary elections, and the fact that an increasing number of independent voters refuse to vote in primary elections. Both of these trends have been attributed to the fact that so-called independent voters have to declare a party affiliation (albeit a temporary one, which didn't used to be the case in Massachusetts). Clearly, the present system isn't working and needs to be changed. One primary - one ballot is an easy and cost-effective way to affect that change.
That makes sense.
It speaks volumes to how much process manipulation is baked into the system. It goes to show how much I pay attention to the operations side.
I'm more fascinated by the sociological side. Of course its a fine idea. Sorry for being an idiot.
You're not an idiot at all.
Your comments and concerns are very legitimate.
I think I'm in Love
You put into words what my mind thinks! You're far from idiotic. Don't be so hard on yourself. :-)
Roadman, you don't have to declare a party affiliation
Roadman, you don't have to declare a party affiliation to vote in a primary. You do have to request which party's ballot you want.
That is all.
Edit follow up: Also, you don't have to declare party affiliation to vote in the general election.
While I think we could change aspects of voting, like using a weighted system, we do not require party membership in MA.
Hold on
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/obama-hold-on-sweetie/?_ph...
Yep, this was all over the new cycle for days
I remember. And for many of the same reasons, Baker should apologize.
David Bernstein has a good piece on why this is an issue here: http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2014/09/25/charlie-baker-sweethe...
When I first moved to MA as an adult, having spent my military brat youth mostly in the southeast, and having a southern mom, I called all the patrons of the restaurant where I worked "Sir" and "Ma'am" and my co-workers "darling" and "sugar." My co-workers teased me, but didn't complain. But holy cow, did I ever learn how much some people hate being called "ma'am" and "sir." And the one time I, a woman, accidently called a woman patron my age "sugar" (not sarcastically, just habit) she complained to the owners. I never made that mistake again.
So, yeah, pretty sure no one who grew up in New England accidently calls anyone they respect as a peer "sweetheart" in public.
"Sir"and "Ma'am"
I never have been able to completely train myself not to use these -- it still seems like an essential part of basic politeness. ;-}
Especially talking to someone in their 80s,
yeah, I have a hard time with that,
However, my non-southern, Irish gran told me it reminded her of being a maid, so I keep that in mind!