Lunch With Middlesex DA Candidate Mike Festa

On Saturday I was invited to lunch in Melrose with Representive Mike Festa, Democratic candidate for Middlesex County District Attorney. I was joined by one of the editors of The Alewife and a couple of Rep. Festa's aides. We discussed Festa's time as a prosecutor in Somerville and the connections he made there. We also chatted a bit about the state political scene in general before settling in on the Middlesex District Attorney's race.

Festa cited the high turnover of assistant DAs as a major problem with the current DA's office. The turnover rate results in not only a lack of institutional memory, but also a lack of continuity of service for victims and witnesses when cases get handed from one ADA to another. In addition, the ADAs end up with large caseloads, a third to a half of which tend to be routine cases such as minor misdemeanors. Those routine cases used to be handled by a police prosecutor, who now performs a mainly administrative function. If police prosecutors handle cases that don't require a law degree, the District Attorney's office can free up salary by reducing the number of ADAs and giving the remaining ones a raise. While I don't think this idea is something Festa can put on a bumper sticker, it strikes me as sensible and shows that he's thought not only about the law enforcement aspect of the job, but also the administrative aspect.

Festa's ability to speak to that administrative role is part of what he thinks will separate him from the other politically progressive candidate in the race, Senator Jarrett Barrios. While the two of them agree on many issues -- including opposition to the death penalty, community-based solutions to gang violence, and the importance of drug treatment in reducing recidivism -- Festa emphasized that, of the two, he is the candidate who has been "in the trenches" and who has "credibility" given that he's been in the system for so long. He also made the claim that his work as a defense attorney would make him an even better DA, given that he's spent the past several years scrutinizing prosecutors as part of his practice.

One of the big questions people have had about Festa's campaign is his fundraising. He mentioned that he raised $50,000 in the past three weeks, and that things have picked up since Rep. Peter Koutoujian (D-Waltham) dropped out of the race. In addition, big-time Democratic fund raiser Steve Grossman has recently endorsed Festa, and he has the potential to bring in some serious donors. At the end of the day, though, Festa admitted that he'd rather have less money and a bigger field operation than more money and no one on the ground.

I haven't decided on who I'm supporting yet in this race. I find myself facing the same dilemma as Lynne. Here's what Festa had to say to that: If you want someone who comes at the DA's job from a purely prosecutorial angle, there's one candidate in the race for you. If you want someone who comes at it with purely political experience, there's another candidate in the race for you. If you want someone with both, then he's your guy.

State of the Union

The best thing I can say about tonight's State of the Union address is that after this one, there are only going to be three more.

Herald: Kennedy, Kerry are Suicide Bombers

This kind of thing is just disgusting. Yesterday's Boston Herald editorial cartoon by Jerry Holbert depicted Senators John Kerry and Ted Kennedy wearing explosive belts each labeled "filibuster bomb". That's right, both of our Senators are terrorists determined to blow people up because they disagree with the president. Calling your political opponents terrorists is the sort of disgraceful stuff that should be relegated to the fringes -- the Free Republic message boards or washed up calypso singers -- and not given credence by the second largest paper in the nation's fifth largest media market. Holbert and the Herald owe our Senators an apology.

Elsewhere, Chris Matthews accuses Senator Kennedy of molesting Judge Alito's wife. Say what you want about Kennedy's politics or Alito's deserving to be on the court, but this kind of crap is exactly why people are turned off of politics.

What a Difference a Few Hours Make

Just this morning, the Tom Reilly campaign was looking like a rejected suitor. A few hours later, with the announcement of Reilly's support for the candidacy of State Rep. Marie St. Fleur (D-Dorchester) as Lieutenant Governor, they're looking downright visionary in comparison. Just so long as you forget about all that Chris Gabrieli stuff from the weekend's news. The AP has more about St. Fleur, and I'll just say that I think she makes a better pick for Reilly in terms of ticket balance, but I still don't like the way he went about recruiting her on practically the last day before statewide candidates had to announce their intentions. I don't think it will end up mattering that she's Reilly's second choice (unless one of the other LG candidates makes a big deal out of it, and I see no reason why they should), but it still seems to me that Reilly went out of his way to alienate the other candidates for LG, in favor of someone who can be portrayed as part of the Beacon Hill establishment, fairly or not. Maybe that won't end up mattering, particularly since a couple of the Lieutenant Governor candidates were not considered 'serious' by the Democratic heavy hitters, and I would wager that a sizable number of Massachusetts voters don't realize that the Governor and Lieutenant are voted on seperately in the primary anyway. At the same time, the Reilly-as-insider narrative has been floating around all month, and it's only a matter of time before it congeals.

Gabrieli Declines to Run for Lieutenant Gov

The Boston Globe today announced that Chris Gabrieli has decided not to run for Lieutenant Governor. The Tom Reilly campaign had leaked last week that they were in talks with Gabrieli to run with the Attorney General as an informal ticket for the September primary. As of yesterday, it appeared that they were going to announce the formation of that ticket today, but apparently, Gabrieli has backed out. Frankly, I don't think this loss hurts the Reilly campaign as much as David does, but maybe they're wishing that they hadn't leaked the news last week.

From everything I've heard, Chris Gabrieli is a good Democrat, and has been a candidate in search of a race for a number of years. That said, I'm not sure what he would have added to the Reilly ticket other than money. Now, I know that money's important, but the idea of the all-but anointed gubernatorial candidate anointing his lieutenant wouldn't have helped Reilly's case that he's not the same-old Democratic insider that voters have found unappealing for years. While that depiction of him is not necessarily fair, the press coverage of late -- particularly the Conte phone call -- is creating this perception, almost as background noise. Sure, maybe it hurts Reilly for a day in the news that he didn't get who he wanted, but maybe it's better that he doesn't look like he's making backroom deals to pick his LG.

By the way, the Globe article contains this curious passage:

The negotiations over a Reilly/Gabrieli ticket came just days before Saturday's local party caucus around the state, where Patrick is expected to win a large share of the delegates to be chosen for the Democratic convention in June. The convention will endorse candidates for statewide office.

Reilly's low-key approach to wooing the Democratic rank and file has surprised party leaders. Even Reilly insiders concede that his aim is not to win the Democratic convention endorsement.

I think the Globe is making a mistake in assuming that Reilly is not working the caucuses -- I know he has the Lowell and Boston machines working for him, and they are certainly making an effort here in Watertown. Not only that, but I find the idea that Reilly would not win the endorsement at the convention as mildly absurd. I know the media likes to pretend that these things are chock full of liberal Democratic activists, but thanks to the rules change last year, the convention is now the largest collection of Massachusetts political insiders ever assembled. Something close to 40% of the delegates will be appointed or ex-officio. If Reilly is not focused on winning the convention it's because he doesn't have to.

DFA Wants to Know Your Pick for Governor

Democracy for America, the organization that grew out of Howard Dean's bid for the Democratic Presidential nomination, is considering an endorsement in the Massachusetts Governor's race. They're asking members and other interested parties to vote in their online survey. Support from DFA could mean extra money, extra volunteers, and extra publicity for the chosen candidate, so if you have strong feelings, make your pick known!

The deadline is Monday, January 30 at midnight.

Friday News Dump

Continuing my new Friday tradition, here are some of the things that I noticed this week, but never got around to posting. If you have anything to add, or if you'd just like to say hello, please drop a comment.

• When a Friend Succeeds, I Die a Little: Our good friends over at Blue Mass. Group have been nominated for a Koufax Award for best local blog. Congratulations to them! Voting hasn't started yet, but I'll be sure to let you all know when it does -- we need to support our Bay Staters.


• Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows: I'd never thought I'd see the day when Republican apologist Ginny Buckingham and Senator John Kerry would be on the same side, but they both wrote last week defending Congressman Mike Capuano's trip to Brazil. They're both right, though. We want our Representatives to travel, but taxpayers don't want to pay for it, and I don't think it's in our interest to force them to pay out-of-pocket, since Congress is too much of a rich man's game as it is.


• Speaking of John Kerry: He, along with Senator Kennedy, is trying to filibuster Judge Alito's nomination. It is very likely that cloture will be invoked, and the nomination will come to a vote, but you can't win if you don't try. He's also asking people to sign his petition.


• Weld Update: The New York Times had an article this week that claimed that former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld was the candidate the Eliot Spitzer campaign feared the most. Personally, I'd be surprised if Weld wins the Republican nomination, but stranger things have happened. (via PoliticalWire)


• Reilly's Courting Gabrieli: The Globe today also reports that Attorney General Tom Reilly is in talks to get Chris Gabrieli to run as his Lieutenant. This has been rumored for months, but I'm not sure exactly what this changes, other than giving Reilly a boost of cash should Gabrieli accept. That didn't seem to help Shannon O'Brien, though, and since Reilly made his pick at such a late date, he's managed to irk the other candidates and whatever constituencies they might have put together by now.


• More from MBPC: The Mass. Budget and Policy Center has released their report on the income gap in Massachusetts. I haven't had a chance to look at it yet, but if it's anything like their previous work on the FY07 Budget or on the impact of reducing the income tax it will be a great resource. (all links PDF)

What's on your mind?

MBPC Analysis of Romney FY07 Budget

Yesterday, the Mass. Budget and Policy Center released its Preliminary Analysis of the Governor's FY 2007 Budget (PDF). While they were heartened that the proposal made headway in reversing some of the cuts made in the past few years in areas such as education, public health, local aid, etc, they note that, adjusted for inflation, those areas are still below what they were before the fiscal crisis. They also warn that the budget would "create significant new fiscal pressures in the years ahead" since it not only factors in a lower tax rate, but also drains various reserve funds. Here are some of the highlights of their report (emphasis added):

[T]he budget proposes a tax cut that would cost $132 million in its first year, but in the second year the cost would balloon to $488 million, and the full cost would be $610 million a year. In addition, the budget relies on the use of reserve funds, including the Stabilization Fund and the Health Care Security Trust Fund. It also spends tobacco settlement money that existing law would require to be saved for future use, and it does not budget for a deposit into the Stabilization Fund required by current law.
...
In his budget proposal, the Governor provides a $167.9 million increase for unrestricted aid to cities and towns, including an additional $158.7 million in lottery distributions to localities (by removing the cap on lottery revenues) and $9.2 million more to fund the Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) program. Despite the proposed $167.9 million increase for local aid for FY 2007, the level of funding is $146.5 million lower than where it was in FY 2001, after adjusting for inflation.
...
The Governor's budget would increase funding for Chapter 70 aid from $3.289 billion in FY 2006 to $3.453 billion in FY 2007, a $163.7 million or five percent increase over the current appropriation. In real terms, this proposal for Chapter 70 aid is still $190.9 million lower than its FY 2002 level. Education costs, however, often grow more quickly than inflation because schools face certain unavoidable cost increases such as those relating to rising health insurance costs. To more accurately measure cost changes in education, state law identifies a particular measure of inflation that is to be used in calculating state aid to education. Using this measure, the Governor's proposed level of funding for Chapter 70 aid would leave Massachusetts schools with approximately $500 million less in Chapter 70 aid than they received in FY 2002.
...
Among the areas in public health still suffering deep cuts since the fiscal crisis: AIDS prevention and treatment funding is $23.3 million below FY 2001 levels; family health services are $9.8 million below FY 2001; early intervention is funded at $2.9 million below FY 2001; smoking cessation and prevention programs are $53.9 million (93 percent) below FY 2001 levels.

John Bonifaz in Watertown Thursday

John Bonifaz, Democratic candidate for Secretary of the Commonwealth, will be speaking to the Watertown Democratic Town Committee Thursday evening at 8:00 PM at the Watertown Town Hall. All are welcome to join us.

Joe Trippi, Howard Dean's campaign manager in 2004, is a big booster of Bonifaz, and endorsed him on his website:

[John Bonifaz] led the fight to ensure the success of the Massachusetts Clean Money Elections Law. He's a man of integrity. He'll fight for corporate accountability while reducing the paperwork burden on businesses large and small. He will turn his office into the best source of information available to the citizens about their commonwealth.
...
I know John and I believe in him. I'm backing him for Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts because he is without a doubt the best person for the job. Check out his website - www.JohnBonifaz.com - John needs your support today to demonstrate the early viability of this campaign. And as we all know, those who stand up against the powerful need our support the most.

I have to give credit to Bonifaz. When Bill Galvin announced that he was going to run for re-election instead of running for governor, he could have packed it in and waited until next time around. After all, that's what Cam Kerry did. At the very least, I hope that John Bonifaz is able to bring attention to the issue of voting reform in the next few months.

In Search of the Massachusetts Independent Part II

(Part I)

Chris Bowers over at MyDD pointed out today a Gallup survey on US party affiliation. Chris has some concerns about the results, but the sample size was huge; Gallup performed interviews of more than 42,000 Americans, asking each their party preference. Repondents who claimed to be independent voters were asked a second time which party they lean towards. Since the survey was so huge, we have enough data from Massachusetts, 976 responses, that the margin of error is roughly +/- 3%. The findings for Massachusetts are as follows:

Democrats + leaners:	56.7%
Unenrolled (no lean):	9.2%
Republicans + leaners:	34.1%

Here are the full state-level results. These numbers, while not surprising, may give us some insight into the makeup of unenrolled voters. First of all, with leaners included, we see that Democrats have a huge numerical advantage in this state, larger even than just unenrolled voters taken as a whole. Now, I realize that it's dangerous to combine a poll like this with actual voter registration numbers, but if we subtract out the known Democrats (37.3%) and Republican (13.0%), we get a profile of the unenrolled voting population.

Unenrolled Democratic leaners:	19.4%
Unenrolled Republican leaners:	21.1%
Unenrolled (no lean):	9.2%

Taking into account the margin of error, it looks like a Massachusetts unenrolled voter is statistically just as likely to lean Democratic as Republican. This confirms something I've been thinking for a while now. If unenrolleds break for Republicans and Democrats pretty much equally, then the surest way for a Democrat to take back the corner office is to make sure that Democrats are united in November. While it is necessary to appeal to independent minded voters, if half of them are already in-tune with Democratic positions, then it seems to me that this will naturally happen in the course of shoring up Democratic support. Put another way, if you can manage to unify the Democrats (no small feat, even -- maybe especially -- in Massachusetts) then enough unenrolled voters will be swept up in the current to put you over the 50% needed to win an election.

Scared Republicans

We learned from the Boston Globe today that Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey is guaranteeing Christy Mihos a spot in Republican primary. Through her spokesman, she said that she'll make sure that Mihos gets 15% of the votes at the Republican state convention in Lowell so that he qualifies for the ballot, even if that means telling her supporters to switch to Mihos for the vote. It seems to me that they're very afraid of an independent Mihos siphoning votes from a Republican Healey. David from Blue Mass. Group agrees, who notes that the Healey camp must be confident that they can take a primary against Mihos, but "terrified" of the prospect of a three-way race.

Not only is Team Healey quaking with fear, but it appears that Team Romney has been spending some time hiding under the covers. Kevin Rothstein, who blogs for the Herald, called the governor the Cowerer-in-Chief for ducking questions about how long it took him to probe the Department of Social Services' handling of the Haleigh Poutre case. Here is what Rothstein wrote about that:

Question: If Mitt Romney is strong enough to be president of the United States, why is he, via his spokeswoman, afraid to answer a reporter's question? Here's a paragraph from today's Herald article about Romney's call to probe DSS following the near-fatal beating in SEPTEMBER of 11-year-old Haleigh Poutre:

"Asked why it has taken the governor four months to launch the probe, his spokeswoman, Julie Teer, said, 'Right now, the governor is focusing on preventing this type of situation from occurring again.'"

Is the governor-slash-presidential-candidate cowering under his desk when Ms. Teer tells him about the question? Does he lock himself in the bathroom and put a paper bag over his head? Why else would he, through his spokeswoman, not want to directly answer a question?

I guess Tom Tomorrow is right, the average conservative does live in a terrifying world.

In Search of the Massachusetts Independent

In this Sunday's Ideas section of the Globe, there was an article on Independent voters in Massachusetts, and the prospects of a Christy Mihos independent gubernatorial run. Now, I pointed out last year that Massachusetts was purple in gubernatorial elections, but I'm not sure if the results of those contests prove much about the temperament of Massachusetts independents. While these unenrolled voters may swing to the moderate Republican when voting for governor, they decisively swing toward the Democrat in nearly every other case. Non-gubernatorial statewide positions are all held by Democrats, as is 100% of the seats in Congress and a supermajority of the Legislature. I'm also not sure that this is a function of ideology, either. Republicans must be moderate, or at least fake it, to get elected, Democrats in the State House run the gamut from conservative to ultra-liberal.

So, if we assume that unenrolled voters do not prefer Democrats for non-gubernatorial elections, can we explain the results of those elections? Certainly the complete dominance of Democrats at all other levels cannot be a result of random chance. I can think of two factors that might help explain this. First, the power of incumbency might give Democrats an advantage; a Democratic majority could just be self-perpetuating. But if that were the case, one would imagine that non-Democrats would do measurably better in open-seat races. I haven't looked at all the data, but the results from the past two years -- 2004 legislature elections and the special elections since then -- seem to indicate that this is not the case. Second, the gerrymandering of Massachusetts on both the state and Federal level may have tilted the playing field so much that it's nearly impossible for a non-Democrat to win an election. There are two problems with this explanation, one that it does not apply to statewide elections, particularly the Constitutional officers which are now all Democrats except for the governor and lieutenant governor. Also, given the number of unenrolled voters it seems unlikely to me that so many of the districts could be gerrymandered to such an extent that Democrats have an insurmountable advantage in every one. Of course, without looking at the data, I can't say this for sure.

What does all this mean for Christy Mihos, should he run as an Independent? Frankly, not much, because the gubernatorial election seems to be the exception to the Democratic tendencies of unenrolled voters. This may be, as many posit, because people want a check on the Democratic legislature, which they fear will raise their taxes. I'm not convinced, however, that this makes sense since they vote in that same legislature year after year, even though they're apparently terrified of a tax increase. If I had to ascribe this to one factor, I would say that it was the publicity of the gubernatorial contest more than anything else. People are more likely to vote for the person over the party when they know what that person stands for. They're more likely to use the party as a cue when they know little about the race. Since the governor's race is all over the papers and the television, voters are more likely to know the issues and the personalities involved. That's not true of legislature races, where one has to make a real effort to find any specific positions, or even who the candidates are. It seems to me that it's in these low-profile races where unenrolled voters show their partisan preferences, since it shows how they would vote if the only difference they're aware of between the candidates is the party.

We can assume that Christy Mihos, should he run as an Independent, he will spend enough money so that voters will know who he is. In that way, it's very hard to compare his candidacy to other unenrolled and third party candidates. Generally, those candidates spend little money, don't get on television and tend to get less than 5% of the vote. The only comparable race I could think of, where a high-profile Independent challenged both a Democrat and a Republican statewide is the 1992 presidential election, where Ross Perot ran as a high profile third-party candidate. The 1996 election was similar, but at that point Perot was seen as a less credible candidate given his failure to win a single state in '92. Here are the results from 1992 in Massachusetts:

47.5%	Clinton
29.0%	Bush
22.7%	Perot

Granted, this is a presidential race, so it's not immediately comparable to the governor's race, but those results should be reassuring to Mihos. A large number of people were willing to vote for a wealthy businessman not affiliated with either Democrats or Republicans.

Getting back to the unenrolled voters, the Secretary of the Commonwealth has the historical enrollment trends. Here they are in graph form:

The chart shows that while the percentage of Democrats may have decreased, the actual number of registered Democrats has held relatively steady over the past thirty or so years, and has been trending upward over the past ten. What's changed is that the the total number of registered voters is spiking upward -- something that I take as a good sign for democracy. The decrease in the percentage of registered Democrats seems to be because more of these new voters are not choosing to enroll in a party, and not because of a mass exodus of people from the Democratic party. What this suggests to me is that the Dems need to do a better job of outreach to new voters.

Thanks to The Intergalactic Jester for pointing out the article.

Friday Leftovers

Like last Friday's post, here are a couple of the things that I collected over the course of the week, but never got a chance to write a full post about.

• Out of Control: A Film Series for Our Times: The Watertown Citizens for Environmental Safety is kicking off their new film series on Wednesday, February 8 at 7:30 p.m. with a showing of Control Room, the documentary on the Arab TV news network Al Jazeera, at the Studio Cinema in Belmont. Discussion to follow


• An Object at Rest: Finally, an excuse as to why my morning posts are so incoherent -- Sleep Inertia


• Click It: The seat belt law made it through the House yesterday and the Boston Globe has the roll call vote. Personally, I'm of two minds on this. Seat belts save lives -- my father would have been killed as a teenager if he hadn't been wearing one -- and since I'm always buckled in, the law doesn't really effect me. At the same time, it's so hard to tell if a driver speeding by you has their belt on, it seems to me that this is unenforceable unless unless we're all made to now have fluorescent seat belts installed.


• I Could See You Were a Man of Distinction: According to the Boston Herald, Mitt's burning through his state campaign account on fancy resorts and airfare. That's fine with me; every dime he spends on himself is one less he donates to the state party to spend on Kerry Healey.


• The Race for LG: The Boston Globe yesterday profiled the four Democratic candidates for Lieutenant Governor. That gave the fine folks at Blue Mass. Group an excuse to consolidate all their LG interviews in one handy place.


• Another New Blog: A belated welcome to Under the Golden Dome, which promises to be a "a blog that covers the 'insider' buzz among the young Democrats actually working at the State House." It's about time someone that knows something started a blog!


• Does This Make Cheney a Grue?: As someone who grew up playing (and eventually writing) text adventure games, this is hilarious. (via Boingboing)

What's on your mind?

Two New Polls Out

First of all, Survey USA has Mitt Romney's January approval rating, numbers that are not totally meaningless now that the Governor has declined to run for reelection, but interesting nonetheless. Romney's numbers have declined slightly since that announcement; he's now at 47% approve, 48% disapprove. These numbers have hovered around 50% since I've been paying attention to them, and you can see the trend lines here.

But Mitt Romney's not going to be on the ballot in November, so those numbers are only important in so far as they rub off on Romney's handpicked successor, Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey. Luckily, we have the Wall Street Journal/Zogby Interactive polls to fill in those gaps. Here are those results:

Tom Reilly:	49.8%
Kerry Healey:	32.4%

Deval Patrick:	51.3%
Kerry Healey:	29.4%

These numbers are a bit more realistic than the numbers Zogby put out in October, but it should be noted that the methodology for these polls is very fishy. I would not be surprised if both Democrats were beating the Lieutenant Governor, but honestly, I'm skeptical of any poll that has Deval Patrick doing better than Tom Reilly against Kerry Healey, even with the Attorney General's recent bad press. This month's Statehouse News Poll should come out in the next week or two and I think that will give us a better picture of the governor's race.

Thanks to the fine folks over at Daily Kos for pointing out these polls.