Pre-Primary Thoughts

• I finally got a chance to read Governor Patrick's endorsement of Barack Obama in Saturday's Boston Globe. I know that Patrick and Obama have similar messages (and share consultants), but I feel like Deval just did a search and replace on one of his 2006 stump speeches to come up with that Op/Ed. Anyone who followed his 2006 campaign should recognize some of his stock phrases -- "wise guys and wise gals", "not buying what either party is selling." I guess if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
• Will Mitt Romney finally be off of my TV screen after tomorrow? The New Hampshire polls have him down, and the national polls have him even lower. If he doesn't get the bandwagon boost from a win there, can he carry enough states on Super-Duper Tuesday to get the nomination? Seems like a tall order.
• Bill Galvin is right. The primary process is even crazier than last time. I'd like to see regional primaries as well, but what are the chances that New Hampshire and Iowa would give up their positions? The parties had a hard enough time this year getting the states to wait until after Feburary, and we'll likely see that their threats to refuse to seat delegates to the convention will be empty.

President Younger's Inaugural Speech

I attended Wednesday night's inauguration of town officials at the Commander's Mansion. It was a small, tasteful affair with some good food and of course all of the usual suspects one would expect to see. Returning council President Clyde Younger gave the inaugural address, which you can see on tape at the TAB's blog. Here's the text of the speech as delivered:

Two years ago, the thirteenth town council session began with six new councilors, which constituted a 2/3rds turnover of the committee in one election. That included my going back on to the council. We were immediately thrust into getting to know one another's idiosyncrasies, learning how to work as a team and also negotiating a new contract with the town manager.

I'm acutely aware that all of the happenings surrounding the council these past two years gave the public the appearance that little town business was being accomplished. However, I wish to dispel any question in your mind of the effectiveness of the 13th council. It was one of the hardest working councils that I have been associated with in my prior six years on the council. In the past two years, the council has met innumerable meetings per week in the town council and in subcommittee. Outside of the work on the manager's contract, most of the work accomplished was in subcommittee,
which allowed for considerable dialogue, discussion and input from interested parties that resulted in establishing a consistent policy direction for the council.

These achievements were due to the fact that we had individual councilors who were not afraid to ask hard questions on behalf of their constituents. We approved very important programs ranging from coalition bargaining with all town employees that has the potential to save the community a considerable sum of money in health care costs. We increased moneys for sidewalk and street reconstruction. We approved quarterly water/sewer billing, provided additional capital funds for our schools and town buildings, and also we approved the lease of the Coolidge school that is designed to bring in an additional $355,000 in the first year and thereafter $55,000 in fees per annum for fifty years which should result in $2 million in revenue to the council and the community.

Of special importance, the council established a new subcommittee, namely the Budget and Fiscal Oversight committee. This Committee is charged with the responsibility through the Council to provide policy direction to the town manager on fiscal matters.

Despite the accomplishments at the end of the term of the 13th council, we were marred by multiple situations where questions were raised regarding the election process and the actions taken by the town manager. Although it is apparent that the manager had the authority to initiate a court review of the election, bypassing the Council was inexcusable.

I look forward to working with the 14th council on such issues as the following: improving the town's overall infrastructure, both above-ground and underneath; and in view of the fact that Watertown is one of the most densely populated cities in the Commonwealth, we need to look for opportunities to support and improve upon our commitment to open space. We also need to resurrect the bicycle/walk path plan that has become dusty on the shelf. We also need to investigate the town's electoral process, and this examination will cover all activities before, during, and after the election, including the manager's preemptive bid to take the matter to the Superior Court if the candidate had not taken action.

In addition it is imperative that we examine our charter, in order to make some substantive changes to it. It has become quite evident that changes are in order. One question that quickly comes to mind is whether the president of the council should be chosen by the council rather than the general public and also whether any other form of government would be closer and more representative of the people. There has existed for some time an imbalance between the legislative and executive branch that must be addressed.

In closing, in reflecting back over the past two years, could we have presented ourselves better on camera -- certainly so. My personal goal for the next two years is to officiate over a more mundane, hard-working council. I am asking for the cooperation of each and every councilor to assist me in this endeavor. Thank you for your attention this evening.

A couple of things stand out. First, I think it's interesting that Younger wants a more "mundane" council, but he peppered his speech with barbs directed at the town manager, Mike Driscoll. Twice he chastises Driscoll for threatening to go to court to determine what went wrong with the town's election, and after that he implies that Driscoll's abuse of power is sufficient enough to change the town charter over. Never mind that Younger admits that Driscoll had the authority initiate a court review of the election. I will say that it seemed strange to me that Driscoll would want to take the town he manages to court, but it's even stranger still that he would need to ask permission from the very council whose election was the one that was suspect.

Younger appeared defensive, bringing up that everyone thought the last council didn't do anything. Then his examples of the things they accomplished were that they held a lot of meetings. Now, don't get me wrong, I know that the town councilors work very hard for very little compensation. Still, it seems to me that it would have been a better speech had Younger decided to talk more about his plans for the next two years than trying to defend any perceived inaction.

I hate to bring up George Lakoff in a discussion of town politics, but if someone tells me not to think of an elephant, my head is going to involuntarily fill with pachyderms. Similarly, if the president of the town council tells me that the last session wasn't as ineffective as everyone says, I'm immediately going to think the opposite.

Poor Mitt

Seems like our former absentee governor had a bit of a bad night tonight. I suppose it's not too early to get him a consolation gift.

It may be obvious, but the reason this hurts Mitt so much is not necessarily that he lost, but that he lost by double digits (or nearly so) to someone he outspent by 4-to-1 after laying groundwork in Iowa for nearly three years. Romney was buying favors in Des Moines before anyone outside of Arkansas ever heard of Mike Huckabee. That someone could waltz in and render all that effort moot in the last month or so leading up to the election shows how soft Romney's support really was.

Also, don't forget that Romney needed some big wins to raise his national profile before Super-Duper Tuesday next month. He doesn't have the name recognition that Giuliani, McCain and even Thompson have.

That said, Romney could pull it off. I think it may end up being McCain, since the Republicans gravitate toward the person whose "turn" it is when in doubt (See Dole, Bob). But McCain is the darling of the media and of Independents, not necessarily Republicans -- and they'll have more of a say in the nominee than anyone else. I have a hard time picturing the GOP faithful who consistantly rank "immigration" as one of their top concerns turning en masse to the candidate least in line with the Republican platform.

New Years Blog Resolutions

I'm a few days late on this, but I wanted to make sure I committed to electrons some of the blog resolutions I've made in the new year. One thing that visitors to this site will have noticed is the decline in posting frequency in the last quarter of 2007. This also happened in 2006, both years because my involvement in campaigns got me out of a posting rhythm. For 2008, I'd like to get back to my at least once-per-weekday (holidays excluded) schedule. In addition, I'd like to actually follow through on my desire to blog about my involvement in a campaign while I'm actually doing campaign work. It's a simple idea, but one I've utterly failed to do in the last two years.

Also, for 2008, I'd like to see the blog have some more dynamic content, so I've added a section to the sidebar I've tentatively titled "Posts I've Read" (anyone with a better suggestion, please submit it) which lists my most recent del.icio.us bookmarks -- blog posts or other web content that I've recently found and decided was worth sharing, but not quite worth an entire blog post. In 2007 I spent a lot more time reading blogs than writing blog posts, so I think this would be an easy way to share the things I've read that don't necessarily merit a longer post.

Given that 2008 is a presidential election year, there's a temptation to have more national content on the blog, but I find that I have little to add to all the excellent national coverage in the blogosphere. Instead I'd like to go the other direction and have more local-level coverage in addition to state-level coverage. This will likely be a challenge in the run-up to November, but given how involved I was in the recent election here in Watertown, I regret that I didn't really talk about all the craziness in the aftermath.

And, of course, the one resolution I will most likely keep: More baby pictures.

Question of the Evening

If Mitt Romney is the candidate who will "stop the militant gays", then why was he unable to do so as Governor of Massachusetts? This has perplexed me for a while. Romney could not stop marriage equality here in Massachusetts. Why should those for whom banning same-sex marriage is a priority think that he is the best person to do so nationally? Because he failed so often and utterly that he's due for at least one victory?

Merry Christmas!

So far the biggest hit of the holiday season has been a tupperware container full of synthetic wine corks. I hope you and yours have a happy holiday.

Post Christmas Update: Other big hits included: a full box of tissues, an empty box of tissues, a pratice golf ball, the letter "I" from a wooden puzzle of his name, my in-law's cable box, and his godmother's Roomba.

Mihos/UMass Pollster Violated Ethics Laws

When I first heard about the UMass-Lowell pollster Louis DiNatale having violated conflict of interest laws by conducting polls for UMass at the same time he was conducting polls on behalf of then gubernatorial candidate Christy Mihos, I immediately thought of this poll, which I noted at the time was a big wet kiss to Mihos. That poll, however, was a Suffolk University poll, not a UMass poll. The UMass poll DiNatale conducted while he was on Mihos' payroll was this one, which was of the candidate vs. candidate variety.

Looking over the poll results, it's hard to conclude that DiNatale let his connection with Mihos bias his results at all, so it's probably just as well that his only punishment for the conflict of interest was publicizing that he'd violated the law. Still, one wonders what conflict of interest laws are for if there's no penalty for breaking them.

The Mayor of Chicopee Must Really Want Casinos

Now that I've been to a number of Democratic State Conventions, it's not uncommon for me to get all sorts of political mail. Today, when I came home, I found that between my wife and myself, we had gotten not one but four brochures from the Mayor of Chicopee, Michael Bissonnette, with the header: "Resort-Style Casinos: For our Towns. For our towns. For our cities. For a better Massachusetts." Now, I understand that it's a hassle to go through your database and make sure you're only sending one piece of mail to a household -- I did this myself during Susan Falkoff's campaign -- but unless Mayor Bissonnette thinks that the number of mail pieces we get will reflect just how much he wants to be able to have a casino in Chicopee, there's really no reason we should be getting four.

The piece itself describes resort casinos as "a predictable and reliable source of local aid" and details just how much our cities and towns need revenue. It claims that resort-style casinos would "create upwards of $500 million in new annual tax revenues" -- above and beyond the revenue generated through job creation -- and notes that we "can't keep paying for schools, public safety, and roads and bridges in Connecticut." All in all, it makes a good case for increased local aid, but it really avoids the question of whether resort-style casinos are the best way to go about increasing such aid.

If anyone wants a copy, let me know. I have plenty of extras.

[UPDATE]: wbennet over at BMG called the mayor's office to find out who was behind the mailing. The answer was, of course, a lobbying firm: The Dewey Square Group.

Preview of Grove Street Condos

Last week I trudged out in the storm to try to go to a hearing on the condo complex being proposed for the Grove St. Aggregate site by the Hanover Company. The meeting was canceled -- which was the right move given the road conditions -- but thanks to Chris over at the TAB's blog, I was able to find this artist's rendition of what the new property may look like:

You can find the picture on Hanover's website. I think this would be looking at the building from Grove Street, with Coolidge Hill Road going up the side. The complex as pictured is certainly more appealing than the Aggregate site is now -- largely piles of dirt and rock -- but I remain concerned about the trend in Watertown of turning commericial property into residential.

Weekend Baby Blogging

I've seen two seperate comments to the Watertown Tab blog attributing Susan Falkoff's victory in Tuesday's Town Council election to some kind of Watertown liberal "machine". Having been involved in that campaign, I can show the world an exclusive picture of the machine most responsible for her win:

As you can see, it's clearly fallen into the wrong hands.

Susan Falkoff Campaign Video

[Cross posted to H2OTown]

Part of the reason that I have been absent frm this blog lately is because I've been working overtime on friend-of-the-blog Susan Falkoff's campaign to return to the Watertown Town Council. It's just under a week until the election and the campaign has released this video on Youtube. Check it out:



It's a little long, but it's a great way to see why Susan is running for Town Councilor-at-Large and it features testimonials from Don Levy at the Town Diner and some other families in town. I think Susan's really the only candidate who has much of a website, and if you haven't seen it yet, click over to www.susanfalkoff.com right now. There is great information about who she is and why she is running for Town Councilor-at-Large.  Susan even has a  campaign blog.

Election Day is next Tuesday, November 6.  If you contact the Susan Falkoff campaign at falkoff2007@aol.com, they can help you get to the polls.

Happy Halloween

Dressed up as tigers for Halloween.

Election Day in MA-05

I feel a bit bad that after I paid such loving attention to the Democratic primary race in Massachusetts' fifth district I've gone missing for the entire stretch of the general election. Unfortunately, the triple pressures of a baby, a full-time job, and yet another campaign have left me with little time for blogging.

In any case, today is the day that voters of the fifth finally decide who will replace former Congressman Marty Meehan. Democrat Niki Tsongas (interviewed here) is favored to win over Republican Jim Ogonowski, though the race has been close by Massachusetts standards. Really, though, nine points is a comfortable margin in a competitive race. I can't see Ogonowski winning for three reasons -- he has been incomprehensible on SCHIP, I don't think he can match the Democratic Party's GOTV operation, and Unenrolled voters don't tend to vote in special elections at the rate he would need them to. There's always a chance that enough Democrats would cross party lines because of immigration or some other reason, but I have yet to see evidence of that in a Federal-level race in Massachusetts. Historically, Democrats are much loyal to their party's nominee for Federal office than for state or local office.

In any case, if you're able to volunteer for Tsongas today, Blue Mass Group has some ways to help.

Upcoming Watertown Events

There are a couple of interesting events over the next couple days here in Watertown. First, on Thursday (tomorrow), Sept 27th, the Watertown Democratic Town Committee will be meeting at 8PM in the lower hearing room of the Town Hall. Senatorial candidate and former Watertown resident Ed O'Reilly is scheduled to speak at that meeting. O'Reilly is challenging current Senator John Kerry for the 2008 Democratic nomination. I met him briefly during the unveiling of a memorial to his father, the late Watertown Fire Chief Robert O'Reilly, and I'm interested to hear why he's decided to take up such a seemingly impossible task.

On Friday, frequent guest blogger Susan Falkoff is having her campaign kickoff party. The event will be held from 7 to 9PM at the home of Barbara & Jeremy Ruskin, 140 Spring Street in Watertown. Susan is running to return to the Town Council where she served from 2004 to the end of 2005. For more information on the event, see her website, and be sure to check out her campaign blog.

On Saturday, from 10AM-4PM in Watertown's Saltonstall Park, the town will hold its annual Faire on the Square. Last year, then-gubernatorial candidate Deval Patrick, fresh off of his primary victory, came and was a big hit (Kerry Healey was scheduled to attend as well, but stood the town up). This year, the Watertown Democratic Town Committee is conducting its first presidential primary straw poll at the Faire. I will be manning the booth for most of the day, so if you're attending, stop by, cast your vote, and say hello.