So — we know what’s coming up next in Massachusetts: Ed Markey vs. Gabriel Gomez. Markey’s a 36 year veteran in the House; Gomez is an alledgedly “pure” non politician with all the attributes the national Republican Party wants to see — Latino, a former Seal, private-equity “job creating” vampire.
We’ve seen how this can play out even in not-as-liberal-as-our-rep Massachusetts. Remember Senator Coakley?
There are real, big differences this time of course. No Obamacare debate, nor teabagger summer of 2009. We’ve seen the Republican party in its howling glory a lot in the last two and half years, and Massachusetts Democrats are profoundly committed to not watching Scott Brown II play at any multiplexes next year. Not to mention Ed Markey isn’t Martha Coakley, for which I’m grateful indeed. But I’m deeply mindful of what about a dozen of us heading out to canvass for Markey on Sunday heard from this guy:
Mike Dukakis was a damn good governor, and he would have made a much better president than Bush the elder. Dukakis is particularly admirable because, in the tradition of the good guys, he hasn’t dropped out of public life or public service just because he’s not running for anything anymore. And boy does he know his home town.
I’d never met him before, and so after we chatted for a while, he asked me where in Brookline I live. I’m on a truly minor one block long street which boasts a grand total of, I think, seven houses that actually have addresses on our road (we’ve got a couple more on the corners that the larger through streets claim). I said the street name and started to explain where it was and he stopped me. “I know them all,” he said, and I believe the man.
So what did he say? He told us to get out and knock on every door — not just Sunday, but as much as we could before today, and then again, as much as we can, over and over again between now and June 25th, the day of the general election. We’ve know what happens when we don’t, he reminded us — and the he said not to pay any attention to the numbers. “I’m the guy who was 40% ahead of Ed King with five weeks to go and lost that election.” (Quoting from memory, backed up by this interview.)
The point is obvious, right?
Ed Markey is a hard core, old fashioned liberal. The kind of senator we need right now, in ever greater numbers. He’s going to start out with a substantial lead. About three times as many Democrats as Republicans voted in this primary. Markey’s vote total alone exceeds the GOP vote for all three of their candidates. And he can lose. If he doesn’t campaign better than Martha Coakley did, he may well lose. He won’t, both because I think it is actually physically impossible to do a worse job in an election than Coakley, and because he’s not stupid. He’s not a charismatic guy at all, but he works and works and works. Which is all good.
But there are no guarantees.
So my wife and I will be handing over a few more bucks, and we’ll be hitting the phones and knocking on doors. The state party’s a lot smarter than it was when it let Brown blindside everyone three years ago, and the national party isn’t going to let this one slip either. But if any of y’all are in the area, we could use your help. Ask Mike Dukakis. He’ll tell you.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
If this could be conveyed to every district in the United States, 2014 would be a surprising and wonderful year.
Redshirt
My Dukakis anecdote: I was walking towards Fenway Park in Kenmore Square on some random weekend day and saw Mr. Dukakis walking towards me. I was thinking of what I was going to say to him and just a few moments before I spoke up, he bent down, picked up a piece of trash, and then walked over to a storefront trashcan and dropped it in.
I was stunned by this simple good deed from a man who once ran for President.
Tom Levenson
@efgoldman: He’s still there on Perry St. I knew about his teaching gig at UCLA, and I asked him if he had moved out to California. Oh, no. He said. “Kitty and I’ve been in that house forever, and they’re never getting me out” he said — or close enough. He’s sufficiently smart to get an out of town gig for Jan-Mar, but the rest of the time, you know where to find the governor.
thalarctos
Leading up to this primary, my home was visited at least three times by workers from the Markey campaign; from the Republican candidates, only robocalls. (Astonishingly, from Lynch, nada.) I could be proven wrong, but I think the Markey campaign understands retail politics and will do what needs to be done.
geg6
I’m not a Masshole, but if there is anything us out-of-staters can do, point me to it. The only thing I ask is that you return the favor when Allison Schwartz runs against Tom “Close Your Eyes” Corbett.
I hate that fucker and nothing could make me happier than to see him fail to win a second term.
Persia
Good luck, guys.
Brown is eyeing New Hampshire now, I guess his logic is that the southern half of the state is increasingly a bedroom community for MA anyway.
He may get an unpleasant surprise.
Redshirt
@Persia: I almost kinda respect the shamelessness of it if he tries.
Yeah, go NH! I’ve always loved this state! Hey, did you know I drive a truck and have a hunting jacket?
ruemara
May every good thing happen to your efforts.
PsiFighter37
@Persia: Think the recent polling shows that NH wouldn’t take kindly to that kind of shameless carpetbagging.
As for Dukakis, good on him for walking the pavement like the rest of those who volunteer on these campaigns. The man really does understand the value of an important ground game, and I do like that he’s taken an understated role after his time in the national spotlight. If you look at what GOP losers do after they lose vs. the Democratic ones…I’d have to say that we generally have better people on our side.
Persia
@PsiFighter37: NH loves a charismatic Republican (the problem lately is they have no charisma) but holy shit they hate carpetbaggers almost as much as Vermonters do. I was kind of hoping he’d ignore that reality and try it, I was looking forward to the slaughter.
Anne Laurie
Note for President Obama’s supporters: Gabriel Gomez was the spokesmodel for the Swiftboaters’ 2012 “controversial anti-Obama film“… which was his entire political experience, prior to this. AFAICT, he’s entirely the puppet of outside astroturfers. So, if putting another Democrat into the Senate isn’t enough to tweak your interest, consider it as a race to keep a known anti-Obama candidate out!
Tom Levenson
@PsiFighter37: There’s a real argument that Dukakis is a political ancestor to Obama. He’s always emphasized a deep, persistent grass roots approach to elections. When Deval Patrick was first considering a run, he went to see Dukakis, who told him to starting lining up precinct captains and vice captains to work each and every neighborhood in the state. Deval took the advice to heart, and won as very much an outsider to MA politics in 2006. Obama and Patrick talk, a lot, and while there’s no doubt in my mind that Obama already grasped the idea, Deval’s victory was a proof of concept, and was itself predicated on techniques Dukakis had used to win statewide office three times.
Cacti
Gom@Anne Laurie:
Seems to me like an opportunistic weasel, who decided there was more of a political future in being a brown Republican. He made a $200 campaign contribution to Obama in 2008. Four years later, and he’s buds with the swiftboaters and birthers.
Mike in NC
I lived in Newport, RI during the Bush/Dukakis presidential campaign. Aside from the tank ride stuff, the local and national media liked to portray Dukakis as a swarthy midget and out of touch quasi-foreigner compared to the noble patrician WASP Poppy Bush.
JoyfulA
@Mike in NC: Frankly, I think he looked fine in the tank.
Matt McIrvin
@thalarctos: I got one in-person canvasser for Markey and a phone call reminding me to vote, and someone else hung a sign on my doorknob today. From Lynch, I got one robocall.
I’m impressed by Markey’s organization already. He knows how to do this.
mclaren
Meaning he believes in helping write legislation that makes it easier to ship American jobs overseas, he loves the War on Drugs that’s destroying the black community, he adores the War on Terror that’s destroying America’s constitution and turning us into a nation of fear-addled fools, and he supports more endless unwinnable foreign wars and the limitless expansion of unaccountable corporate power.
Get real.
There are no hard core old fashioned liberals in America anymore. There are only neocons who call themselves “progressive Democrats,” reactionary lunatics who call themselves “Republicans,” and a tiny fringe of people screamed at as “batshit insane crazies” who insist of quoting the fifth and sixth and eighth amendments of the constitution and saying exotic bizarre things like “The president of the united states does not have the power to order the murder of American citizens without a trial.”
Hal
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/01/us/massachusetts-kerry-senate-replacement.html?_r=0
Kudos to his service to our country. Now, where does he actually stand on issues other than being new to politics? I’ve been reading that he was terrible in the debates so it will be interesting to see how this plays out when he and Markey debate. I still don’t see how someone so conservative is going to win in MA. Plus, 400,000 plus dems voting vs less than 200,000 Republicans.
heckblazer
My only very shallow thought is “Are you sure you didn’t actually take a picture of Sam Waterson?”
Joel
I don’t want Markey to simply win. I want him to grind his shitheel opponent into the ground. Nothing personal, Gonzo.
Joel
@Cacti: in other words, a Republican.
Ana
My very first vote in a presidential campaign was cast for Mike Dukakis. I’m still gutted he lost. Good luck, you guys! (And it was good to see a current photo of him. He looks great.)
Lurking Canadian
@Cacti: Obviously the death of bin Laden made him realize how outraged he was by Chappaquidick.
SFAW
Me too, but the last time I heard him interviewed (it was NPR), he was so clumsy (to put it nicely) that I almost called Markey HQ, to tell them to smack him upside his head, tell him to get his shit together, and take some lessons in how to work an interview (and an audience).
Look, I know his heart is in the right place, and will contribute to his campaign, etc. But, as we learned with Coakley’s idiotic “campaign,” he needs to treat it as though Gomez is ahead, and going to stay there. And considering that Brown’s far-right views about any number of things were effectively covered up during that election, Gomez could certainly win this. But I sure hope I’m wrong.
SFAW
@Hal:
Ed King. Scott Brown. Paul Cellucci.
Massachusetts has a conservative streak a mile wide, despite their frequent blue-ness. All it takes is another 2010-style clusterfuck for Gomez to win.
Yes, I’m paranoid about this shit.
Matt McIrvin
@SFAW: Also, it’s a special election and turning people out is crucial in this environment. A dedicated minority can flip one of these things easily if the other side isn’t paying attention.
The thing Markey obviously already has is a ground game, even in my neighborhood out in Haverhill, which is pretty conservative on the whole. That’s going to help. Scott Brown beat Martha Coakley just by making an effort; she essentially didn’t campaign at all.
Sasha
While I was attending FAU, Dukakis taught a class there. Nice guy.
SFAW
@Matt McIrvin:
Yeah, I don’t think Markey is going to be susceptible to the “anointed” mindset.
Of course, now that Gomez has Joan “Clueless-as-the-Day-is-Long-and-by-‘Day’-I-Mean-168-Hours” Vennochi in his corner (“He’s so YOUNG and Markey is so OLD!”), it’s a sure pickup for the Rethugs.