Overall Roundup
The year started off very well for the Republican Party in Massachusetts, as Scott Brown, a little-known State Senator from Wrentham, emerged victorious over his rival Democrat Martha Coakley in the January Special US Senate Election. The GOP, which has had a degree of success in this state in the past by electing sixteen years of Republican governors between 1990 and 2006, attributed the Brown victory to voter discontent with the current Democratic-led Congress. In reality, the Brown victory was probably more likely a result of Brown’s strong campaign, which was better organized and more focused on victory than the campaign of his opponent, Martha Coakley. For many years, the Massachusetts Republican Party did a very poor job of recruiting quality candidates for state offices, and the strong candidates they did recruit were not well equipped to fight strong campaigns. But Scott Brown ran a solid campaign, stayed on message, and his pickup truck clearly didn’t hurt either. He had the advantage of running against a candidate who made repeated gaffes, failed to connect with voters, and spent too much time off the campaign trail assuming she would win in the end. Republicans are giddy over the success that Brown had in Massachusetts, but the party should be cautious not to prematurely declare victory on November 2.
Governor
In the Massachusetts governor’s race, incumbent Governor Deval Patrick hopes to win another four years running against two self-described fiscal conservatives and a liberal Green-Rainbow candidate. Charlie Baker, who many months ago was largely unknown by most Massachusetts voters, has been campaigning throughout the state with the not-very-inspirational slogan of “Had Enough?” However, even while Baker has gone a long way in terms of name recognition, Baker still is largely unknown by the electorate, and if he loses the race this year it could very easily be attributed to his being less known.
State Treasurer Tim Cahill, who was previously considered a threat to the Baker campaign, will likely not be as much of a problem as previously feared. His campaign has been virtually obliterated by a heavy media assault of negative television ads aired by the Republican Governors Association. Cahill seems really genuine and is the only candidate who does not live in a multi-million dollar home. But he seems like more of a political opportunist than anything else, who saw a chance to run for governor but knew he could not defeat Patrick for the Democratic nomination so decided to run as an independent. Treasurer Cahill has had some reasonable success at the State Treasurer’s office, and he deserves credit for overseeing some very positive improvements at the agencies the state treasury oversees, including the Massachusetts School Building Authority and the Lottery. But Cahill calls himself a fiscal conservative, which really does not reflect facts; as a Quincy City Councilor during the 1990s the Quincy city budget grew tremendously, and Cahill supported multiple property tax increases.
Charlie Baker’s campaign has not been run as well as it could be. His campaign website, for example, is lackluster and boring, especially compared to the upbeat and friendly-looking sites of Cahill and Patrick. His campaign TV ads have done a poor job of demonstrating the major differences between him and the governor. His campaign has also been unable to effectively respond to repeat charges by his opponents that Baker had a key role in the Big Dig boondoggle during the 1990s, which is very true.
Ultimately, between Baker and Patrick, Baker emerges as the better candidate. With the state facing a projected $2 billion budget deficit next year, whoever is elected governor on November 2 will be making critical budgetary decisions next year and in the coming years that will impact every Massachusetts citizen. We already know that our current governor, based on his record, will cut all state aid to cities and towns he can get his hands on, including prison mitigation money. When he raised the state sales tax last year for the first time in 33 years, cities and towns still saw a 30% cut in local aid, and Walpole still has not seen its prison mitigation money restored. The sales tax increase hurt businesses along the New Hampshire border, and yet cities and towns throughout the Commonwealth still saw no increased revenue. The cuts to local aid and prison mitigation money resulted in the layoffs of dozens of teachers in the Walpole school system.
At the end of Governor Patrick’s first six months in office, well before the economic recession rocked the country, the state’s rainy day fund had more than $2 billion in it. Shortly after, however, Governor Patrick, along with the Legislature, took out about $625 million in stabilization funds to balance two budgets before the economy went sour in 2008. This is not responsible spending. The state is now suffering under the burden of higher taxes and less state aid thanks to the governor’s decision to dive into the state’s reserve funds too early. It would have been more responsible for Patrick to work to cut spending and promote fiscal conservatism right from the start of his term.
There are major cuts we could have been making during the past four years that Patrick has never and will not entertain. “A year into a recession that has forced families and businesses to reevaluate their own spending, the state still maintains policies that please employee unions but waste money that could go instead to shoring up vital services,” the Globe’s editorial page shouted in October 2009. The Governor has repeatedly deflected calls from some, mostly Republicans, to eliminate the Pacheco Law, which the Globe wrote, “severely restricts the state’s ability to hire private contractors to perform public services valued at more than $500,000.”
Baker, on the other hand, as part of his “Baker’s Dozen” of 13 ideas to cut $1 billion from the state budget (outlined in plain English for all to read on his website), has proposed repealing the Pacheco Law, cutting nearly $100 million from the state budget. Patrick, meanwhile, hasn’t budged on efforts to repeal the law, even as his allies at the Globe’s editorial page call it a “wasteful policy.” Meanwhile, Baker has also proposed reforming the state’s Medicaid and Medicare programs, bringing in up to $300 million in total savings. What is frightening about all of Baker’s 13 cuts is that Patrick hasn’t even touched any of these ideas. Baker has been proposing millions of dollars worth of cuts that can be made right now to the state budget, and Patrick doesn’t appear to have noticed. He’s too busy raising taxes and cutting local aid.
Baker’s ideas for cuts to the budget make sense, both economically and logically. The past four years have been challenging for municipalities across Massachusetts, as Patrick has consistently cut local aid while raising taxes. Responsible leadership involves making the hard decisions about waste in the state budget – decisions Patrick hasn’t made and won’t make in a second term. In a sign of a true desire to lead, Baker hasn’t even been elected yet, and he is already proposing serious cuts he’d impose to make government more economical.
On the education front, Governor Patrick deserves some credit for making tremendous investments statewide in education. But even while he boasts that Massachusetts is first in the nation for student achievement, the only student achievement level he is referring to that is first in the nation is only because Massachusetts 4th and 8th grade students have consistently ranked first in the nation in math between 2007 and 2009. He claims credit for the fact that just two grades happen to score high in mathematics every year. The American Legislative Exchange Council gives Massachusetts a C+ when it comes to education reform, and gives the state a D+ when it comes to removing ineffective teachers and a D- on identifying quality teachers. Meanwhile, here in Walpole, we have been laying off dozens of teachers.
Governor Patrick has also demonstrated a disappointing campaign strategy, in contrast to Charlie Baker. Walpole has not seen Governor Patrick in an official capacity in the four years since he was elected in 2006. In the meantime, he’s been laying off Walpole teachers and shutting down the East Walpole Fire Station through his devastating cuts in local aid and prison mitigation money. After whipping through a whole four years and never stepping foot in Walpole, he visited for the first time in February of this year, to attend a private fundraiser in a private home for a friend of his in East Walpole. So after cutting our money and slashing our budget, the Governor comes pleading to us asking us for money in an invitation-only fundraiser. The same week that the Governor attended the Walpole fundraiser, his opponent, Charlie Baker, came to town to meet citizens, talk with business owners, and take a walking tour of downtown for an entire morning. There is clearly a marked difference between a candidate who attends an invitation-only fundraiser in a town he hasn’t even visited even once in the four years he’s been governor, and a candidate who arrives in town not to ask for money but to ask for ideas for how to move the state in another direction. At Walpole Day in May, the Governor made another appearance in town in what was essentially a photo-op, shaking hands and walking through a throng of supporters holding campaign signs, nearly all of whom didn’t actually live in Walpole. Meanwhile, at the same event, Charlie Baker made a surprise, low-profile appearance and actually campaigned, chatting with people casually and sharing some concerns about the state. Instead of focusing on making sure that his visit was highly publicized and that photographers would be in attendance to take his picture, like the Governor had done with his visit, Baker arrived as a regular guy interested in hearing directly from the citizens. The only reason the Governor came to Walpole Day was to get his photo taken, and almost as quickly as he had arrived, he was off again, to another photo-op, never having a substantive conversation with town officials and residents about his crippling cuts to local aid and prison mitigation money. It doesn’t seem likely, either, that the Governor will be back to Walpole before November 2. During the 2006 campaign, too, Patrick didn’t bother showing up in Walpole. In fact, his opponent that year, Kerry Healey, and her running mate, Reed Hillman, set up a satellite campaign office in Walpole Center, and Hillman himself actually visited Walpole in 2006 (in an apparently low-profile visit) as part of his tour of all Massachusetts towns. Not surprisingly, Patrick lost the Walpole vote in 2006, albeit by only 286 votes. He’ll likely lose Walpole again this year if he doesn’t start to show a little more compassion for the impact his policies have had on our community, rather than using our town as a campaign photo-op. A common excuse that we hear for the governor’s absence from Walpole is that as a full-time governor, Patrick doesn’t have the time to visit every individual city and town, whereas Charlie Baker quit his job at Harvard Pilgrim to campaign full-time in every town. But it is part of the governor’s job to visit every city and town in Massachusetts. It says a lot about our governor when he doesn’t even step foot in Walpole for the four years he is governor.
The past four years have been wrought with challenging budget times for Walpole and so many other towns across the Commonwealth. Our state needs new leadership, and Charlie Baker is the right man for the job. In a nutshell, Baker has promised to restore local aid and prison mitigation money, implement common sense reforms to state government, improve our business climate, and lower taxes, all the while building on the few successes of the Patrick administration. Furthermore, his liberal positions on abortion and gay marriage seal the deal. Governor Patrick’s tenure in office does not deserve a four-year extension. One look at the now-shuttered East Walpole Fire Station, a result of Patrick’s devastating prison mitigation cut, is ample reason why.
Congress
Incumbent Democratic Congressman Stephen Lynch weathered a difficult primary race against liberal Mac D’Alessandro, and is now pitted against Republican Vernon Harrison.
Harrison seems like a nice guy and is passionate about a number of issues. But in the year of Scott Brown, bipartisanship and cooperation in Congress should be emphasized, and Rep. Lynch has a proven record of bipartisanship, voting for legislation that even his own party did not support. His diverse views on the issues, from his opposition to the healthcare reform package, which got him in trouble with liberals, to his vote on cap-and-trade, which got him in trouble with conservatives, accurately position Lynch as a centrist Democrat who is not afraid to vote against his party when the times call for it.
Lynch’s most controversial vote this year, which got him in trouble with liberals, was against the health care reform legislation that was passed by Congress amid a highly polarizing debate. While health care reform is most certainly needed in this country, the final package that was passed with not one Republican vote fell far short of true reform. Lynch understood that more work was needed, and wasn’t afraid to say so. While he originally voted in favor of the House bill in 2009, he was under pressure from unions to vote for the final reform package that passed earlier this year. Lynch deserves re-election because he bucked his own party and didn’t vote for the bill just because leadership and unions wanted him to. He voted against health care reform because he did not feel comfortable with the provisions in the bill and felt more work was needed. Lynch stood up to his own party in an act of courage that is rare on Capitol Hill. Lynch deserves re-election.
District Attorney
In the race for District Attorney, Democrat Michael Morrissey, a State Senator from Quincy, is running against Independent Jack Coffey from Needham. Both candidates are reasonable choices for the office, as both have decades of experience in law, coupled with in-depth knowledge of the responsibilities of the District Attorney’s office. Between the two, however, Coffey is the better choice. Coffey served as an Assistant District Attorney in Suffolk County for eight years, and was appointed in 1993 to be a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney assigned to the Organized Crime Narcotic Drug Task Force, targeting drug dealing operations in the Eastern United States. In all, Coffey has 24 years of courtroom trial experience as both a prosecutor and criminal trial lawyer. He has never run for political office before, and is running this time because he believes Norfolk County needs a District Attorney who doesn’t have political ambitions and will do the job of D.A. without regard to politics. Morrissey, on the other hand, has served as a state legislator from Quincy for the past several decades. Morrissey is an entrenched Democrat who is so out-of-touch with Massachusetts residents that he voted in favor of last year’s sales tax hike. He has never served as prosecutor, but rather has been representing insurance companies as an attorney. Coffey has been both an attorney and a prosecutor, and knows both sides of the legal system. Coffey will be an effective District Attorney because he will bring independence and the necessary experience to a position that has been dominated by politics during the past decade. The previous two Norfolk District Attorneys have run for higher office once out of the D.A.’s office. We do not need another District Attorney who can not wait to run for a higher post. We need a District Attorney who knows the law and can effectively prosecute those who break it. Morrissey will be yet another District Attorney who can’t wait to get his hands on a better pension and a better job.
State Representative
State Representative John Rogers, who represents half of Walpole and all of Norwood in the State House of Representatives, has had numerous ethical lapses and in recent years has been the subject of intense scrutiny by the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance for various incidents relating to his campaign finance expenditures. He has never been found of any wrongdoing, however, questions still remain about those incidents. Rogers, who has been part of the House since the early 1990s, almost became House Speaker after Sal DiMasi resigned amid ethics charges, but ultimately lost out on the post to now-Speaker Robert DeLeo. Rogers is running against East Walpole resident Jim Stanton, who currently serves on the Walpole Zoning Board of Appeals. Stanton’s chance of winning is very low, as Rogers, even amid his repeated run-ins with campaign finance allegations, has a very strong support base in his district.
Stanton and Rogers are both reasonable candidates for the seat. On the issues that matter to Walpole residents, there are very few differences between the two candidates. Rogers has voted against party leadership numerous times, standing against cuts to local aid, standing up for common sense, and repeatedly voting to reform government. Rogers voted against the irresponsible sales tax increase last year, and has spoken out against cuts to local aid and prison mitigation money. Stanton, too, has said he will stand up for local aid and has criticized the higher sales tax.
But, issues aside, there are other differences between Rogers and Stanton. For example, Rogers is a career politician, who was elected to the House in 1992 and has since worked his way up the ranks to become House Majority Leader. Rogers will not leave the House until he is good and ready, which will likely be quite a while. On the other hand, Stanton has committed to taking voluntary term limits, and will only serve a maximum of four two-year terms. At a time when Beacon Hill has become increasingly out-of-touch with the priorities of Massachusetts residents, it really is time for some new representation in the State House. Rogers is part of the corrupt Beacon Hill culture that enables the very out-of-touch decisions we need to stop. Rogers has had repeated run-ins with unethical and corrupt behavior. For example, in 2007, The Boston Globe reported that Rogers had used $196,000 of his campaign funds to hire his former law partner, Philip F. Filosa, as a political consultant in an informal arrangement that did not include a fee schedule or even a written contract. The report prompted an in-depth investigation by the Massachusetts Office of Campaign & Political Finance into the finances of Rogers’ campaign. But when pressed by the Globe, Rogers refused to turn over records detailing the services his campaign committee had received for the payment, even as the Globe reported that “the monthly payments for political consulting services, which were often as high as $10,000, were far more generous than those other state lawmakers paid.” A year later, In 2008, Rogers was investigated by the OCPF for paying thousands from his campaign account to a friend and political adviser, Thomas Drummey, who then used the money to make mortgage payments on a Cape Cod vacation home that Rogers was a co-owner of. Rogers was eventually cleared of any major wrongdoing, and eventually paid the OCPF a sum of $30,000 as reimbursement for the expenses the agency had paid to conduct the investigation. But the OCPF determined that even still, Drummey had in fact used money from the campaign to pay the mortgage payments. While Rogers may not have personally done anything wrong, this investigation provokes questions about why one of Rogers’ political consultants was making payments for his house. These types of investigations in general, which have dogged Rogers during the past few years, are representative of the corrupt Beacon Hill culture that we have all come to abhor in the last few years.
