The Lite, if you will:
"Charles Baker readies 2d bid for governor; Key to GOP’s comeback hopes" by Frank Phillips, Jim O’Sullivan and Michael Levenson | Globe Staff, September 04, 2013
Charles D. Baker, the GOP’s defeated 2010 candidate, will announce a second gubernatorial campaign Wednesday, according to three top Massachusetts Republican leaders briefed on his decision, a highly anticipated move that party insiders see as critical to Republican hopes of recapturing the governor’s office....
His decision to run will shape the emerging race for governor that already has five Democrats seeking their party’s nomination. Without Baker, the GOP would have been looking at a thin bench of viable candidates. Former senator Scott Brown’s recent announcement that he would not run for the office highlighted the party’s heavy reliance on Baker getting into the race.
By confronting Democrats with a well-known and experienced candidate, Baker’s entrance also poses a test of Governor Deval Patrick’s political legacy, and of whether Massachusetts voters have wearied of one-party rule on Beacon Hill after eight years.
We are more than weary; we are supine.
Related: Patrick's Legacy and the Next Governor
And now he wants to run for president? Hasn't he learned that Massachusetts governors don't win national presidential races?
Baker has been courting Democratic insiders, according to well-placed strategists in both parties, a sign of his efforts to cultivate a more moderate demographic of voters.
One strategist who is said to play a role in Baker’s campaign is Will Keyser, a public relations executive who was communications director to the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy and chief of staff for former congressman Martin Meehan, both Democrats. Keyser is helping to shape Baker’s message in Wednesday’s announcement.
So we won't be getting change of any kind other than the letter after the name and the $ame $pecial intereSts will be $erved, begging the question of why I'm bothering with any of this.
Baker did not respond to calls seeking comment about his pending announcement.
At 56, Baker had long been considered a rising star in the Massachusetts political and government world, but his efforts to appeal to conservatives in his failed 2010 bid to unseat Patrick scarred his image as a bipartisan moderate who could appeal to centrist independents and Democrats.
His 2010 campaign for governor sought to channel anti-incumbent sentiment and dissatisfaction with the sluggish economy. His slogan, “Had Enough?” hinted at the outrage he was hoping to tap, but seemed to clash with his analytical style, and with the warm, aspirational rhetoric that is Patrick’s hallmark.
On matters of policy, Baker promised to cut the corporate, income, and sales tax rates to 5 percent to revive the state economy. He vowed to slim state government by laying off 5,000 state workers, cutting the number of health and human services agencies, and asking chains like CVS to take over some of the transactions handled by the Registry of Motor Vehicles. He also embraced same sex marriage and abortion rights.
Democrats, pointing to his $1.7 million salary at Harvard Pilgrim, painted him as wealthy and out of touch, and mobilized a massive grass-roots operation against him. Patrick won the race with 48 percent of the vote to Baker’s 42 percent. An independent candidate, Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill, received 8 percent of the vote, and Baker said after the election that Cahill “made our already narrow window that much narrower.”
He also blamed his loss on Patrick’s political skills, lower-than-expected energy among Republicans, and swing voters turned off by the rise of conservative Republicans nationally.
But post-election analysis laid much of the blame on Baker’s often strident appeals to the conservative right. One of the keys to the 2014 election will be his ability to tap support from across party lines and from moderate independents because of his progressive positions on social, human services, and environmental issues.
Like Weld, Baker is an advocate of conservative fiscal policies and liberal social views....
Baker got his start in politics in the early 1980s, as a spokesman for the Massachusetts High Tech Council, a business lobby. He then joined the Pioneer Institute, a conservative think tank. Weld hired Baker into his new administration in 1991, and the young policy aide quickly moved up the ranks, serving as health and human services secretary and then administration and finance secretary, in charge of the state budget. Within the administration, he had a reputation as a boy wonder, with a penchant for holding long staff meetings on subjects ranging from tax reform to special education.
During that time, he was also an architect of the Big Dig financing plan, a fact that came back to haunt his 2010 gubernatorial bid when it became a main target of attack by Patrick.
See: Globe's Governor's Race: Burying Charles Baker
He buried us in debt.
Baker left the State House in 1998 to lead Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates. He then spent 10 years as chief executive of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, and was credited with helping to rescue the company from the edge of financial ruin. He remained involved in politics, though on a much smaller scale, as a selectman in his hometown of Swampscott.
After the 2010 election, he joined General Catalyst Partners, a venture capital firm in Cambridge. His work there has kept him out of the public eye, but it included a well-publicized $17 million equity financing deal for Oceans Healthcare, Louisiana’s largest provider of psychiatric facilities for geriatric patients. As part of the deal, Baker became chairman of the company’s board.
Baker, who grew up in Needham, comes from a politically involved family. His mother was a liberal Democrat and his father, Charles D. Baker, served as undersecretary of health and human services in the Reagan administration and as undersecretary of transportation during the Nixon years. He has remarked that family dinners first exposed him to intense political debates.
Baker played basketball at Harvard, and graduated with a degree in English in 1979. In 1986, he earned a master’s degree in business administration from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He is married and a father of three.
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Related:
GOP candidate Charles D. Baker debuts more upbeat image
On the trail at UMass Lowell, Charlie Baker is upbeat
In second run for governor, Charlie Baker in touch with lighter side
A well-trained elitist is just what we need.
Now for the Darker side:
"Trepidation remains over Martha Coakley" by Frank Phillips | Globe Staff, September 13, 2013
With all signs indicating that Attorney General Martha Coakley is set to announce a run for governor as early as Monday, her popularity among voters would make her a formidable candidate.
But three years after her loss to Scott Brown, Coakley still faces large pockets of resistance from Democratic Party leaders and activists who have not yet forgotten her disastrous performance.
A person familiar with the planning said Coakley is in the final decision stages and could make an announcement first thing next week. Once in the race, Coakley would be expected to quickly move to the front of the pack.
As a two-term attorney general, she is a well-known statewide figure who in the last several years has reinvigorated a political career nearly destroyed by the failed 2010 Senate bid. She would also enter the campaign with the backing of several politically formidable women’s groups, including EMILY’s List, that will raise huge amounts of campaign cash on her behalf.
For those who saw firsthand the Coakley collapse in the race against Brown, however, the prospect of her leading the 2014 Democratic ticket is cause for concern.
Lou DiNatale, a Democratic strategist and pollster, said that while Coakley has done a remarkable job of politically rehabilitating herself, he picks up a persistent undercurrent of negative chatter that began over the summer when she first signaled her interest in a gubernatorial campaign.
“Even though she dominates in the surveys, the Democratic activists remain concerned about her ability to perform as a candidate in the long run,’’ DiNatale said. “They understand she could unravel at any moment in a tough general election race.’’
Isn't that sexist?
**********************
Coakley’s biggest selling point to party leaders is her standing in the polls. For example, a statewide survey of 500 voters taken by pollster David Paleologos this summer showed Coakley faring far better against the likely GOP nominee, Charles D. Baker, than other potential Democratic nominees, including state Treasurer Steve Grossman. Her favorability rating was 56 percent, statistically tied with Brown and Patrick, who have long been considered the two most popular politicians in Massachusetts....
A broad consensus among party insiders, most of whom did not want to be quoted by name for fear of looking disloyal to a major political officeholder, suggests that the jarring experience in the Senate race is creating ripples of consternation within the ranks.
“I think she’s going to get a very chilly reception,’’ said one prominent Norfolk County Democrat who did not want to speak publicly about the angst about Coakley’s candidacy.
Coakley’s only serious courting of the party regulars came in July, at the party’s annual convention in Lowell, where she got a warm reception. But, she has for the most part avoided smaller summer conclaves: the barbecues, picnics, and living-room caucuses that mark off-year party activity.
Those events can draw as many as 100 or more activists who are the core of the party infrastructure. Her absence is a perceived slight that has not gone unnoticed.
Norma Shulman, the Democratic state committeewoman from Framingham who is backing Grossman for governor, said that while Coakley’s high-profile accomplishments as attorney general since the 2010 race have defused much of the anger that had been directed at her, she still faces hurdles within the party ranks as she ponders another statewide race.
Is that a surprise?
Related: Campaign finance pact gets push in gubernatorial race
AIPAC will $till be able to help him.
“I know there are activists who are very jaded from the failed Senate race, but there are also activists who are very pleased with the work she is doing as attorney general,’’ said Shulman.
Even Democrats who admire Coakley acknowledge there is some lingering unease toward her as a gubernatorial candidate. But they insist that she has worked hard reconstructing a political career that appeared to be on life support after the Brown victory.
One of them — Gus Bickford, a Democratic consultant and former executive director of the state party — said that he finds himself making the case to skeptics. Coakley, he tells them, has burrowed back into her job as attorney general, focusing on a host of important issues such as marriage equality, human trafficking, and domestic violence, subjects that resonate with most of the party’s activists.
Yeah, but she caved to the banks and now people can't get their chump change checks.
Related: Mass. lawsuit shows that banks haven’t changed foreclosure ways
The banks are flouting the law because they think they are the law.
Also see: Barclays settles with Mass. AG for $36.1m
No admi$$ion of guilt and a $lap on the wrists considering their quarterly profits.
Thanks, Marty. I'm $ure it was the be$t you could get.
“Most of those people are willing to give me the benefit of the doubt,’’ said Bickford, who added that he had not yet decided whom to support in the race. “I don’t think they are a majority at all. I am sure she is going to get a fair shake from the party insiders.”
Beyond the 2010 fallout, Coakley faces the same challenges as previous attorneys general who have tried and failed to parlay the job into a successful run for governor. Despite her popularity, she will face a viable Democratic field in the governor’s race.
A Coakley run would also mean that Democrats risk losing control of the attorney general’s office as hopefuls from the left and the right line up to replace her. Already, Secretary of State William F. Galvin has told several Democratic insiders that he would take a serious look at the race.
I like Galvin.
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"Coakley in governor’s race, with backing, baggage; Attorney General to start run with 18-city tour" by Frank Phillips | Globe Staff, September 15, 2013
Attorney General Martha Coakley, who only three years ago appeared to be finished politically, will join the race for governor with an announcement in her hometown of Medford on Monday followed by an 18-city barnstorming tour for the next three days, a top Coakley political aide said.
Her campaign will test whether Democrats are ready to take another chance on her leading the ticket next year as she emphasizes a theme of expanding economic opportunity, job creation, and improving education....
I'm independent but will probably vote in the Democratic primary. For whom I have no idea, but I do know for whom I will not vote.
Her main rival in the early stages of the campaign, state Treasurer Steve Grossman, a former state and national party chairman, has been working hard for several years, crisscrossing the state and button-holing party leaders, fund-raisers, and activists for support. Coakley, who was expected until this spring to run for reelection, for the most part has not circulated among the party activists, keeping a low profile politically while focusing on her job as attorney general.
Translation: Marty loses the rigged primary.
Grossman released a statement Sunday that takes a direct shot at Coakley’s emphasis on economic issues. “I am the only Democratic candidate who offers a lifetime of proven leadership in strengthening our economy,’’ he said.
Still, with her high-profile work as attorney general in the last few years boosting her image, early polls show Coakley leading the pack in the party primary and running the strongest against probable GOP nominee Charles D. Baker.
She faces skepticism within the party rank and file, however....
“You can tell a lot about someone’s character not when things are going well, but when they have a setback,” said state Representative Paul Brodeaur, a Melrose Democrat. “That says more about her than anything else.”
Peter N. Ubertaccio, director of the Martin Institute at Stonehill College, said Democrats would make a mistake to view Coakley “exclusively through the lens of January 2010.’’
“She turned around immediately from that defeat and was reelected by a substantial margin and has continued since to remain one of the most popular politicians in the state,’’ he said. “A lot of it depends on whether she and her people have learned from that Senate campaign.’’
Mary Anne Marsh, a Democratic strategist who is not affiliated with any campaign, said the decision to launch her campaign in a three-day tour through the state — compared to the recent video release by Baker — shows Coakley is serious about retooling her image as an aloof prosecutor....
Coakley, who is convinced her failure in the Senate race was due in part to a poor campaign structure, has also turned to campaign strategist Doug Rubin, who many consider the party’s top political adviser in the state. His past list of clients includes Governor Deval Patrick, Senator Elizabeth Warren, and Representative Joseph P. Kennedy III.
Related:
"The revolving door between
lawmakers and the businesses they regulate has often been the subject of
public criticism. Patrick’s former chief of staff, Doug Rubin, has
drawn criticism on the matter. Since leaving the administration to
become a lobbyist and private political consultant,
he has been representing GTech Corp., a casino equipment manufacturer.
Rubin’s representation of GTech has also become an issue in the current
US Senate election. Rubin is working as the top political strategist
for Democratic candidate Elizabeth Warren, who has campaigned against
the outsized influence of corporations in politics."
But he is a great Democratic $trategi$t so let's cut 'em a check, 'er, break.
Her arrival in the already crowded Democratic field comes as another major potential rival, US Representative Michael Capuano, the Somerville Democrat, is close to a decision on whether to run. He has lined up financial support, staff, and consultants but has yet to make a final determination....
Related: Capuano to run for reelection, not governor
One of Coakley’s strongest advantages is support she is getting from Democratic women activists and fund-raisers, who had encouraged her to jump into the race. Until that pressure mounted this spring, members of her inner political circle signaled that she would probably not run and instead seek a third term as attorney general.
Emily’s List, a Washington-based political group with a mission to elect women to public office, is expected to provide Coakley significant financial resources through its national fund-raising network.
The other woman in the Democratic race is Juliette Kayyem, a former Globe editorial page columnist who has served as a state and federal homeland security official. Kayyem said last month she would run, although she had indicated earlier she would not get in the race if Coakley entered.
She's in, and she will not be getting my vote.
She said Sunday she would not bow out because of Coakley’s entrance, contending she had joined the race in August convinced that the attorney general would also run and with the view that women should compete in politics.
“It’s the 21st century, so the era of one woman at a time is long gone,’’ said Kayyem.
Still, with no electoral experience and little name recognition, Kayyem faces up an uphill battle to get herself into serious consideration, particularly if Coakley is in the race.
Also running is Don Berwick, who ran Medicaid and Medicare in the Obama administration, and Joseph Avellone, a biotech executive....
Berwick is running from Obamacare as fast as he can so you can forget about him. The buck obviously does not stop with Berwick.
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Related:
Martha Coakley wades in governor’s race, hand first
Martha Coakley, seeking 2010 redemption, pays visit to Fenway
Was she at the game last night?
Also see: A second act for Charlie Coakley
I spent too much time watching the first one.
