He won't be getting my vote and you will see why.
"Treasurer wrestles with potential conflicts over family firm; Steven Grossman issues disclosures over his family-firm clients’ business" by Frank Phillips | Globe Staff, December 16, 2013
State Treasurer Steven Grossman’s family marketing firm touts an impressive list of high profile clients that includes some of Boston’s biggest private sector names: the Bruins, the Celtics, J.P. Morgan Chase, and the high-powered law firm Mintz Levin.
Those organizations each have something else in common. They all have lucrative financial relationships with the state Treasury or the Massachusetts State Lottery, which Grossman oversees.
Grossman, elected treasurer in 2010 and now running for governor, has not hidden his majority interest in Grossman Marketing Group. He prominently refers in his official biography to his 35-year career as chief executive of the firm. He resigned when he became treasurer, leaving two of his sons to run the company, but he still owns “approximately 50 percent” of the firm and collects dividends from his stock holdings.
In an effort to be transparent, he has filed nearly two dozen public disclosure letters with the State Ethics Commission, citing potential conflicts that arise when those companies have business or seek contracts from government agencies that he controls.
Those letters paint a complex web of possible ethical conflicts that Grossman’s private business dealings could create for him as treasurer. There is no evidence he has acted illegally. He can rightfully boast that he has been transparent and that his disclosures constitute compliance with state ethics laws.
But now that he is running for governor, those business dealings will probably receive greater scrutiny.
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Grossman declined to be interviewed about the potential conflicts.
In one case, Grossman Marketing was selling promotional items to the Bruins and the Celtics — things such as bobbleheads and rally towels — at the same time the teams signed on with the lottery for partnerships to promote scratch tickets bearing the teams’ logos. Those arrangements allowed the hockey and basketball franchises to collect hundreds of thousands of dollars in instant ticket sales.
In 2011, Grossman OK’d a contract with the law firm Mintz Levin to act as bond counsel for the Treasury. The firm has since collected $1.2 million in legal bills....
The situation with J.P. Morgan Chase in 2011 was similar. The company, which Grossman described in a disclosure letter as a “current and potentially significant” client of his family’s marketing operation, was hired after a similar procurement process to provide investment banking services to the Treasury. Once again, Grossman was not involved in the early negotiation stages, but had the formal sign-off on the contract. The international financial giant has collected over $9 million from the state for its work since Grossman took office, state records show....
Nothing ever changes in this shitty state!
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"Weary donors slow to back candidates for governor" by Jim O’Sullivan and Frank Phillips | Globe Staff, December 19, 2013
Republican gubernatorial candidate Charlie Baker, who has a history of strong fund-raising, is badly trailing the pace he set in the initial months of his 2010 bid for governor.
Democrat Martha Coakley, meanwhile, has posted unimpressive fund-raising figures since announcing her candidacy in September; advisers say the attorney general is focused on building a field organization.
And state Treasurer Steven Grossman, a longtime Democratic powerbroker whose 2013 fund-raising leads the field, has garnered most of his financial support from companies that do business with the Treasury.
While all three are grappling with individual challenges, the fund-raising patterns of the leading candidates reflect a broader dynamic: a languid start to a campaign slowed by election fatigue and dulled by the candidates’ inability, so far, to rouse voters’ interest in the race to succeed Governor Deval Patrick.
“People are really tired,” said Democratic Party vice chairwoman Debra Kozikowski. “We have had more elections than Carter has liver pills.”
That is such an old joke.
See: Research increasingly links dietary supplements to liver injuries
That reminds me; I have to go take my vitamins.
Until candidates press their cases with activists in caucuses and party conventions, the only real way to measure support is through their fund-raising numbers....
Coakley and Baker appear to be picking up their fund-raising pace in the first two weeks of December, but nowhere near the levels they have reached before....
Coakley’s calculus appears to be the riskiest. While advisers say she has been diligently working the grass roots, she has taken in less than $165,000 since announcing her run, bolstered by donations from the legal and health care sectors that intersect with her office.
Her total puts her far below former Obama administration homeland security official Juliette Kayyem....
Coakley has also lost a handful of past fund-raisers who have moved to Grossman’s campaign....
“Martha’s primary focus has been reaching out to people across the state to build a strong grass-roots campaign. She believes this nomination will be won on the ground and has been securing the support of people across the Commonwealth,” said Doug Rubin, adding that the campaign was confident “this support will be reflected in our fund-raising efforts going forward and that we will have the resources we need to run an effective campaign.”
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Grossman’s haul has been boosted from the liquor industry, law firms, and the financial sector — many of which deal with state agencies and departments overseen by the treasurer.
Grossman has also been able to leverage his deep roots in prominent fund-raising circles both local and further abroad, including from stints as chairman of both the Democratic National Committee and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. With $847,182 in his campaign account, Grossman has over three times more than any other candidate.
And that is pretty much that, and why not? This state is deeply-linked with Israel so why not just take off the mask?
“Our early success builds crucial momentum for a grass-roots campaign to elect Steve and bring Massachusetts leadership that leaves no one behind,” said campaign manager Josh Wolf.
But puts Israel first.
Campaign operatives in both parties say the slow pace of fund-raising is also due to a collective election weariness, with both voters and donors battered by a series of elections.
This year alone, much of the political bandwidth was sucked up first by the Senate special election to replace Secretary of State John F. Kerry, and then the election to succeed Mayor Thomas M. Menino of Boston.
Largely because of the domino effect that began when Kerry left, there have been 10 special elections in the state this year, from Congress to state House seats, said Secretary of State William F. Galvin’s office.
“There is no doubt there is voter fatigue, but it is up to us candidates to put a very clear choice to the voters what this election is about and it is incumbent on us to wake them,” said Steve Kerrigan, a Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor.
The gubernatorial field, too, has failed, thus far, to electrify the electorate. Starting in 2005, Democratic activists swooned over Patrick. And by late summer 2011, Elizabeth Warren captured the imaginations of the Democratic grass roots.
No such interest has bloomed among activists this year, a view party strategists acknowledge privately but decline to discuss publicly.
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Related: Tea Party member in bid for Mass. governor
The Lite and Dark Side of the Massachusetts Governor's Race
Baker Faces Backlash For Picking Polito
Maybe we need a woman as governor:
"GOP lead in female governors targeted; Democrats push 2014 candidates" by Steve Peoples | Associated Press, December 23, 2013
NEW YORK — The Democratic Party claims to be the natural home for women. The numbers tell another story when it comes to the nation’s governors....
For the GOP, often accused of waging a ‘‘war on women,’’ this advantage offers a powerful tool in the competition for female voters....
Democratic leaders, backed by national women’s groups, are trying to turn it around in gubernatorial elections next fall....
Then Republicans are doing the same in the Senate.
Gender is not a central issue in theses contests, but in presidential races, a Republican candidate has not won a majority of women since 1984.
It's never a central issue because all these divisive wedge issues and classifications divert attention from the unified goals of decent health care, end to the wars, and a cessation of service to banks and corporations by government. That's why the corporate press fills us with political s***-fooleys.
In the 2010 congressional elections, however, exit polls found that women voted for Republicans and Democrats almost evenly, helping to propel the GOP to the US House majority. Since then, Republicans have suffered from several self-inflicted wounds....
Not for long because that shutdown has been forgotten in the disaster that is Obummercare.
A report from the Republican National Committee this year detailed the scope of the problem. ‘‘Women are not a ‘coalition.’ They represent more than half the voting population in the country, and our inability to win their votes is losing us elections,’’ it said.
Please stop dividing us all into little pigeon-holed sub-groups. I want good health care for all, and an end to the killing of people no matter what their race or gender.
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Related: Globe Xmas Gift: To Your Health
