"Martha Coakley, Charlie Baker on defensive in debate; Coakley’s role in DiMasi case, Baker’s gift to N.J. Republicans bring sharp exchanges" by Michael Levenson and David Scharfenberg | Globe Staff October 28, 2014
Related: Baker's Shady Business Deals
He didn't make her cry, did he?
Democrat Martha Coakley and Republican Charlie Baker fought bitterly Monday night over accusations that she sought to scuttle an investigation into former House speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi, as both candidates spent their next-to-last televised debate largely on the attack.
With a week remaining before Election Day, and some polls indicating Baker moving into the lead, the candidates showed a few unexpected flashes of humor and sharpened several familiar charges.
Baker sought to tie Coakley to a litany of problems in state government, saying she stood by as the state’s health care website failed, the Department of Children and Families bungled cases, and the rollout of medical marijuana dispensaries was hobbled by mistakes.
Coakley responded by casting Baker as an executive who valued the bottom line over people, faulting him for laying off workers and accepting a $1.7 million salary as chief executive of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care.
The toughest exchange of the night came as the candidates delved into assertions by a former inspector general, Gregory Sullivan, who has said that Coakley balked at investigating DiMasi in 2008, three years before he was convicted in a federal trial.
***************
The three independent candidates — Evan Falchuk, Jeff McCormick, and Scott Lively — were not included in the NECN debate. On Monday, a judge denied a lawsuit filed by Falchuk seeking to force the organizers to allow him to participate.
Related: Evan Falchuk’s mission
The debate came as new polls were released.
Late Monday, a UMass Lowell/7News poll showed Baker with the support of 45 percent of likely voters, compared to 41 percent for Coakley, with 8 percent undecided.
A New York Times/CBS News/YouGov.com poll that relies on more controversial online survey methods gave Coakley the edge, 45 percent to 41 percent over Baker.
The latest Globe poll, released late last week, found Baker up by 9 percentage points.
The candidates had some lighter moments Monday night when they were asked to answer yes or no to a series of questions.
Asked if they had ever smoked marijuana, Coakley said no and Baker said yes. But Coakley, a career prosecutor, then sparked some laughter by telling Baker not to worry, that the statute of limitations for charging him has probably passed....
Ha-ha, people are needlessly suffering as the state drags its heels on clinics because authority didn't like us voting them in, and I now regret having done so.
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Printed article also told me Coakley was "gung-ho" on Olympics in Bo$ton, Baker not so much.
Baker, Coakley find endearing tone, but only at debate’s end
Charlie looks a little more relaxed this time.
For Baker and Coakley, rare glimmers of their true selves
Charlie Baker winning over Democrats
And others:
"Police agencies’ endorsements split between Baker, Coakley" by Maria Cramer | Globe Staff October 29, 2014
“Police unions are not like other unions,” said Jeffrey M. Berry, a political science professor at Tufts University. “The members don’t consider themselves part of the labor movement. They consider themselves law enforcement. . . . [They see] Republicans as more sympathetic to what they do on the job and supporting strict enforcements and harsh punishment for lawbreakers.”
Then what is with the collective bargaining with generous benefits taxpayers must pay for?
Coakley may also be suffering from the anger and disappointment in Patrick, who received endorsements from at least a half-dozen police organizations in 2006 when he promised to hire 1,000 more officers.
But the economic downturn led to a reduction in funding for police. And unions were infuriated when Patrick allowed civilians instead of uniformed officers to control traffic at certain construction sites, and cut a program, known as the Quinn Bill, that boosts the pay for officers who receive degrees.
I was actually for the cops regarding civilian flaggers in case of emergency and for deterrence; however, they have murdered too many since.
“She’s paying the bill for the perceived neglect over the last eight years by the Patrick administration of police officers across the board,” said retired State Police colonel Reed V. Hillman, who was also the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor in 2006. “It’s not so much what she has done. It’s the dissatisfaction with Patrick and the perception that she will serve the third term of Deval Patrick.”
Don't take it personally; the only ones not neglected his whole term seem to be the political cla$$ to which he belongs and the the elite cla$$ he $erves.
The State Police union, which represents 2,000 troopers, historically endorses Republicans in statewide contests; it endorsed Baker over Governor Deval Patrick in the 2010 gubernatorial race, and earlier that year supported Scott Brown over Coakley in the special Senate race. This year, it endorsed the Democratic candidates for attorney general and state treasurer, but not for governor.
“Charlie Baker is the right choice for Massachusetts and the right choice for public safety,” said Dana Pullman, the union’s president, in a statement....
Baker, however, also heavily courted minority officers. Larry Ellison, president of the Massachusetts Association of Minority Law Enforcement Officers, said he has personally decided to endorse Baker. The organization has not officially selected a candidate to back, but Ellison said many of the group’s members have agreed to volunteer for Baker’s campaign.
“I can honestly say that Charlie Baker has been to MAMLEO [headquarters] at least three times in the last three or four months,” Ellison said. Coakley, however, “never expressed any interest in coming.”
That could really swing the campaign, Coakley taking minorities for granted.
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All washed away in the surf of debate:
"In last big debate, Coakley, Baker show emotional side" by Mark Arsenault and Joshua Miller | Globe Staff October 29, 2014
In a debate both feisty and emotional — with Republican Charlie Baker at one point near tears — the contenders for Massachusetts governor took their final swipes at each other’s jobs plan, alleged ethical missteps, and the values that would drive each in office.
Early on Tuesday evening, Baker and Attorney General Martha Coakley were restrained, careful to avoid missteps on the last big debate stage before the Nov. 4 vote. They broke scant new ground on policy and knocked each other with well-worn attacks that have little relation to the daily lives of voters, but late into the one-hour clash, the debate took a surprising turn on what seemed like a throwaway question:
When was the last time you cried?
“Oh, boy,” said Coakley. “Actually today.”
When she saw the poll numbers?
**********
Baker, answering the same question, warned, “I may not make it through this story,” and then talked about a burly fisherman “soaked in sweat and salt water” he had met on the campaign trail who cried when Baker asked him about a fishing industry that has struggled under federal regulation.
Baker’s voice faltered and he briefly stopped to rub his eyes, while recalling the fisherman’s tale of preventing his sons from taking athletic scholarships, insisting they, too, become fishermen.
“And I ruined their lives,” Baker said, quoting the fisherman.
At that point, the candidate composed himself and said to Coakley, you “hear those kinds of stories every day; it’s a big part of why people like you and me get into public service. Because we want to help people like that.”
For two candidates mocked as charisma-challenged technobots, their answers revealed a sense of humanity behind the policy positions and attack lines that each rattles off by rote.
TV debates are high-stakes events because of the potential of a major gaffe, which neither candidate stumbled into on Tuesday. But debates so close to an election can be critical for candidates in tight contests because they offer a chance to connect with undecided voters, tuning into the race for the first time and poised to make up their minds. Two of the most recently released polls found that 8 percent of likely voters remain undecided in the race.
For much of the debate, both candidates stayed anchored in familiar talking points that they have repeated again and again on the campaign trail and in television ads.
Coakley appeared at times to needle her Republican opponent and get under his skin. Baker at turns seemed exasperated, at one point quarreling with WCVB-TV’s Janet Wu, one of the moderators.
But in a lightning round of quick questions and answers as the clock ticked down on the forum, there was laughter, a high five, and answers that revealed something more than a poll-tested policy word salad.
Both said they would rather win the election than a lottery jackpot. Baker admitted he is clueless in the kitchen, while Coakley is the family chef with a knack for Italian-style chicken. Both said socializing with friends was a hard thing to give up for the campaign, though neither would trade the experience of running for anything.
The debate, sponsored by a consortium of media outlets, was held at the WCVB-TV studios in Needham. Broadcast simultaneously on WCVB-TV, WHDH-TV, WBUR Radio, and Bloomberg Radio, the exchange had the potential to reach the largest audience of the campaign.
Independent gubernatorial candidates Evan Falchuk, Jeff McCormick, and Scott Lively were not invited to participate.
Neither Baker nor Coakley took any big risks Tuesday night, or unveiled any new and untested lines of attack.
Baker’s team went into the final broadcast debate believing he is ahead in the race, though the campaign’s internal polls show a smaller advantage than the 9-point lead Baker had in a Boston Globe poll released last week.
Other public polls have also reflected a close race.
The Republican’s debate strategy was more of the same: Continue to calmly buff up his campaign image as a competent manager who won’t raise taxes.
Coakley’s team went into the debate convinced of her campaign’s internal polls, which suggested the race is extremely close — within a percentage point or two and well within the margin of error of any traditional survey. An aide said the Democrat was not looking for a knockout, just a strong overall performance to keep her in position to win a close race with what her team believes will be a superior voter turnout effort.
I suppose it is possible.
But for the second night in a row, Coakley misstated a detail related to the prosecution of DiMasi, a case that has become a late-election headache for the attorney general.
Echoing a back-and-forth of Monday’s gubernatorial debate, Coakley and Baker sparred Tuesday over allegations by a former inspector general, Gregory Sullivan, including assertions that Coakley had asked him to scrap an investigation into DiMasi, three years before DiMasi was convicted in a federal corruption trial.
Coakley, who has denied Sullivan’s assertions, said she had worked with the federal government in the DiMasi case and had spent years fighting corruption.
“We convicted, by the way, Richard Vitale — state level. Investigated, prosecuted, had him in jail,” Coakley said, referring to a DiMasi friend and onetime financial adviser.
But Vitale, who was acquitted of federal corruption charges, did not go to jail. He was placed on probation for two years and was ordered to pay $92,000 after admitting to lobbying without registering as a lobbyist with the secretary of state.
Coakley clarified her comments in speaking to reporters after the debate.
“He was investigated, prosecuted, convicted,” she said. “He did not serve jail time.”
Yeah, fine, but what it shows is a willingness to delude oneself and believe in something that is not true. Not a good quality for a leader, sorry.
During Monday’s debate, she incorrectly said that her office prosecuted and convicted Richard McDonough, a lobbyist and DiMasi confidant. It was federal prosecutors, not the attorney general’s office, who secured that conviction.
Coakley reiterated a familiar line of attack on Baker’s $10,000 donation in 2011 to the New Jersey Republican Party, a contribution that is under investigation by the New Jersey state treasurer’s office. Baker critics have said the donation looks like part of a pay-to-play scheme, since it was followed by a $15 million investment from the New Jersey pension fund in the Cambridge venture capital firm, General Catalyst, where Baker worked.
Baker maintains he did nothing wrong, and did not hold a position at General Catalyst that would fall under regulations governing political contributions....
That doesn't make it right.
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"Gubernatorial rivals give voters a strange debate" by Jim O’Sullivan | Globe Staff October 29, 2014
If you can’t make the voters like you more, you can certainly try to make them remember what they didn’t like about your opponent.
That appeared to be Democratic Attorney General Martha Coakley’s strategy in the final televised debate of the gubernatorial campaign Tuesday, when she – with some effectiveness – repeatedly lured Republican Charlie Baker into flashing his churlishness, the side that Baker has consistently called his most lasting regret from his failed 2010 campaign against Governor Deval Patrick.
We are getting all this silly coverage and analysis because neither candidate can really address the underlying rot of society or the money ma$ters who run it.
Again and again, Coakley, through a somewhat forced smile, tried to get Baker’s goat. On why he won’t release his employment record from a Cambridge-based venture capital firm, or call for the release of an investigation into whether he engaged in a New Jersey pay-to-play deal.
On why he’s backed off a no-new-taxes pledge from his earlier campaign. On whether he sent jobs overseas while running the Harvard Pilgrim turnaround, a charge Baker repeatedly denied.
*********
Polls consistently show that Baker enjoys a marked advantage in favorability ratings over Coakley, so it stands to reason that, with one week remaining, the attorney general would seek to prosecute him as unlikable, to ask the jury of voters to decide that the prospect of four years with him as governor is a grim one.
But Baker may have undone all of that late in the hourlong debate when he broke down discussing the plight of a New Bedford fisherman who confessed to him that, by demanding that his two sons adhere to the family tradition and make an arduous living on the sea, “I ruined their lives.”
Yeah, he did, as I will explain below.
It was as raw a display of emotion as can be seen from a serious contender for high office, and perhaps a signal moment for a candidate who has consistently struggled to find the right tone to convey that he sees beyond financial data sheets.
For voters distrustful of wild swings in passion – from angry at one point in the debate and then lachrymose the next – Baker’s show of emotion may have made those voters less likely to break his way.
For those who place a premium on empathy, and may have recalled a Baker from four years ago who at times seemed to lack any, it may have been the crucial moment when Baker closed the deal.
It was a strange debate. Baker and Coakley high-fived when Coakley correctly named the Patriots backup quarterback.
???!!!!!????
They both gave wandering answers to a question about Ebola preparedness and mixed responses to whether they should be considered political insiders or outsiders. The outsider mantle is seen as an upside in the current political climate, but that claim would be difficult for either of them to make.
But somehow all those establishment Republicans won their primaries over outsiders (save for Cantor).
While Baker’s alternatively surly and sentimental sides both came out, Coakley, too, reinforced voter perceptions of herself.
She showed viewers why she has earned a reputation on the campaign trail for excessive caution.
Why did the misuse of her federal and state campaign funds never come up?
At one point that bordered on parody, Coakley refused to answer a question about whether as governor she would raise fees in lieu of increasing taxes. She then took a whack at former governor Mitt Romney, who raised fees, before pressing Baker on whether he would.
“I’m not going to raise fees,” Baker said, repeating his earlier answer. “Then I’m not going to raise fees,” Coakley said.
Ever notice politics is like junior high school these days?
Later, she told reporters, “I was trying to make a joke. It wasn’t the best one I’ve ever made.”
Yeah, try to avoid that.
Asked during the debate by moderator Janet Wu of WCVB-TV to account for a purported six-month delay after learning of improprieties involving then-House speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi, Coakley said she “categorically” denied the time lag. But she declined to offer details about what her office knew, and when she knew it.
“We had information at several points during the stage,” she demurred.
For the second night in a row she misstated the facts in cases against two DiMasi allies. She said Tuesday that Richard J. Vitale had been put behind bars as a result of her actions. In fact, Coakley ultimately did not seek jail time in the Vitale case, and the DiMasi friend received two years’ probation after admitting he lobbied without properly registering as a lobbyist.
Coakley acknowledged the discrepancy when she met with reporters following the debate.
Everything all better now?
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Related: Years don’t erase complexity of DiMasi corruption case
Turning the tables
More like the flip of a fish:
"Baker’s moving talk with fisherman was in 2009" by Mark Arsenault and Nestor Ramos | Globe Staff October 29, 2014
The encounter with a fisherman that a choked-up Charlie Baker recounted during the signature moment of Tuesday’s debate in fact occurred in 2009, during Baker’s last run for governor, the campaign acknowledged Wednesday.
In retelling the story in the televised debate, Baker did not mention that the encounter that left him struggling with emotion had occurred so long ago.
On Wednesday, Baker told reporters “every time I tell it, it’s like it happened five minutes ago, as far as I’m concerned.”
Uh-oh. We can't have leaders with time disconnects and delusions!!!
*******
The candidate retold the story Tuesday in response to a debate question: When was the last time you cried?
The odd query produced one of the most interesting moments of a largely humdrum campaign.
Baker’s Democratic opponent, Martha Coakley, addressed the question first, admitting she had cried that very day, hours earlier, at a memorial for a union leader who had died of leukemia, the disease that had killed her mother.
Then Baker began his response: “So I got asked the other day — and I may not make it through this story — I got asked the other day to tell some interesting stories about people I had met over the course of the campaign.”
He told the story of a fisherman—“a big huge man, completely soaked in sweat and salt water”—who wept when Baker asked him about the fishing business.
“I gave him a hug, he was a big huge guy,” Baker said. “It was like hugging a mountain. And he shook for a while and we started talking about the business and the industry and the federal government.”
Baker continued: “And then he said, ‘See those two kids up there?’ And he pointed to these two boys on the boat. ‘Those are my sons.’ And he said, um, ‘They were both spectacular football players at New Bedford High School who were given college scholarships to go play football.’ ”
But the father had said no, according to Baker, the boys were to become fisherman.
“ ‘And I ruined their lives,’ ” Baker said, appearing to struggle with emotion, quoting the fisherman.
The Baker campaign said Wednesday that the candidate had told the story last weekend at a private event. That was, according to the campaign, the last time he had cried.
The powerful tale of a proud industry’s unraveling and a father’s stifling love reduced Baker to near tears. By Wednesday morning, New Bedford was buzzing: Who was the whale of a man in the story, whose embrace Baker described as “like hugging a mountain?”
From the docks to the mayor’s office, across the Acushnet River in Fairhaven and out in Mattapoisett, a hunt worthy of Ahab himself was on.
And though Baker has recounted the story on several occasions, he told reporters Wednesday that he never got the one thing all of New Bedford wanted to hear: the man-mountain’s name.
Uh-oh.
Attempts by the Globe on Wednesday to locate a New Bedford family that fit Baker’s description from the debate were unsuccessful.
The likeliest subject, a commercial fisherman from another Massachusetts town who fits the general description, could not be reached last evening.
At the Massachusetts Fishermen’s Partnership on Wednesday, navigator Verna Kendall spent the morning fielding calls about the mysterious man whose sons Baker said had been local football stars.
“I can’t tell you who it is. I do not know who it is,” Kendall said. “I’ve never heard of this before in my life.”
Please don't tell me this was made up.
New Bedford football coach Mark DeBrito, in his first year as coach but a former player familiar with the program, said he cannot think of any brothers fitting Baker’s description.
Oh, no!!!
The Baker campaign said the candidate mentioned the fisherman to the Globe in 2010, in response to a question by then-columnist Brian McGrory, who is now the Globe’s editor, about what Baker had learned about the people of Massachusetts and how they had changed him over the campaign.
Baker responded at the time by citing tradesmen he had met at a barbecue. “They were burly guys,’’ Baker said, in the column, which was published Oct. 27, 2010. “They had mortgages. A couple of them had kids in college.’’
McGrory then wrote: “[Baker] also talked about a sweaty and solemn fisherman who described his job as a ‘cancer’ and regretted bringing his two sons into a vocation that was heading toward death.”
“The urgency in my voice comes from those conversations,” McGrory quoted Baker as saying at the time.
He mentioned the fisherman again in an undated video from the 2010 campaign obtained by the Globe. Speaking to a small crowd in a room plastered with campaign signs, Baker said the fisherman had just come off his boat after a day or two at sea and that they had discussed the industry.
Fishermen from New Bedford to Gloucester have argued for years that federal scientists are relying on shoddy science to determine catch limits, especially for cod, the region’s iconic species. But repeated assessments by scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have shown that the cod population has been dwindling for years....
Baker, speaking to reporters Wednesday, said the troubled Massachusetts fishing industry is filled with family tales much like the one he tells.
As he fielded questions about the story of the fisherman, Baker said: “Well, he certainly existed for me….That story, you could find ten more that are just like it.”
OMG, it's looking like he made it up.
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Now before continuing I'm going to explain why I think this is all bull.
Firstly, the experience supposedly had such an effect on him yet he can't remember details? That doesn't make sense.
Secondly, this was a guy who worked in the health care field and serves on health boards as well as doing some charity work, right? He didn't cry over some kid with cancer that died, or some tough case that came across his desk? Is the guy really that remote that he has to come up a fable for political gain?
"No telling whether tears help or hurt politicians" by Jim O’Sullivan | Globe Staff October 30, 2014
When Edmund Muskie appeared to shed tears in an impassioned defense of his wife — he later insisted they were snowflakes melting on his face — in February of 1972, his presidential campaign evaporated into the New Hampshire air.
When Hillary Rodham Clinton, in the same state 36 years later, choked up in a coffee shop while talking about why she was continuing her campaign after a devastating third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses, it was regarded as a humanizing moment and helped catapult her into a come-from- behind win in the New Hampshire primary.
She stole New Hampshire and that provided the narrative.
For politicians, turning on the faucets, or seeming to, can endear them to voters or make them come across as not having sufficient toughness to lead. Who wants to vote for a politician who cries? Depends on whom you ask, and whether the weeping seems authentic.
“I think voters are fine with it,” said Julian Zelizer, a political historian and professor at Princeton University. “I think in many ways they like to see it, as long as it’s not manufactured.”
That idea was put to the test in the Massachusetts gubernatorial campaign when Republican Charlie Baker broke down near the end of Tuesday night’s debate, covering his face with his hand as he haltingly recounted the story of a fisherman in New Bedford despairing that he had led his sons into a dead-end industry, but one still iconic here.
Aides to both Baker and Democrat Martha Coakley essentially shrugged when asked about the political impact immediately after the debate. It could have made Baker, derided by Coakley as a technocrat who fails to see beyond the bottom line, seem human. Or it could have made him seem too human.
Or as a liar.
Reporters peppered the moderators after the debate about whether it had been genuine, if Baker had truly wept, or if it was an effort to convince voters that he is not coldhearted.
Baker had warned that he might have a hard time getting through the story, and it came in answer to a question about the last time he had cried. It was when he told the story last Saturday, he said.
On Wednesday, Baker’s emotional moment continued to reverberate. He told reporters he could not remember the fisherman’s name, and his campaign revealed that the encounter Baker had described in such detail had actually occurred in 2009.
*********
Some analysts saw gender bias when much was made of Patricia Schroeder’s tears at her 1987 announcement that she would not seek the presidency. The Democratic congresswoman from Colorado later mocked the notion that the incident had been a setback for women in politics.
Asked Wednesday whether the reaction to his own display would have been different had it been Coakley who came to near tears, Baker replied, “I hope not.”
Emoting for politicians can backfire if the scene fuels a preexisting narrative about the candidate’s personality, as happened to Dean in 2004. The Democratic former governor of Vermont let out a howl at the end of a fiery speech after he had placed a distant third in the Iowa caucuses — immortalized as “the Dean Scream” — that fed the notion that Dean might be too temperamental to lead the country.
“Anger is not usually a good one,” Joe Trippi, a veteran Democratic strategist who managed Howard Dean’s insurgent 2004 presidential campaign, said dryly.
Since when?
But the opposite can also happen. In 1988, then-Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis delivered a dispassionate, policy-laced response to a debate question about whether he would favor an irrevocable death penalty if his wife were raped and murdered.
Dukakis was hammered for not exhibiting a flicker of emotion in response to such a ghastly scenario, and it underscored perceptions that the Brookline Democrat was too detached.
“He gave a very cold response,” Zelizer said. “And people reacted negatively.”
This is what we are deciding the campaign on now? Did the tears work?
Baker’s response Tuesday was anything but cold. He said Wednesday that he did not consider himself a regular crier, but the usually light-hearted St. Patrick’s Day breakfast provided a venue last March for another high-profile bout, when he discussed a fallen soldier’s funeral.
That's a little better, and maybe you should have started with that one.
Baker would not be the first politician to a make a habit of it. House Speaker John Boehner’s frequent eye-waterings have become something of an Internet sensation, whether he is talking about kids or singing “America the Beautiful.”
That's what sometimes happens when you drink all day.
President Obama’s tears streaked his face in his final speech of the 2012 campaign, and then a few days later when addressing young campaign workers in Chicago.
Whether Baker’s behavior will work to his benefit or detriment, or whether voters care at all, or whether Tuesday’s episode came too late to refashion the election significantly, is unclear.
On Wednesday, Baker said he harbored some compunction about opening up on what had been a “revealing moment.”
He said, “On some level, I’m not sure I should have even told the story, to tell you the truth.”
Well, no, and I bet not.
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"With details murkier, no sign of Charlie Baker’s fisherman" by Nestor Ramos and Michael Levenson | Globe Staff October 30, 2014
Oh, no.
ATTLEBORO — Some of the details of Charlie Baker’s emotional 2009 encounter with a soulful fisherman may have been lost at sea.
Baker on Thursday acknowledged that he may have misstated some of the particulars of the story he told tearfully during a debate this week.
(Blog editor just shakes head)
That, in turn, has complicated efforts to locate the man whose hardships, in Baker’s retelling, produced one of the most remarkable moments in this year’s race for governor.
“There may be a detail or two that I got wrong, but obviously the image and the message from him has stayed with me for a very long time,” Baker told reporters after greeting supporters at Morin’s Diner in Attleboro.
I'm sick of getting those two things in place of reality.
********
But despite searches mounted by both campaigns, several media outlets, and various New Bedford fishing industry lifers, no one has been able to find the massive man whose embrace Baker described as “like hugging a mountain.”
Don't worry; I'm sure they will create, 'er, find him.
Coakley’s campaign on Thursday issued a press release titled, “Questions surface about Charlie Baker’s story about a New Bedford fisherman.” The press release pointed to newspaper reports noting that local people in the fishing industry say they do not know of any such person.
Baker, who said he never got the man’s name, denied that this was a mere fish tale.
“Look, I had the conversation,” Baker said Thursday. “I remember it. And I’ve been telling the story for a number of years. And, as I said, I may have gotten some of the details wrong, but the essence of the story is true.”
That doesn't make sense.
Baker blasted Coakley for questioning the authenticity of his recollections, saying, “That’s because they don’t have a positive message or a positive vision for the people of Massachusetts.”
That's it! Divert attention and issue accusations against the opponent!
Baker made his comments Thursday before learning that former Mayor Thomas M. Menino of Boston had died. Minutes later, his campaign announced it was canceling events Thursday and Friday out of respect.
See: Boston bids farewell to Thomas Menino
I already did.
Late Thursday, Baker’s campaign manager acknowledged that some of the specifics in the fisherman story might have been inaccurate.
“Charlie had a conversation with a family fisherman in New Bedford,” said the campaign manager, Jim Conroy. “It is certainly possible that this person did not live in New Bedford, and Charlie was mistaken about that five years ago.”
It is also possible that the sons in the story may not have had athletic scholarships at all, Conroy said, the result of an embellishment in the fisherman’s telling or of Baker’s own mishearing.
So, what if the fisherman was not from New Bedford? Or perhaps his sons played some other sport? Maybe one or both ended up in college after all?
Over the course of Wednesday and Thursday, a handful of likely candidates materialized for the role of the fisherman Baker had described:
“But.”
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"Baker acknowledges he flubbed fisherman’s tale in debate" by Jim O’Sullivan and Akilah Johnson | Globe Staff October 31, 2014
Democrat Martha Coakley on Friday sought to exploit the unusual tale of rival Charlie Baker’s missing fisherman, traveling to New Bedford, the scene of the Republican’s story of his tearful encounter, while her campaign released a statement suggesting he had concocted the whole thing.
It sure does look that way. I guess he thought he wouldn't get called on it, and don't worry. It will soon drop from the coverage.
As Baker acknowledged for the second straight day that he had gotten some details wrong when he told the story at a gubernatorial debate this week, Coakley got personally involved in criticizing his changing storyline, apparently seeing a strategic advantage in the controversy.
The campaign back-and-forth, a day after the death of former Boston mayor Thomas M. Menino, marked a sharpening in the rhetoric of both candidates, but centered on the story of the candidate and the fisherman.
**********
On Friday, Coakley’s campaign said he had “either fabricated or significantly embellished” the story. The Baker campaign has not identified the fisherman.
In her appearance in New Bedford, Coakley said Baker must answer for the changing fisherman storyline over the course of the week.
“For him to walk it back and say, ‘Well, maybe it wasn’t New Bedford. Well, maybe it wasn’t football players. Well, I met and talked to somebody.’ I just think he has some serious questions to answer,” she said surrounded by scallops being processed for distribution at JT Sea Products. “Voters are entitled to know what that was about.”
Because of Menino’s death, Baker had largely suspended his campaign Friday, holding a single press conference at his campaign headquarters in Brighton. He opened with a tribute to Menino before fielding questions almost exclusively focused on the self-induced fisherman controversy....
Baker sought to turn his appearance Friday into a show of support for the state’s fishermen, saying he was heartened that the incident focused attention on the state’s flagging fishing industry.
That's what it was meant to do, yeah.
“If the final link in this whole conversation is that the attorney general and I are both talking about the fate of the fishing industry in New Bedford and in Massachusetts as we head into the final turn of that campaign, I’m fine with that,” he said. “Because it’s an industry that hasn’t gotten the kind of support and the kind of attention that it deserves.”
Coakley’s aggressive posture, unusual so soon after the death of a major public figure like Menino, came as several public polls show her down, though a WBZ/University of Massachusetts Amherst poll released late Friday gave her a lead of 3 percentage points.
She probably will win out here, yeah.
A private poll, conducted Wednesday and Thursday for a coalition working against the repeal of the state’s casino law, put Baker up 7 percentage points over Coakley, according to people familiar with the survey. That poll was conducted on the coalition’s behalf by Thomas Kiley, who has also done polling for the Coakley campaign.
A Globe poll released late Thursday also showed Baker ahead by 7 points.
I wouldn't bet on it.
Coakley started her day campaigning in New Bedford. “I frankly think that Mayor Menino would have wanted everybody to get back to work today,” she said.
She appeared with New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell, a Democrat, who characterized Baker’s story as insulting.
“From our perspective here in New Bedford, the comments do perpetuate a stereotype that folks in Greater New Bedford don’t value higher education,” said Mitchell, who was campaigning with Coakley. “That’s where I have a problem with it.”
Coakley said her visit was to find out how the next governor can better serve an industry affected by what she called an “overzealous federal regulatory scheme that is punishing fishing families.”
The candidates for governor also continued to spar Friday over former Democratic inspector general Gregory Sullivan’s charge that Coakley had responded slowly to signs of scandal around then-House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi.
Baker, referring to Coakley’s disputation of Sullivan’s allegation, said, “The attorney general’s been calling a lot of people liars lately.”
“To have his reputation smeared by the Coakley campaign, I thought, was a disgrace,” Baker said of Sullivan.
In Tuesday evening’s debate — as well as one the evening before — Coakley misstated some details in recounting the corruption investigation of DiMasi, who is in jail after being convicted in federal court. She incorrectly said that Richard J. Vitale, a DiMasi associate, had been imprisoned. Coakley did not seek jail time in the Vitale case. He received two years’ probation.
But on Friday, Coakley said that comparing this situation with Baker’s fisherman incident in terms of questions that should be answered is “totally apples and oranges.”
“I am certainly happy to and I have answered questions about that case, the investigations we did and the results, which were convictions of Sal DiMasi, convictions of Dick McDonough, convictions of Richard Vitale, and I’ll stand on my record on that and other questions around public integrity,” she said.
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The conclusion one reaches is they are both deluded because of the disassembling.
Related: Baker, Coakley have some explaining to do
Don’t vote for Charlie because he can cry
Charlie Baker’s fisherman story should cause him anger, not tears
I'm out of both.
"A sense of unknowability in the governor’s race" by David Scharfenberg | Globe Staff November 02, 2014
There is a certain confounding quality to the Massachusetts governor’s race.
The leading candidates have carved out similar positions on the issues.
Huh?
And even after months of campaigning, and years in the political limelight, there remains something unknowable about the Democratic and Republican nominees.
Martha Coakley can appear guarded on the campaign trail and evasive in debates. Charlie Baker, just four years after running a hard-edged gubernatorial campaign under the slogan “Had Enough?,” is now pitching himself as a compassionate centrist.
But beneath the blurred veneer, the candidates are offering the electorate a relatively clear choice. Call it values versus value.
Coakley, if unwilling to take a firm position on some issues, still presents as a classic Massachusetts liberal — pressing for earned sick time for working people and equal pay for women. Deep-blue values for a deep-blue state.
That's the myth. Then you think Bridgewater, DCF, state drug lab, meningitis scandal, war economy, they place is far from liberal.
It's a nice myth to make one feel better, but that's all it is. All $tates $erve the $ame ma$ters.
Baker, having returned to what supporters call his natural moderation, says he too will make the interests of working people paramount, but without raising taxes. For a state still uneasy about the economic recovery, it is the ultimate value proposition.
The clash is, in some respects, a battle of basic Massachusetts political archetypes: the progressive, Irish Democrat promising an activist approach, versus the moderate, Yankee Republican promising spending restraint and superior management.
But Baker has also left little room between himself and his opponent on the issues.
Some choice, huh?
*************
With just a couple of days until the election, the polls suggest Baker’s value proposition is running just ahead of Coakley’s values pitch. But the race, it appears, is tight.
That may say something about the charisma-challenged candidates’ difficulty connecting with voters. But, operatives argue, it also says something about an electorate that is not entirely sure what it wants.
I know exactly what I want, and I'm not seeing it in either candidate.
There is a lingering unease about the economy. Polls show the public likes departing Governor Deval Patrick personally, but has a mixed view of his legacy.
You will be seeing the fruits of failure come to fruition in the coming years.
And the final Globe survey on the gubernatorial race shows voters split right down the middle on whether the state is on the “right track” or “wrong track.”
Where to go from here? Values or value? Voters have until Tuesday to figure it out.
Already have.
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"Coakley, Baker aim to answer old doubts; Rivals try to push past 2010 detriments" by Jim O’Sullivan and Stephanie Ebbert | Globe Staff November 02, 2014
FOXBOROUGH — With the election just two days away, the two leading candidates for governor moved on Sunday to shore up symbolic weaknesses from their failed campaigns four years ago, both hoping to convince voters they have changed and improved.
Republican Charlie Baker, who has acknowledged he came across as unsympathetic in his unsuccessful 2010 run against Governor Deval Patrick, made campaign stops in Mattapan and Roxbury, working to make GOP inroads into communities of color.
Obama and Democrats are going to find the same thing happening across the country.
Democrat Martha Coakley, who disastrously eschewed campaigning outside Fenway Park during her failed bid for US Senate the same year, spent nearly an hour in snow and freezing temperatures mingling with tailgaters before the Patriots-Broncos game at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough.
Points for Marty.
Related: “Winter is Here.”
And yet both are believers in global warming!
Both candidates paid respects at the late Boston mayor Thomas M. Menino’s wake at Faneuil Hall but also dived into a full schedule on the trail for the second-to-last day of campaigning.
For Coakley, the harsh weather from the weekend’s storm could hardly have been more cooperative in allowing her to offer a contrast. Her derisive remark in 2010 at the suggestion she campaign more aggressively — “Standing outside Fenway Park? In the cold? Shaking hands?” — was seized upon then as evidence that Coakley was too detached a candidate to beat the frenetically campaigning Republican Scott Brown, who this year is seeking a US Senate seat in New Hampshire.
Coakley sported a Sox cap and Dunkin’ Donuts cup as she emerged, gloveless and in rain boots, from the car on Sunday to walk from tailgate to tailgate in the Rodman Ford lot across Route 1 from Gillette.
She exchanged elbow bumps with fans whose fingers were covered in rib sauce and waited patiently while others shifted their beers into the crooks of their elbows so they could shake hands.
“I asked somebody on the way over here: ‘What’s the line out of Las Vegas?’ ” Coakley, who received an almost universally warm reception, told a tailgater at one stop.
She doesn't gamble on football, does she?
“I’ve got to tell you, I wasn’t going to vote for you, because Scott Brown broke my heart,” Ted Gildea, a 33-year-old North End real estate broker told Coakley, referring to her 2010 upset loss. “But having met you today, you got my vote.”
“He broke everybody’s heart,” Coakley replied.
Outside the football stadium, Coakley turned down most offers of food or beer but made an exception for a Styrofoam bowl of fish chowder, which she ladled herself.
Marty's fish tale?
“I’ll make you a promise: If the Patriots win, the chowder will be in the speech,” she told a group of tailgaters taking refuge from the weather under a tent.
“If the Patriots win, you’re going to kick [expletive] on Tuesday,” one man taking a break from his beanbag toss game told Coakley.
“I like that,” she said.
Joined for the day’s stumping by her husband, retired police deputy superintendent Tom O’Connor, Coakley at one point accidentally kicked over a drink in a Solo cup and immediately tried to make amends by embracing its owner.
“Oh dear,” she said. “I just lost a vote.”
That did get a laugh from me.
Later, Coakley campaigned with former congressman Barney Frank at the Rose Alley Ale House in New Bedford, where she again raised questions about the topic that has dominated much of the campaign’s final days: Baker’s thus-far unsubstantiated story about a tearful encounter with a fisherman in New Bedford during the 2010 campaign.
The problem with that and the DiMasi stuff is it shows a proclivity to spin and deceive.
After both Baker and Coakley campaigned at a Mattapan church on Sunday morning, Baker returned to Boston in the afternoon and rallied a diverse crowd of about 85 supporters inside The Base, a Roxbury organization that provides baseball training and educational opportunities for student athletes.
“There are a lot of people in this room — we all look kind of different. Which is great,” Baker told the crowd. “But underneath it all, folks, we’re chasing the same dreams. And anybody who says otherwise is selling something.”
Also in the crowd were fellow GOP candidates Patricia St. Aubin for auditor; Mike Heffernan for treasurer; Brian Herr for US Senate; John Miller for attorney general; and David D’Arcangelo for secretary of state.
I will address the other state offices below as well as answer any questions you may have.
Baker’s running mate, Karyn Polito, campaigned with him, saying, “This is a very close election. We have to make it happen!”
Baker and Polito have been trying to make inroads in communities of color, particularly in Boston, and proposed an urban agenda that includes initiatives on education, economic development, affordable housing, and youth violence. Baker reminded the crowd that he is chasing “100 percent of the vote” and said people share the same aspirations, regardless of their community.
“I’ve seen the difference: He’s evolved,” said Elizabeth Hinds-Ferrick of Dorchester, who said she recalled Baker’s 2010 campaign.
“We definitely need a change on Beacon Hill, and he’s the person who can do it,” said Hinds-Ferrick, who is black and works as a supervisor for the state Department of Transitional Assistance.
The Baker campaign is poised to air a television ad on Monday night three times as long as the typical spot: 90 seconds of an upbeat closing argument from the candidate; his wife, Lauren; and his teenage daughter, Caroline. According to a Baker aide, the spot is set to air a single time Monday evening on three broadcast stations.
Like the vast majority of Baker’s advertising this year, the ad is positive and appears aimed at boosting voters’ positive perceptions of Baker, countering a barrage of negative ads that have aired against him over the course of the campaign. Polls consistently show that voters have a more favorable view of him than Coakley.
It's the Grossman voters that are going to do her in.
Although the candidates themselves projected mostly upbeat messages Sunday, their surrogates continued on in the embittered style of much of the campaign’s final weeks.
The two camps held dueling conference calls, with Democrats attacking Baker over his evolving explanations about the fisherman story, while Coakley critics charged that Coakley had been uninterested in pursuing a case against former House speaker Salvatore DiMasi.
Neither side presented new information, but their ongoing volley underscored the race’s intensity and increasing acrimony.
Even though they agree on a whole bunch and high-five about the Pat's QB, blah, blah, blah.
Both candidates plan to attend Menino’s funeral on Monday.
Tuesday’s election also features three independent candidates: Evan Falchuk, Scott Lively, and Jeffrey S. McCormick.
Oh, yeah, them.
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Coakley is going to need the "get-out-the-vote operation urgency" to win, and she may have picked up a vote here since my guy was quoted in print as saying he didn't really want the job.
Whatever it is, it won't be Baker. The fish tale was too much.
Voters’ verdict today on Coakley, Baker
"Keeping political perspective as Election Day nears" by Scot Lehigh | Globe Columnist November 01, 2014
Just a reminder about next Tuesday: It marks Election Day, not the moment the world could end. Which is to say, this state will go on, regardless of who wins the governor’s race.
Why, I’ll venture something even more startling. Either Martha Coakley, the Democratic nominee, or Charlie Baker, the Republican nominee, would make a solid governor. Neither is without his or her shortcomings, but their good qualities far outweigh their bad. They are both decent, smart, honest, accomplished, hard-working individuals.
Why the reminder? Because the hyper-partisans on both sides tend to lose perspective as voting day nears. Too often they act as though a candidate who belongs to a different party or holds a different point of view has selfish or disreputable motives or a tarnished character. And that his or her victory would be a disaster for the state.
Yeah, I know a whole bunch of them.
That hyper-partisan mindset is of a piece with the Super PAC ads, which do their best to paint their targets as callous or uncaring or greedy or clueless or otherwise flawed in a way that renders them unsuitable to be governor.
Actually not me. I will be spreading my votes around today, some Democrat, some Republican, some independent.
Look behind a negative ad and you’ll almost always find a complex story that has been simplified to fool gullible, low-information voters. Don’t be a gullible, low-information voter.
I can't help it. The only coverage I've seen was in the Globe.
Neither Baker nor Coakley is an ideologue. Neither would steer the state in a dramatically new direction, but whoever wins will be restrained both by fiscal realities and by a sense of what is acceptable to a majority of Massachusetts citizens. That’s true whether the next governor is a Republican jousting with a Democratic legislature or a Democrat sharing power with lawmakers of the same party.
If Democratic legislators don’t sense that a Republican governor has or can get voters on his side, they aren’t going to go along with his plans. That should be self-evident.
But it’s also important to realize that the relationship between leaders of the same party is as likely to be competitive as it is to be cooperative. Further, even when relations are good, if lawmakers sense the public isn’t saddled up for a cause, they aren’t likely to follow a governor into the political badlands out of friendship alone.
All of which is to say, keep a sense of proportion and perspective. Our political process needs more voters who do.
Meanwhile, if you’ve never gotten involved in a political campaign or a ballot-question cause, you’re missing out on something everyone should do at least once. It’s a civic adventure that will leave you with friends, memories, and insights you’ll value for years.
The idealism of true campaign volunteers is inspiring. This year, I particularly admire the citizen activists waging David versus Goliath struggles to expand the bottle bill and to repeal casino gambling in Massachusetts. Several I talked to at an anti-gambling rally on Wednesday spoke enthusiastically about the experience.
Skeptical about casino gambling because of research he familiarized himself with during his time as a legislative aide, Lazarus Morrison, 33, of Quincy, called the anti-casino forces and “offered to help anyway I could.” He and his wife, Grace, collected more than 1,500 signatures for the repeal effort, and he ended up coordinating volunteer efforts in Cambridge, Somerville, and Medford.
“It has been extremely gratifying,” Morrison said. “Without the incredible efforts of a lot of individual volunteers, it wouldn’t have gotten on the ballot. It really is extraordinarily empowering.”
Then there’s 62-year-old Evmorphia Stratis of Everett, who is swimming against the tide by opposing Steve Wynn’s casino plans there. The teacher and artist has collected signatures, represented casinos foes at a public forum, made phone calls, knocked on doors, and done stand-outs.
I know that feeling, I guess. Sometimes I think I am the one pulling the tide.
“You can complain or you can work for change,” Stratis says. “And I have loved being involved with this group of people and this cause. Whether we win or lose, we should have a big celebration.”
That’s the spirit of activism. And of democracy....
Come Tuesday, invest in your citizenship. Make yourself heard.
Vote.
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Meanwhile: Late in governor’s tenure, hope for first commutations
“His violent acts were unplanned and impulsive in a manner that was likely connected to his age and stage of development,” wrote parole board chairman Josh Wall. “He is rehabilitated and presents no current risk for violence.” Diatchenko’s release is the fourth time since June that the board has granted parole to an inmate sentenced to life without parole for a crime committed as a juvenile."
Better not be mistaken.
Related: After tense hearings and close vote, Wall to become a judge
Hitting the Wall on Woodman Case
Governor Patrick gives parting gift to government union
Patrick Protects Political Appointees
Homeless population in Mass. rising faster than any other state
Rising 40 percent since 2007 even as overall homelessness in the country declined. Can you say another Patrick failure and legacy?
As for some of the other offices:
editorial | endorsement Patricia Saint Aubin for auditor
I'll be voting Republican there. If there was one position you would want to go Republican in Massachusetts, that's it.
editorial | endorsement Bill Galvin for secretary of state
I used to think he was golden, but now I'm not so sure.
editorial | endorsement Maura Healey for attorney general
I'm going with Miller, sorry.
Any more questions on how I'm voting today?
And with that, I am off to the voting booth....
UPDATE:
The parking lot was full and turnout looked good.
Starting from the top, I went Herr for Senate, Coakley for governor, Miller for AG, then for the three Green-Rainbow candidates for auditor, secretary of state, and treasurer. I left all the uncontested races blank, and voted Yes, No, Yes, No, on the questions just as I said I would.
What surprised me was the sports talk show guys this morning saying they were voting Yes on Q3 and against the casinos because of the corruption of Patrick's commission and government involvement in general. I'm thinking we may be in for a surprise on that question, and if not a definite rig job.
I will be taking the rest of the day off to work on some projects, get some things done, and watch the returns later this evening. Sorry.
