Herd of Stallions

Da Mare, a.k.a. Boston Mayor Thomas Michael Menino, made a massive (22) herd of all male would-be replacements appear. Simply by announcing he would not run for a sixth four-year term, he gave the ambitious, the vain, and the delusional permission to run for the open spot in the September preliminary.

Today's Boston Globe has the full list of the 19 who have pulled papers and three others who have already said they're in the hunt. Candidates have until May 13th at 5 PM to apply and May 21 at 5 to hand in the required 3,000 registered Boston voter signatures.

In reality, they likely each need 4,500 or 5,000 signatures to have enough legit ones. Moreover, pundits and consultants figure candidates will need one million dollars to run a competitive race.

The current herd includes:

• City Councilor Felix G. Arroyo
• John F. Barros
• Lee Buckley
• Robert Cappucci
• Charles L. Clemons Jr.
• Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley
• City Councilor John R. Connolly
• City Councilor Rob Consalvo
• Miniard Culpepper
• William J. Dorcena
• Althea Garrison
• John G.C. Laing Jr.
• Divo Rodrigues Monteiro
• David S. Portnoy
• City Councilor Michael P. Ross
• Gareth R. Saunders
• Bill Walczak
• State Representative Martin J. Walsh
• Hassan A. Williams
• Christopher G. Womack
• David James Wyatt
• City Councilor Charles C. Yancey

Some seem to be vanity candidates, like Charles Clemons and John Laing, co-founders of 106.1 TOUCH (pirate) radio, and likely Barstool Sports head David Portnoy. Plus there are I'll-run-for-anything perennial candidates like Althea Garrison. Several community activists jumped in with yet-to-be-determined levels of seriousness.

Likewise, five of the 13 City Councilors are in. Apparently four are willing to vacate their seats and show the confidence of running only for the top job. One, longest-serving Councilor Charles Yancey filed for his district seat as well. In theory, if he won both, he could choose one office to take. If he loses the preliminary on September 14th, he'd still be up for his district seat.

Others are apparently still mulling. Many progressive sorts were sorry to see that Councilor Ayanna Pressley would not run for Mayor. We have yet to hear from Council President Steve Murphy. He's in his 50s and this could be his one shot at the office, but that's a hell of a big, rough herd to run with.

It makes me dizzy for this blog and the weekly Left Ahead podcast. It's tempting to be as cowardly as the local dailies, not covering individuals until some drop out and most lose in the prelim. Over at the podcast though, we have pretty recently spoken with Connolly, Dorcena and Consalvo. That was Dorcena as the first to announce, a year ago, and the other two because they had worthwhile political and policy commentary.

This could be fascinating or tedious before September. Certainly if any forum group tires to put 22 on the stage at a time, each would get 15 to 30 seconds a go and resolve absolute nothing. I'm still looking forward to the show.

France Joins Marriage-Equality List

Love expands legally in France. The National Assembly passed same-sex marriage 331 to 225 today in a bill identical to the Senate one already approved.

The plug nasties have a last-gasp effort to beg the Constitutional Council to overturn, "censor" the bill. Those judges have up to a month to decide. There seem virtually no chance of reversal happening.

Homosexual couples can start marrying nationwide by the middle of June.

Le Monde has the story (in French, mais oui).

Straight to Crazy After Boston Bombings

Well now, there's crazy like a fox and crazy like FOXnews. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell most definitely remains in the latter class of stupids.

Following Monday's Boston Marathon bombings, with their death, dismemberment and massive injuries, he took the mic on the Senate floor to make absurd political claims. Those centered on counter-terrorism following the 9/11 attacks. His punchline was, "With the passage of time, however, and the vigilant efforts of our military, intelligence and law enforcement professionals, I think it’s safe to say that for many, the complacency that prevailed prior to September 11th has actually returned."

Think Progress has the full quotes and clip.

Know you will hear more of such baseless claims. From what should be a leadership position, McConnell instead points the way to the unprovable, untenable, and impotent. As a nation, both government and individuals, we are more aware of dangers than ever, have numerous agencies and procedures at work constantly, and have thwarted many terrorism attempts. The ones that happen are God awful but very rare.

As usual, his implication is that somehow, someone (read President Obama) coulda, shoulda done something unspecified that woulda prevented the Boston bombings.So far for the first day and one half, most winger commentators have managed to stifle such base words. Here's betting McConnell's were just the first.

The larger and underlying issue continues to be that Congressional Republicans and GOP leaders neither like nor truly understand the post-WWII America. Let us recall that over 400,000 Americans were among those who died in WWII. To a one, they would say then and later that it was about keeping the United States and larger world free. Likewise those who fought in Korea, Southeast Asia and the Middle East almost all echoed that.

The trend we have seen in recent years though, particularly after 9/11, has been expanding government powers to limit liberties. Among the most pervasive are TSA airport procedures. Unlike say Israel, we don't use savvy airport agents and sensible observation. We go for mindless rules about a couple of ounces of liquid and resort to frisking and even to strip searches.

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Safety Fantasies

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The wingers at the state level instead reserve their version of freedom to actual murder threats. That would be stand-your-ground laws that literally permit individuals to decide when they can execute someone. That would be permits to carry loaded sidearms into drinking sessions at bars. That would be the right to own and walk around with semiautomatic rifles with 30 or 100 shot clips attached.

Let us constantly be aware that international and domestic terrorists want to cripple Americans. They want us to be afraid all the time. They want our country more like autocratic ones, where big, intrusive government rules and citizens must obey.

The crazy-like-FOX crew seem to be all for that anti-freedom movement. They're fine with every bigger, ever more intrusive government spying on us, our calls, emails, travels and more. Likewise, they are fine with employers deciding what health care their workers can get (think contraception). At the state level, many seem delighted to restrict the most fundamental American right, that of voting.

McConnell and his ilk clearly don't like the America that grew, evolved and matured around them. They want a much more confined America. They lie about wanting less government while they ever expand agencies to control us.

I call them out.

The Boston bombings brought many tragedies — a word I never use lightly. Personal ones include the murder of 8-year-old Martin Richard.

There is no need for or utility in political lies about complacency. Likewise, being in denial about susceptibility to terrorist acts right here in the United States is simply delusional. We're not in a war zone. Then again at the most basic level, we, and the whole world, are. Fantasizing that big-daddy government can keep us safe every hour everywhere from every monster goes straight to crazy.

Melissa Crosses the Nasties

Apparently MSNBC is new to the parents-rights mini-movement. This week, they've been wringing hands and trying valiantly to be amused by winger bloggers and Fox talking heads slamming Melissa Harris Perry.

At the bottom is a segment in which Chris Hayes and she seemed surprised and even stunned. The Fox-ies had spent much of the week literally ranting and feigning high-pitched outrage. She had only called for larger community involvement in ensuring the safety and successful development of children.

The winger drama centered on her saying that a family's children are not the sole responsibility of the parents, that the community can help and should help. Of course that is a simple, generally religiously based concept going way back to Old Testament days and before. The idea that if there are problems, you're on you own, is a more recent, destruction and cold one.

Yet, winger media are always eager to pounce. They have been outdoing each other depicting these old fashioned values as collectivism, communism and other such drivel.

Hayes and Harris Perry were generally confused about where all this overreaction originated. Welcome to the world of parents rights.

That subgroup of wingers claims legal and moral ownership of their children, be it in how they are educated or whether parents can beat them freely and on any whim.

I did a series here (search for parents rights). One post links to several others by their emphasis. MSNBC folk can be sure if they again dare call for community involvement in helping kids, and particularly if they use the expression that "our children are not our own" as the metaphor for people helping each other, these vipers will pop out of their holes.

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Pols (Not) Hedging Election Bets

Oh, now it becomes clear. Nothing, other than smart politicking, prevents our office holders from running for a higher office while simultaneously running for re-election.

I have been reading in the local rags that Boston City Councilors, for one example in the news, had to resign to run for the suddenly, shockingly available mayoralty. As is my wont, I headed to the City Charter and the Council rules to find, cite and link to the specifics. I pored through each with no results.

Then I ran across a piece in the J.P. Gazette that revealed reporter Peter Shanley's query to Mayor Tom Menino's office. It seems that it's savvy convention to show confidence by stepping down, but it's not required. In this case, a Councilor could run for both the mayoralty and re-election to Council. Then, assuming victory in both races, the double winner would choose which job to take.

Of course, at that level, it screams a lack of confidence to run for two offices. The perception is that voters would assume you presume loss before the first vote registers.

Yet we don't have to go very high up to see hedging bets for other offices. U.S. Senators John McCain,  Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, as other examples, held their seats while running for President (and Sen. Joe Biden as VP candidate). Likewise, both U.S. Reps. Steve Lynch and Ed Markey are running in the special election for U.S. Senate without resigning.

In a bit of humorous math, the risk level for Mayor is vastly higher than that for U.S. Senator this time and place. The field is wide and diverse. Some candidates are already well financed (as in $250,000 to $700,000 in the checkbook). At least four of the 13 Councilors are in and one or two more may make the leap in the next few days. The DA from Boston's Suffolk County is in, as were two early announcers (sill badly underfunded, but swearing money won't win this race). A state rep joined and so it goes.

There's no party affiliation in the preliminary in September, but nearly everyone is a Democrat by the bye. So far, we have no women running. It's also coincidentally the Middle Earth of Boston politics, with few candidates of color and nearly everyone Irish American. That's our history after the brahmans and before the ascendancy of those of Irish and Italian heritage.

The Council itself is a little more diverse. It only has one woman, one Latino, and three African Americans (including the woman).  Oh, and there's one Jew, and he's the most recently announced candidate for Mayor. The body certainly does not represent Boston's makeup ethnically or racially.

Now I wonder how many of those Councilors will or are even considering running for two offices in September and should they be in the top two finishers for Mayor, in the general in November.

Candidates who step away from secure spots and announce, "There is no plan B," as they run for higher office can seem heroic and confident. Yet, voters don't automatically reject those who hedge their bets.

Here, the Council could have the largest shakeup in memory if the candidates do not run for re-election as well as the mayoralty. Right now, that could mean openings for:

• Felix G. Arroyo, at-large
• John Connolly, at-large
• Rob Consalvo, district 5
• Mike Ross, district 8

Plus, maybe Steve Murphy, at-large, and the slim possibility of Charles Yancey, district 6.

There's no certainty that any one of them would win. They'd all take a huge flyer. The district Councilors are each and all from safe seats for them. Murphy is generally a big vote getter at-large, as are Arroyo and Connolly.

Murphy has held the Council presidency the past three times. That might well be at risk if four or more new Councilors come to office after November.  He's still thinking, he says.

The Boston Herald, our winger tabloid, has been flogging Suffolk DA Dan Conley. Their highly biased staff points fairly to his large checkbook at the beginning of the campaign. However, when he was a Councilor, he was neither particularly powerful nor memorable. He's had a much greater impact as a prosecutor. He hasn't had a chance to make his platform pitch. If it's law-and-order up top, that remains to be seen whether voters will weigh that heavily.

I'll be monitoring the stump speeches, tweets, FB postings and websites as these develop. Right now, the scrum to announce following Menino's decision not to run again has the runners still metaphorically tying their laces. As soon as enough of them put their platforms out, I'll comment on site contents and presentations.

A few quick thoughts though for the announced Councilors:

• Arroyo: Bright, confident, progressive, charming, he's also a good speaker. I've also been to numerous meetings where I overheard young female voters of various ethnic backgrounds commenting that he's very handsome and saying they know he has a wife who's even prettier. While that shouldn't make any difference, people have noted they like to look at him...and Jasmine. He's the first Latino to run for the office and has a large supporter base.
• Connolly: Wonderfully Boy-Scout level sincere, he has a deep passion for improving Boston schools...right now! He's run the Council's education committee for several terms, which is a royal pain on many levels, one that others run from. He was a teacher, his wife is, and they have two kids starting public school. He'll have other planks, but he is building his campaign first on the tough goal of high-quality schools in every single neighborhood. The question here is that if he's seen as the education guy, will voters who care more about jobs, housing and safety bypass him?
• Consalvo: He is turbo-charged. He's been among the most active idea guys (like shot-spotter), proposing regulations and programs incessantly. He has the constituent services role down pat and learned from his Hyde Park friend and neighbor Menino to show up at every event and meeting, to know voters and get known. Rob seems to figure that if Tom can do this, he can. (Disclosure: He's my district guy, has done constituent services for me, and I like him.)
• Ross: He's the Council smarty, which comes with mixed value. We saw in the last mayoral election that smart was not enough, as Sam Yoon came in third and out of the runoff. People tell me they find Ross cold. I don't; he and I have talked cycling and I thought he ran a ship-shape cruise when he was Council president. He is a more visionary sort with larger goals for the city. Will those ideas intrigue voters? Is the timing right for something demanding and different?

I love this stuff. I'm also glad I'm not running for anything. I do promise to pay attention to them though.

Tom Terrific's Victory Laps

Without shoveling figurative dirt on the mayor's casket, Bostonians are easing into acceptance that our longest-serving head guy, Tom Menino, truly is not running for a sixth four-year term. That doesn't count the head-start Ray Flynn gave him by running off to become ambassador to the Vatican.

The stereotypers are hard at work echoing each other. They previously sang the chorus of how a re-elected POTUS only has 12 to 18 months of any conceivable power and accomplishing — here's betting that's so much crap for Obama's last four years. Now and more more locally it's, "Oh, that Menino was so powerful, now no one's afraid of him any more and the power brokers and their interests will all run from him. I say even that is not so simple and obvious.

Instead, today I thought about the many small joys he'll be doing one more time. I've never seen a pol who loves contact with the voters as much as he does. I'm sure he'll do them all.

I thought of those today when the sked appeared for his neighborhood coffee hours. He shows at all 14 parts of Boston, hands out potted plants from the city greenhouses, but really does his favorite thing of shaking hands, calling out names, asking about family, and being the populist. A report and pic from two years ago is here.

It doesn't hurt that Dunkin' Donuts supplies the coffee and sugary stuff. They are smart to have affiliated themselves. Those are nearly sacramental items here and they lubricate interaction as people gather while awaiting himself.

Da Mare shows at Bike Friday on city hall plaza and hundreds of constituent events big and small. He's noted more quietly for comforting parents of murdered children. Clearly it's a lot jollier to glad hand and joke.

For the fun part, the best has long been his annual July 12th block party by his Chesterfield Street house in Hyde Park's Readville section. That's the anniversary of the day Flynn hightailed it out of town for Rome and Menino elevated from City Council President to Mayor.

There are some sponsors and sops for the masses.  A local radio station sets up a tent and table to play tunes. Others hand out ice-cream cones, hot dogs and tchotchkes.

He bestrides his street like s lesser colossus, one who does not tower above the lesser mortals. Tom Menino tends to stand in the middle of Chesterfield Street, meeting. greeting and chatting up all comers...for hours at a time.

This go, he's likely to still be using a cane, but I bet he doesn't miss a moment on his last such celebration. I've been to many of these and sure won't miss this one.

Big Boston What-Ifs on Mayor

As hard as it is for us locals to believe, Boston Mayor Tom Menino, the colossus of Hyde Park, showed real savvy in saying 20-plus years would be enough. Now we'll buzz like a hornets' nest about his successor.

The most frequent speculation is surely from David (not Berenstain Bears) Bernstein's blog. He took the Talking Politics name with him from the Phoenix. His stuff is a motley blend of well-researched, experiential, and just uncontrolled typing.

Rules can sometimes be inflexible, as in Boston Councilors running for mayor. They have to step down from City Council.

That has some hole-in-the-body-politic effects. I doubt many missed Maura Hennigan. On the other hand, Mike Flaherty had quite a following. Moreover, San Yoon was surely the brightest person in City Hall; he just lacked political instincts and savvy to go with the brain power. The city could have benefited mightily from many more years of his service on Council.

Just recently, with three previously announced candidates after the mayoralty, the how-many-Councilors will make the jump fascinates. At-large Councilor John Connolly is in the race and won't run for reelection as a result. The other two, marketing consultant Will Dorcena, and co-founder of TOUCH pirate radio, Charles Clemons, at least can go about their business while running. Just entering is Suffolk County DA Dan Conley, with over a half million dollars on hand. He's a former four-term (eight years) Councilor.

So, back to speculation about the larger class of potential competitors — Councilors. What if...

• Ayanna Pressley. She'd be a strong candidate for any office, think lieutenant governor or MA senate as well as Boston mayor. She's smart, accomplished, resilient, even good looking, and driven by volunteerism and social action. She has particularly strong followings in her Dorchester, among women, with African Americans, and fairly well represented citywide. She was a huge vote getter in the at-large contest.
• Steve Murphy. Council President yet again, he does a really good job getting the knuckleheads to knuckle down and focus. He's also the acknowledged financial whiz on Council. In his 50s, he knows this might be his only shot. He has a lot to give up if he goes after it though. He is also a perennial at-large vote harvester.
• Felix Arroyo. The other popular at-large Councilor, he has long ago surpassed his father getting votes and passing the law-like proposals and regulations they do down there. He's bright, pretty, witty and a very nice guy, favored far beyond his Latino affiliated constituents. He's ambitious.
• Tito Jackson. The biggest personality on Council, he is vibrant and enthusiastic. His District 7 folk have no doubt he's all for them first and the city right behind. He jumps into crime, clean streets and other quality-of-live issues. He's fun to be around and is likely looking for the right next level up.
• Mike Ross. He's the downtown Councilor in ever sense of the term. A seven termer, he's been president of the body. (I also like that he's a regular cyclist.) I peg him as the brightest on Council. He brings big ideas, his own and those from Cambridge, other cities and the commonwealth. He'd be the visionary, which might be a tough sell but one that could click if many voters favor big changes.
• Rob Consalvo. His my district Councilor. He's a super-nice guy and one of the most active in proposing Council actions. He's still in the Young Turk/young lion class. The Mayor came from Hyde Park, which Consalvo represents. Word from many fronts is that he sees himself as the natural heir to his good friend Menino.
• Charles Yancey. The longest-serving (15 terms) Councilor and a former body president, he has the title dean of City Council. Virtually all the Councilors have large egos. Hearing him speak at meetings and hearings, I suspect his is the biggest of all. He is a district Councilor and likely doesn't have the personal power, the raw personality to sway the city.

If all of them were in with Connolly, that would be a majority of Council up for grabs. We'd see the usual suspects and bozos running...and losing badly. We'd see numerous activists having real shots at both at-large and district seats. The makeup and direction of the body would change dramatically.

The open mayoralty after 20 years is too, too much for too many. It might be another 12 or so years before there's another good chance. The young lions would be much more like toothless, clawless oldsters.

If every one is in, Boston would be in for a huge shakeup far beyond a new mayor. It might be a net good. However, the district Councilors in particular have gotten their constituent services down pat and their replacements would not master that learning curve quickly, and may not even been good at it or have the right staffers readily available.

So I can join those at the local papers and blogs in surmising. We should know soon, as they can file nomination papers with Elections as early as April 17 and must by May 15 for the preliminary. They have to get and file 3,000 valid voter signatures by the end of May 21. That of course does not begin to account for all the money raising, visibility, online/marketing/speechifying/volunteer recruiting and such. The Mayor has made it plain he's not handing off his political machine to any candidate.

So of the Councilor possibles, what do you think?

• Ayanna Pressley. Here's betting she's biding her time and picking the right combination of office, issues, and timing. I bet she sits tight.
• Steve Murphy. The Herald did an insightful interview with him on how hard this decision will be. He's in a solid, deeply respected position on Council, but in his 50s, this could be his one chance for the other side of the fifth floor. He's lost several runs for statewide office (for which he did not have to quit Council), that's gotta make him ballot shy. I don't know how he's going to go. (By the bye, he's a neighbor but not a close friend.)
• Felix Arroyo. He put out the call for campaign donations. It seems if it comes in fast enough, he'll run. He shouldn't have any problem getting volunteers and the signatures. He'll go. 
• Tito Jackson. He loves his constituents and neighborhood as much as he loves himself and as much as he loves performing. He'd have to get a citywide following to make his candidacy viable. He's likely to look to a State House seat or maybe even lieutenant governor. He sits this out.
• Mike Ross. I suspect he'll go in. He'll need all of his smarts and to amp up his laid-back personality to come off at the guy with a vision for a better Boston. It's possible. Then again, he has to count on the timing. Voters know they'll get change. He has to make them believe he serves up the best flavor.
• Rob Consalvo. He won't be able to stand it. Like most Councilors he shaves the Mayor's face in the morning in his mirror. 
• Charles Yancey. I predict he'll waffle and in the end not go. He's make a career out of district Councilor. He's powerful and respects...in his niche. He's really not a citywide player.

Beyond Councilors, other candidates will get in. State Rep, Marty Walsh is one. I don't see him or Conley even making the final after the preliminary.

I'm figuring Arroyo, Consalvo, Ross and maybe Murphy. It would be an exciting (for us) and exhausting (for them) contest...a true battle of yard signs, innuendo and slurs, and non-stop voter contact.

Da Mare Rides Off

We'll still stunned in Boston. Our longest-serving mayor, Tom Menino, won't run for a sixth four-year term. He's long diddled with potential opponents, waiting until just before the April filing date to announce that, sure enough, he was in again. Now he waited almost as long to say, at 70, 'nuff.

We'll all speculate on who jumps in with City Councilor John Connolly, long-announced Will Dorcena, as well as apparent vanity candidate, Charles Clemons. Neither of the latter has any money to write of. We can be sure other candidates will emerge very soon and probably as thick as black flies in Maine.

Rather than spout off here and now, I have been musing today about Da Mare's decision making on this. My money would be on his wife's influence.

In interviews, he claims he listened to may people, particularly family and made his own decision. I'm not so sure.

It seems like trips to Italy have been almost fatal to him several times. Angela is very, very supportive and always has been, but I'm betting she wants to make sure they get to enjoy their kids and grandkids, while he is out and about after his mayoralty doing good, shaking hands, and still meeting more Bostonians after all these years of doing those things professionally.

When I was at the September rally in Roslindale where he endorsed Elizabeth Warren for US Senate, I left convinced that the shorter Menino had been the catalyst. He had not endorsed anyone and was saying he wouldn't. His blessing was actively courted because his influence is huge.

At the rally, as he put it, he and Angela discussed it and he decided to dub Warren. To me that was his way of saying without saying that his wife made the curtain lecture.

Once he was on Warren's side, he was effusive. It was talk of she has our back and I have hers talk. He pledged his resources.

A word from Da Mare was key and I am sure a word from Angela was powerful to him. I'm surmising that the same was true for his decision this time as well.

Only-a-flesh-wound for Anti-Gay Forces

With the Supremes about to hear the closely linked Prop 8/DOMA arguments in the next two days, the machinations, lies and delusions of the anti-equality types fascinate more than ever. They call to mind the 2012 election night pathos of GOP bigs, like Karl Rove, guaranteeing Mitt Romney's victory as state after state tumbled into the President's bag.

A pathetic but more topical version was yesterday's comments by National Organization for Marriage President Brian Brown on a very friendly to him Fox segment. (Screen snag segment of him here. I claim fair use for the altered pic.) He ostensibly debated Marc Solomon, national campaign director of Freedom to Marry. In reality the few minutes they had were Solomon detailing the new reality of public support for same-sex marriage, Brown hunkered down in an old anti-gay version, and the host giving him the "last word" that amounted to half the total time.

By the bye, a crisp, revealing piece on his obsession with keeping homosexuals from marriage rights just appeared in the New York Times.

Even with his temporal treat on Fox, Brown showed the sorry state of the anti forces. He represents the dwindling party that want to harm, hinder, hobble and hamper homosexuals. As so many polls show, Americans have come around quickly from not being able to imagine gay marriage to accepting and supporting it. Solomon cited a few of those, the data are everywhere, ranging from a plurality to a large majority in favor, and this happened so fast I have to admit I had predicted a much slower evolution many times. I'm delighted to have been wrong.

Brown's sorry statements are instructive for many reasons:

1. Big proof. He falls back as seemingly all anti-equality types do to 31 states have laws or amendments or both limiting a marriage to a man and a woman. He never mentions that those were almost entirely passed in relatively bygone days of anti-gay panic after Hawaii considered equal marriage, Vermont instituted civil unions and the clincher, the MA Goodridge decision legalizing SSM coming up on a decade ago. That could not happen now, 10 states and DC have instituted SSM and more are headed that way.
2. Mob rule. NOM's prime offense against equality is the same as other anti-gay groups'. Brown says that because CA voters overturned the legislature/governor legalization (a.k.a. representative democracy) with Prop 8, no court should have the right to deny them, even if their action violates state and perhaps US constitutions. 
3. Don't stir the pot. Brown would have it in a meme the media seem to have promulgated that if the SCOTUS makes a big move — ruling to overturn Prop 8 and maybe even that state law against marriage equality are unconstitutional — this will create a culture war. He and other bozos who make this assertion cite Roe v. Wade. In reality, it is the anti-SSM side who turned this into a cultural battle and continue to do so. We have instead seen too many times that pleas to go slowly in granting fundamental rights and freedoms are just attempts to permanently squelch them.

Lackaday for Brown and his ilk, even if the Supremes do not invalidate state laws and amendments on SSM, more and more states, with considerable numbers of citizens will have the option of marriage equality. Those 31 states were the paranoid extreme. Now that the nation sees the benign and beneficial nature of SSM for the couples and children involved, fear recedes and compassion steps in.

NOM and their running dogs have long loved such verbal tricks as "redefining marriage" and "let the people vote." Of course, they were the ones changing the marriage definition to exclude gay couples. Sometimes that was with such straw-man arguments that SSM will necessarily mean all manner of sexual practices long prohibited by federal and state laws. Sometimes it was the bizarre assertion that only those who can and will have children through their married, heterosexual intercourse should marry, denying the elderly, otherwise infertile, and childless by choice. Also, what a huge insult to the millions of adoptive parents.

The ballot-initiative ploy had two vicious prongs. First, we long ago concluded as a nation that we should not vote on the rights of any minority. Second, it's just another fallback from failure. Where a state like MA had court-mandated equality, the anti forces wanted a vote to strip the right. Where a state like CA voted in the legislature for SSM, Prop 8 also wanted to take away an existing right. No matter how equality comes about, the NOM sorts will try every trick and scheme to destroy that new freedom. Even coming up to a decade of established law here, the MA anti-equality forces make noises of somehow mounting yet another plebiscite to follow other failed efforts.

The graceless Brian Browns of our world will not go away quickly or quietly. They will not accept defeat . They will not consider embracing the newer, fairer marital world. They simply want to hold back homosexual couples and deny they equal treatment.

The rest of the country is moving on.

Fox with Barbed Tongue

To the literal, nil nisi bonum does not extend to the not-yet-dead. So perhaps former Mexican Prez Vincente Fox skips by wishing that Fidel Castro "joins Hugo Chavez...as soon as possible."

Click the arrow on the player to hear the short clip deriding both Castro brothers.

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Fox was at Symphony Hall this week surely in coordination with promoting his autobiography but ostensibly as part of the Lesley University Boston Speakers Series. It was a good venue for him. The audience was late middle age and above and relatively conservative by Boston standards. He is tall, dark and handsome, to flog a cliché. Plus, he did grad work at Harvard — always a big hit with wealth gray hairs here.

By the bye, the pic is from a World Economic Forum image under Creative Commons.

The audience clearly responded to his dog whistles. They didn't object when he praised Cuba's education and health systems. But the applauded deafeningly to his calls for Fidel to die, for one example.

He busies himself after politics with his eponymous center to advance democracy. At the least, it's a presidential library.

His 90 minutes or so was fairly self-serving and a rehash of well-known material. For those of us expecting his usual inflammatory surprises, it was ho-hum.

However, he was at his most insightful when addressing border security and immigration conflicts. He did recount the ill timing of his visit to address a joint session of the US Congress a few days before the 9/11 attacks. He said he expected to convince our lawmakers to back off on the craziness (my word) of a many-hundred-mile wall along the Mexican border. The attacks in NYC and Virginia waylaid his proposals.

Still, he knows that "walls don't work" and are a terrific waste of money.

Instead, he said our hope for immigration control was economic parity. He noted that there is no Canadian/US problem, which he attributes to equal wages on both sides of that 3000-mile line. Not long ago, he added, the disparity with his country was over 10 to 1. It has reduced to 5 to 1 and he optimistically said that in five to 10 years, it may be equal.

I can't believe it will happen that fast, but his point is well taken. If Mexicans can make as much in their country, they won't sneak into this one. He concluded that the U.S. should do all it can within and beyond NAFTA to speed the process of income parity.

His comments on immigration alone were worth the evening.

Wash, Reince, Repeat

Democrats are safe from RNC Chair Reince Preibus.

He released (or it escaped) the Growth & Opportunity Project report. The 100-pager is actually about 30 sheets of big, Mac-style sans serif type pages if you account for the repetition. It could accurately have the title Why We'll Never, Ever Fail Again or Click Your Heels Three Times.

I read the 100 pages, even the iterations and reiterations, verbatim, so you don't have to. Alas for bedraggled elephants, many sheets of, well, stuff don't make Priebus as smart, strategic or analytical as his predecessor Michael Steele. Facts include, Steele and his big candidates were winners, the GOP replaced him with loser Priebus, and the report G.O.P. or maybe GANDOP fails terribly at its two main purposes — 1) explicating how even in the worst of economic times with Republican Congressmen doing their damnedest to make sure our President could neither pass laws, nor appoint key officials, nor govern, the GOP lost the big race and seats in both houses, and 2) detailing corrections that will ensure big Republican wins in 2014 and the 2016 Presidential.

Instead GANDOP the gray:

• Does not deal with such core problems as voter disdain for GOP policies and distrust of arrogant candidates
• Pretends that changing voter demographics toward more people of color and a younger electorate are perfectly manageable if only they package their feces in a pretty box
• Uses a one-strategy-fits-all groups (except women) approach of puppet spokesmodels
• Deludes with gear-head fantasies such as if only they hire the right data collectors and analysts or the spiffiest new-media consultants they'll beat the Dems at their game

I can point to some telling pages in the report:

• P2: Contacts shown here and mentioned sporadically suggest hand-clasping, going to favorable or mildly critical, red-state folk and missing meaningful criticisms
• P4: "Republican governors are America's reformers in chief." if you equate regressive and reactionary policy with positive change. The question they should have asked is whether state-level regression contributed powerfully to the defeats in the last election.
• P5: "At our core, Republicans have comfortably remained the Party of Reagan.." Yet his policies differ dramatically from the current GOP platform and pols. 
• P5: However, this page has one of the keenest and most candid insights in the report — The Republican Party needs to stop talking to itself. We have become expert in how to provide ideological reinforcement to like-minded people, but devastatingly we have lost the ability to be persuasive with, or welcoming to, those who do not agree with us on every issue. I suspect this key judgment will disappear in the morass of jive.
• P5: There is a voter perception that the GOP does care about people, while Dems "tend to talk about people. Republicans tend to talk about policy." The report fails to note that Dem policy also tends to act to the benefit of the voters instead of moneyed classes.
• P6: A key conceit is that Republican policies that favor the corporations and wealthy individuals creates a healthy, growing middle class. Very few are so delusional as to believe that. If the GOP wants the White House, it needs to drop this.
• P8: The only mention of gay rights is that younger people favor them. Yet the report only calls "to make sure young people do not thee the Party as totally intolerant of alternative points of view." It's surely not like the GOP is out of step with the nation, eh?
• P8: "If we want ethnic minority voters to support Republicans, we have to enrage them, and show our sincerity." Of course, every conclusion and recommendation in the report is insincere and manipulative. Saying sincere and being sincere are not the same.
• P12: The dark people are coming, Latinos, Asians and others. The report concludes repeatedly that the canned GOP program is the best for everyone. Yet Barack Obama and the Dems convinced voters that Republicans did not have their economic interests at heart. That wasn't a hard sell.
• P14: Iterates over many pages in recommendations. Just get coached surrogates who look like the target voter groups and the GOP wins. For one, "This new organization should design a surrogate program to train and prepare ethnic conservatives for media presentations nationally and locally. Surrogates would speak on behalf of the Republican Party on issues of the day." The report has similar findings for each major group Romney lost in the last election, except for women. The puppet strategy is simple-minded and insulting. You just train the various looks-like-you folk. 
• P15: "It is imperative that the RNC changes how it engages with Hispanic communities to welcome in new members of our Party." This also repeats for each group it lost. It avoids personal responsibility for clumsy, insulting, mean policies by suggesting that if you only phrase the message properly, voters will buy in.
• P16: For each lost group, starting with Latinos, key concepts are that you train the surrogates (puppets), hire a few, suddenly visible representative members as party functionaries, and repeat to them "The Republican Party is one of tolerance and respect..."
• P17: For Asians and Pacific Islanders, no more fly-over campaigning. There is no mention to what party shock will ensue if the GOP actually asks what the various groups want and sees that none of it aligns with party policy.
• P19-21: Women get a slightly different treatment from the cut-and-past recommendations for the ethnic groups. Here instead of policy changes, the report looks to theater, manipulation and tricks. It calls for framing the wooing and training of surrogates with "unique concerns that female voters may have..." and  using "language that addresses concerns that are on women's minds in order to let them know we are fighting for them." It's all fluff for women, fluff and messaging —"Women need to hear what our motive is — why it is that we want to create a better future for our families and how our policies will affect the lives of their loved ones." This is the most patronizing and insulting part of the report.
• P21-22: Youth harks back to the Vietnam Era Young Americans For Freedom glory days. Somehow the RNC thinks it can get eager campus and young professional voters spontaneously organizing for them, all without changing their policies to be more inclusive for real.
• P26: Many of us remember when Republican were first with the internet and savviest with emerging social media. They've lost hat Now they've become gear-heads, thinking if only they have better data collection, they'll best Dems at the game of voter connection. The report does not see that Dems have both delivery AND content.
• P29-30: Dreams of monopolizing early and absentee voter ballots overlook a huge problem. Through gerrymandering and redistricting, they also thought that they had the Electoral College in hand. They overreached with voter suppression in many states. For sure last year and likely going forward, the GOP created new groups of angry, dedicated voters who won't forget the treachery and anti-democracy.
• P31: "The RNC should recruit and hire a chief technology and digital officer for the RNC by May 1, 2013." More gear-head stuff does not admit the problem. It's like a teen thinking if only he had that glove and bat, he'd be a star or an adult fantasizing that his $5,000 bike would make him a champion cyclist.
• P33: Calls for "recruiting the highest-quality candidates with the greatest potential for leadership" ignores the history of primaries that yield extreme and ultimately unelectable entries, chosen by the wingers who vote in these contests. It also avoids consideration of whether the RNC will try (surely unsuccessfully and maybe illegally) to dictate state parties' operations.
• P52: "Our friends and allies (third party groups) should significantly invest in voter registration and grassroots efforts." This assumes a buy-in by voters that has not existed in a long time.
• P54: Relying on ambush videos by "Well-funded conservative groups" tracking Dem candidates is a tactic, but one that many voters find both despicable and boring.
• P54: "Our friends and allies must realize that the Party is at its best as the Party of ideas, and healthy debate of those ideas is fundamentally good for the Republican Party." This is the most unintentionally amusing recommendation in the report. Throughout, it is heavy-handedly paternalistic in not bringing up self-criticism, not admitting failures, and calling for RNC edicts to state parties and the puppets, a.k.a. surrogates.
• P57: The report envies Obama's grassroots support there and here, and notably in "low-dollar fundraising." This follows a passing mention of the rich folk who bankroll the party. It avoids the obvious, that grassroots are millions of voters and million of contributors. Dems win them by offering platform planks that help them. The clear recommendation should be, but is not, to evaluate the party policies to see whether they help the target voters.
• P65-67: Citizens United was not enough. The report wants a total freedom for the RNC and state campaign financial system to raise and spend as it sees fit. The report phrases such anarchy as "making political speech more robust at the state and local level."
• P71: Cut the number of Presidential-candidate debates in half, with the aim of helping the GOP pick a single candidate and getting a head start on the national campaign. Forget that talk about robust speech.

The last third of the report cuts and pastes each section's already iterative recommendations. I suggest not just starting on page 74 for these. You'd miss the shameful and illogical rationalizations.

This report is a marvel of effete delusion. Academics will enjoy this for decades. Given the chance and lots of resources and what passes for brain power in the GOP, Priebus' pals could well have dealt with real causes and real solutions. Instead, it's the fantasy world again.

Yeah, the Dems did this or that better than us. All we need to do is buy the right staff and train some spokesmodels. All will be swell.

It is to laugh.

Benny to Frankie With Little to Show

The vile Benedict XVI is sort of gone, but his replacement Francis is only a little better. Neither is a new testament Christian.

For serious immediate journalism, the WaPo has two takes — his politics and theology, as well as his politics with economics. Instead, I'm here for LGBT and women's issues.

Fundamentally, Francis sucks, except for a big up on  social activism. The dude is down on women — no worship roles and forget about priesthood in Francis' lifetime, no right to choose or even discussion, no gay anything including marriage or adoption, and homosexuality is too gross to discuss. Mentioning marriage equality is the talk of Satan, so there.

When I first saw that a Jesuit, in fact the former head of the Society, was Pope, I had a flash and flush of hope. SJ folk are the most educated of the RC gang and many can discuss big topics without bringing down shades of infallibility and doctrine. Not so, Jorge, now Francis.

The new Pope is hard-line conservative.

His big exception is that he actually is New Testament in social action. You know, help the poor, mingle with plain folk, accept the range of human conditions. There's a little room to improve the billion Roman Catholics' lot there. It's a damned, very God damned shame, that he'll exclude women and homosexuals from human rights. Yes, shame on Frankie.

Business Princes

Not only does the emperor, or more aptly satraps, have no clothes. Those little folk with power and prestige and almost all weak of mind and devoid of accomplishment. The alleged best and brightest (BaBs, for derision) in the biz and finance worlds are the scammers who hold open their attache cases and see their boards overfill them with cash and options.

Over at the Financial Times today, Lucy Kellaway dared take another peak at the nude and ugly princelings. Her sideways look was an unscientific poll of overpaid shots. (The link may require registration, but you should be subscribing to the FT anyway, and The Nation as well.) A few admitted to her they were obscenely overcompensated. They had come to terms with that. More common was the dumb-as-a-post attitude that they create value, so they are underpaid if anything.

Chicken lips!

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Best and Brightest?!

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Go to a biz-school library or click around the net to see that most top execs and financial types are mediocre at best. The BaBs generally lead companies to underperform the Dow. The financial types are generally like pilots whose ships are carried along by strong currents. That lack of real value added doesn't stop their boards or partners from proclaiming they are wizards worth every penny of their multi-million-dollar annual packages.

In contrast to the big paydays, companies with these execs would be better off putting their cash in an index fund. Then they would not get a higher return, but they could take the millions they would otherwise pay the top dogs and actually invest it in meaningful R&D and expansion.

Of course the guys (almost entirely white men by coincidence) who hire these bozo BaBs have a real stake in the scam. Their fiduciary duty includes ensuring competent top management. That in theory carries both criminal and civil costs of they goof up doing so.

Most top business executives share some major flaws. For example, among the worst is short-term thinking. They and their direct reports typically develop and market to pump up profits for one or two quarters. Such tactics almost invariably rob the company and its shareholders of longer term, bigger profits and market share. They simply aren't putting resources where they will pay off biggest. Come evaluation and bonus time, the princelngs claim great benefit to the company.

Oddly enough, in many companies, even if exec plans blow up and returns are awful, the bigs still get bonuses on top of huge salaries. Increasingly shareholders switch into WTF? mode at annual or quarterly meetings, but the klutzes on the thrones remain there.

Another typical mediocre to awful boner is plumping margins by such moves as moving most production offshore, by underpaying workers, or by downsizing to starvation staffing levels. Yet, it's been over a century since Henry Ford showed the wisdom of a different approach. He'd pay is workers enough so that they could afford the cars they built — a large base of loyal, local, repeat customers. Building for a healthy and growing middle class and above is not counterintuitive. It too is a long-term survival plan, and one that gives you a much higher level of control than chasing third-world and developing-nation purchases.

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Fantasy Worlds

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My conclusions after long exposure to the constant stupid decisions by the shots is that they tend to be very ordinary people who develop the level of self-delusional ego typical of surgeons and ministers. So many above and below pour praise all over them. They begin to believe it all and then come think it is both absolutely true and natural.

It's likely that in a few big companies, shareholders will force some change, although not as likely that these will be deep, systemic improvements in executive selection, hiring, evaluation and compensation. It is even less likely that boards will admit they didn't hire BaBs, rather just connected buffoons who aren't particularly competent. Board members have a huge stake in appearing to have met their fiduciary requirements.

Occasionally,. reporters, biz school academics and some influential bloggers draw attention to the grossest failings of top managers and the absurd levels of reward for ordinary or inferior performance. Therein may lie the catalyst for change. Coming from such an oblique angle will surely take a long, long time.

Big Dog's Duh on DOMA

Maybe it's as simple as Hillary Clinton's stratospheric public approval and acclaim for her Secretary of State role. Meanwhile hubby William J. Clinton kind of labors much more obscurely. As front man for his humbly named William J. Clinton Foundation, he smiles a lot and aims to do big things in world health and such. The man is still competitive and still polishes brass plaques for his legacy trophies.

There's no shine yet on his biggest disgrace, DOMA. Yesterday, he buffed it again with an apology, in the classical not vernacular sense, for the Defense of Marriage Act. His short opinion piece in the WaPo smacks of lawyerly speciousness. It calls to mind his Lewinsky-related testimony about depending on what the meaning of is is.

He writes that DOMA is wrong now, but he can't, simply can't, admit he was wrong about it back in 1996 when he pushed it and signed the bill into law. It was his and he brought Congress and the nation along with him.

Instead, he lawyers up again and again. Oh, it was bipartisan. Oh, a bunch of people figured it would "defuse" the drive to flat outlaw same-sex marriage nationwide (and remove the right to control marriage from states). Oh, only 81 Senators and Reps opposed DOMA. Oh, oh, oh.

For a man who dearly loves himself, he shied away from write I in this piece. He could have written, "I took a gamble, led a compromise, let the chips fall every which way, and buried the issue. I let the anti-gay types think they won something by guaranteeing no federal tax or other benefits for homosexuals. I wanted the pro-equality types to think they could hold shreds and threads of hope if they were willing to fight for one, two or more decades."

That would have been both analytic and candid.

Instead, in his WaPo It's time to overturn DOMA piece, the former President linked to his weasel-worded signing statement that accompanied the bill. Therein, he writes in the first person, opening with "Throughout my life I have strenuously opposed discrimination of any kind, including discrimination against gay and lesbian Americans." He concludes the brief statement with DOMA does not "provide an excuse for discrimination, violence or intimidation against any person on the basis of sexual orientation. Discrimination, violence and intimidation for that reason, as well as others, violate the principle of equal protection under the law and have no place in American society."

Chicken lips!

DOMA is discrimination legalized and codified. It has led directly to cases before state, federal and now the SCOTUS. It has punished millions with unequal treatment, a.k.a. discrimination. It was and is a vicious, mean-spirited betrayal of LGBT Americans. It was Bill Clinton's easy way out that has not been at all easy for homosexual couples nationwide ever since.

It's positive that he eventually reversed his one-man/one-woman thinking. He got there before VP Biden and Prez Obama, but not by much. His current call too may help a little. I have to believe it would be a lot more effective if he started with the truth, the whole truth.

Quixotic or Prophetic Candidates?

My version of an elephant graveyard is a leaning heap of political yard signs. Many are from dramatic winners, like Obama and Warren.

One that still bothers me though reads:

INDEPENDENT 
JIM HENDERSON 
SECRETARY OF STATE 
www.JimForSOC.com

Jim is a friend. Moreover, he is a crusader and reformer. We don't like them much around here.

He ran in 2010 and got about 1 vote for every 23 that incumbent Bill Galvin did.

We have our own Deval Patrick. Much like President Barack Obama, our first black governor strode into office as a reformer, when the time and all conditions were right. Recently Sen. Elizabeth Warren did much the same.

Those are decided anomalies. We here in Boston, Massachusetts and New England are like much of this fairly conservative nation. We like our change in creeps not leaps...most of the time.

I definitely thought of the discarded reformers figuratively buried here when we spoke with John Connolly yesterday on Left Ahead. His show is here. This at-large Boston city councilor announced he would not run again for that post, rather for mayor, regardless of whether the longest-serving ever, wildly popular incumbent Tom Menino goes for a sixth term.

Da Mare loves to make councilors and other wait to see whether he's in for another run until well into spring  This year, candidates can wait until May 13th to pull nomination papers. Folks are understandably afraid to run against Menino, with his hoard of campaign funds, political organization, incumbency, and other powers. Those who don't have Connolly's guts are left scrambling for money, endorsements and ground troops on a truncated schedule.

Connolly says he has no plan B if he doesn't win. He says he can beat the mayor or any other councilor or outsider...and that's that.

He figures to get there with his reformer/transformer campaign. While citing his great respect for Menino personally and for his accomplishments over 20 years, Connolly says one way or another, time is up. He is impatient for big advances in public schools, not "tweaking around the edges."

While he has policies and plans for public safety, employment and more, schools are the heart of his plan to become mayor. Listen to his show to hear how he specifies the problems and solutions.

Mayor Menino may well run again. As he has told me and so many other, "What else am I going to do? This is all I know." Plus he clearly loves the job. On the other hand, he's coming up on 70, has been ill intermittently for years, and can be chauffeured away leaving a deep and wide legacy of accomplishments.

Clearly, Connolly has a greater shot at the office if Menino does not run. He has a strong message of reform, as well as teaching credentials, kids coming into public schools, a dedicate to public education, and years of experience running the council's education committee, leading numerous improvement efforts. Plus, he has very understandable and detailed proposals for revamping the city's schools.

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Smothered Dreams

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Our history here in not electing reformers came to mind recently as I watched the PBS series The Abolitionists. There were many tough times and even death threats and violence aimed at the likes of Angelina Grimke, Theodore Weld, William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass. Boston has more than its share of slave-ship owners, fugitive-slave catchers, and many who just didn't want change or moralism.

We still like to think of ourselves in the main as lefties, liberals, progressives and such. Yet, really in the main we often share social conservatism as well as fiscal conservatism. We either need to ease into change or in those rare cases of an Obama or Warren be swept along in the excitement of reform.

I think again of Jim Henderson. His Left Ahead show where he advances his considerable reforms is here. Likewise, in 2009, City Councilor Sam Yoon ran on a reformer's platform for mayor. His Left Ahead show is here. Yoon lost in the preliminary (but not by much), had his candidacy folded into an unofficial vice-mayor slot with leading contender Councilor Michael Flaherty. Menino won 57% to 42%.

I've often held that Yoon was the smartest person in city hall. Many local observers are quick to agree and simultaneously point out that he lacked the political smarts and instincts of Menino. Almost invariably, those who win public office or become the wealthiest are not the brightest. They often don't have the best plans, but they hit sweet spots of timing and presentation.

Yoon was fine by me. I loved his intensity, his problem/solution analyses, and particularly his reformer conclusions. I too am an impatient sort.

To many though, Sam was overly wonky. He could be casual and personable, as I recall him at a big table at Flash's on Stuart Street. A bunch of us bloggy sorts joined him over ale to discuss his campaign. Sure, as always, he had the data and conclusions in his brain at the ready, but he delivered it with humor and excitement.

To most voters though, he may have been  too serious. He wanted us to take a flight on his reformation express. The voters liked Menino, saw that the city was gradually getting better with him in office, and found the call for reform too abrupt and uncertain. Instead of Boston mayor, Yoon is president of the Council or Korean Americans outside of D.C.

Another would-be reformer, Henderson, is a successful lawyer in Stow and principal of a video marketing firm. He's doing fine. He just has never gotten the chance to transform the secretary of the commonwealth's office.

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End Game

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Reformers tend to be resilient and relentless. Sometimes they prevail.

I recommend The Abolitionists, particularly the last episode. During four decades to eliminate slavery, Garrison specifically faced mobs, public shunning and disdain, financial catastrophe, threats of arrest and death and more. Eventually with the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment, Garrison and his like-minded reformers won. Even the change-averse public praised and supported them in the end.

The visionaries generally struggle. It's almost unheard of that they propose their reforms and receive acclaim and support...without the angst, defeat and rising from the muck.

In Connolly's case, working to ensure that tens of thousands of youth receive high-quality education and the lifelong opportunities that accompany it is noble. It surely is less so than freeing millions of slaves, but noble and worthy none the less.

Whether Menino runs, is it John's time? Can he market himself and his ideas strongly and clearly enough to overcome to inertia of a change averse Boston?

Dutch Boys 12 Years On

In the weekend Financial Times, Simon Kuper writes about what same-sex marriage has meant for his native Netherlands. Among his conclusions:

• "(I)t doesn't change much."
• Following legalization in 2001, political squabbles turned to other matters.
• Despite crazy claims otherwise, it does not affect straight marriages.
• SSM does "slap the churches in the face," in the sense they have the scramble to show their relevance.
• Stereotypical, traditional gay scenes are disappearing as more homosexuals integrate in the larger community.

Markey Weaves a Beautiful Tapestry

OK, kiddies, Ed Markey can do this. He can be senatorial, certainly while campaigning, and that's sine qua non for this run to replace US Sen. John Kerry.

I wasn't sure. His typical wonky pronouncements as US Rep. can be dour and dry, from the video clips. Maybe it was the venue (JP Licks) or the audience (lefties all), but he was dynamic, passionate and funny. He delivered a simultaneously detailed and focused stump speech that owned the packed half of the joint.

He may be able to match our MA Treasurer Steve Grossman in the ice-cream talk. Markey's dad worked for Hood and the son worked his way to and through Boston College in part by driving a Hood ice-cream truck.

Today, he heaped on the related humor. "My life is inextricably linked to ice cream," he started, adding, "Without ice cream I'm not going to Boston College." He went on about how great it was to be at JP Licks.

He also delivered a smooth set of lines related to his wife, whom he had wave to us. That would be Dr. Susan J. Blumenthal, very bright, highly accomplished (as in and MD, Georgetown and Tufts professor, assistant surgeon general and on and on). It never hurts a pol either that she is very attractive and shiksha looking (my term, not his). The very Massachusetts, very Irish-American pol had good fun saying he had  "lived the American dream. I married a Jewish doctor."

We'll see how much traction Rep. Steve Lynch gets with his iron-worker v. ice-cream vendor approach in his campaign for the seat. On the face of it, walking steel beams is tougher stuff than driving an ice-cream truck. Yet that too may be risky for Lynch, as after a few years in his father's profession, he became the union local president and seems to have been more a union pol than a rusty-hands laborer.

With the crowd chuckling and attentive, Markey hit his policies, aims, and reasons to vote for him.

Considerable rhetorical and literary elegance, as well as strong evidence of crisp, goal-oriented thinking, appeared in his 20 minute speech. He started, reworked and ended with recurring themes that reappeared and reinforced each other. Yes, he was for gun safety/control. Yes, he was for health care for all, as right not privilege. Yes, he unabashedly touted his constant support for choice, equal treatment and rights for women, as well as his LGBT constituents.

His themes though echoes Elizabeth Warren and Barack Obama. He spoke recurringly of the hopes typical Americans have, particularly for their children. For example, that came up in his jest about marrying the American dream, but also in the reality of his immigrant grandfather and his father starting in a ground floor apartment of a Lawrence triple-decker. Then in a Honduran-American endorsing and introducing him in Lawrence. Again in visiting his old family digs at 88 Phillips Street there, to find a different Honduran-American family with aspirations the same as his father and grandfather had for their kids...aspirations Markey has manifested.

He tied himself strongly to Warren, saying such as, "I want to go to Washington to be a partner with Elizabeth Warren on the Senate floor." He added he wanted to advanced the same agenda as she and Obama. He benefits from not having to fudge his record to support that.

This campaign his likely to see such well-written speeches and debates. Here Markey has strong advantages over Lynch and any possible GOP candidate. He has not changed his policies or postures. He is in tune with the typical liberal/progressive MA voter. Also, he's really a pretty funny guy behind all that smart speechifying.

His campaign site is nude at the moment — just volunteer or cough up. However, ProgressiveMass is all for him and stocks his issues. I had gone there basically to meet his press folk and get a Left Ahead podcast in the works (done and done). I'm glad I waited for him to show.

Markey Sparking Barking

Fur shore, dood, MA's campaign to replace US Sen. John Kerry is already in the mud. Faux indignation follows each pronouncement of little-bit-ahead leader Ed Markey. There was the whore monger and more recently the fake cries of racism.

It'll only get worse. Even with a new GOP party chair here, the dreadful craziness and irrationality of Scott Brown's failed calumny of Elizabeth Warren last fall still is the tone.

Consider those two examples. First Markey will attend a fund raiser for his campaign co-hosted by former NY Gov. Eliiot Spitzer. Also, Markey really hates the Citizens United decision and compared it judicially to the Dred Scott ruling of 1857 when the US Supreme Court tortured Constitutional law to uphold slavery.

That fund raiser is in the DC home of Spitzer's sister. It's private and asking $500 to $5,000 per. In case you have had more important issues to consider, then NY AG Spitzer spent a lot of money on prostitutes. He resigned in 2008 with hints of impeachment for to rumored fiscal improprieties related to his lusts. He's pretty much rehabbed himself — writing for the likes of Slate, teaching at City College, lecturing and such.

As one of her first public acts, the new MA GOP head, Kirsten Hughes, got low and nasty on this. As the Globe reported it:

“You are judged by the company you keep and it’s disgusting for Congressman Markey to rub elbows with a man best known for his solicitation of prostitutes,” Hughes said. “Instead of lining his campaign coffers with donations from the disgraced Eliot Spitzer, Markey should immediately cancel the fundraiser and denounce Spitzer’s abhorrent and unacceptable behavior. Anything short of a public condemnation and cancellation would send the wrong message to women everywhere.”

From that same GOP with its current and long history of plug nasties — serial adulterers, tax cheats, and far worse — as candidates as well as supporters, that's some guts she showed. Pots and kettles, dear.

For the Citizens/Dred thingummy, The Phoenix' David Bernstein doesn't think it'll last or have much impact. Not only do I agree, but I think Markey offered a fair comparison that deserves consideration.

Negative reactions to it may say more about New Englanders than Markey's remarks. He delivered the analogy in the Berkshires and The Republican on masslive.com sought out Springfield NAACP President The Rev. Talbert Swan II to view the video and react.

He concluded, "I don't think he had an ill-intent making the comparison, but it's an ill-timed statement (noting it is Black History Month)." However, he also said, "I don't think I would have compared any Supreme Court decision to the Dred Scott decision that subjugated a whole race, but I do understand the parallel between the two cases. The Dred Scott ruling denied rights to human beings and made them property. The Citizens Untied case took property and gave it human rights."

Those who try to play racial games with this and avoid Markey's ideas should note Swan's clarity.

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Regional Ways

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That brings up the provincialism issue. Not only Bostonians but many other New Englanders have real problems with abstracts and even metaphor. They can be confused by them, can fall back on literal interpretations, and seem to lack literary contexts.

While I've spent the majority of my life in Boston, I've lived in many places and spent some of my most formative years in the South. The contrasts in speech, writing and thinking North and South are abrupt and revealing.

There are good fiction writers up here, but not all that many. Contrasted to the Deep South, New England is the home of philosophy and hard and soft science writing...serious (and generally literal) stuff. You'd be hard pressed to find a Southern city or town without its famous native novelist or playwright.

That is nowhere as obvious as in daily conversation. Classroom, grocery, bar, living room, backyard BBQ, floor of the legislature, Southerners love their words, their tropes, their puns, their analogies. They as a group take great pleasure in turn of phrase and comparisons. It's a form of mental calisthenics that may not serve any great purpose, but lubricates interactions considerably.

That's why it shocks me so much to see the terrified alter kaker Sen. Lindsey Graham act out like such a Yankee on the cabinet nominee hearings. He picks up verbal crumbs and figuratively runs about the hearing room holding them high and squealing. We understand he's trying to convert his legacy of decades as a wishy-washy sort with uncharacteristic bombast. It doesn't suit him or his heritage.

Here, we'll see how far Hughes and other attack sorts can carry these small socks of shame they think they found. I suspect not that far. However, I also suspect they just won't stop trying.

NM SS Marriage. Mirage?

As America fumbles and stumbles toward marriage equality...trailing even France, our legal and societal ineptness is nowhere plainer than in New Mexico. Mirabile dictu, 64 same couples married there on February 20, 2004.

Sandoval County Clerk Victoria Dunlap announced she'd issue the licenses. Turned out that she found that nothing in the state law prohibited it, nothing limited marriages to a man/woman combo. Her office was perking from 8 AM until 4:10 PM 4:10 p.m when then-Attorney General Patricia Madrid halted the process. By then 66 licenses were complete, but dozens of same-sex couples were left in line.

In all, 66 licenses were issued. Dozens were left in line.

Among the unanswered questions in the 9 years since are:

• Are the 64 marriages valid? (A judge ruled one couple seeking divorce had a valid marriage, but that only applied to their case.)
• Why haven't lawmakers legalized or made illegal SSM there? (NM has a strong equal-rights law that forbids gender discrimination.)
• Can clerks start issuing these licenses again? (They have an informal agreement to wait for the legislature to do something solid and sensible.)

Census stats say NM has the fifth greatest percentage of gay couples. It's a reasonable place to get sensible.

Self-flushing Scott Brown

Let us laugh together. Scott Brown has flushed himself down the drain, apparently out of greed alone. According to the Globe and to the Herald, he'll be a talking head for Fox(if you pardon the oxymoron)News.

Giggle now that he wasn't immediately available for comment. Consider that this attention addict doesn't even get that aspect of it all.

So in a couple of years from a drone realty lawyer to a do nothing state legislator to a big honking ego disguised as a fill-in-the-term US Senator, Brown chose to unplug the drain and wash himself down.

In his Congressional mini-life, truncated when someone with ideas, accomplishments and the compassion he totally lacks skunked him for the full-term in office, he was also a do nothing.

Rather, he was a do badly while pretending otherwise. Assuming all other Senators and all voters were thoroughly stupid, he played junior-high tricks. He'd stand at the edge of the new playground, the Senate chamber, waiting to run in and make the key point or save. He'd pretend to play for one side and then for the other, all the while saying not that this proved his deviousness and dishonor, rather showed him fair and balanced, to coin a phrase. He feigned bipartisanship so many times, he seemed to come to believe it himself.

So there you have it, FoxNoise hired him to provide political commentary and insight. Well, at least he's in the Sarah Palin moldy mold of no-noting, do-nothing, having accomplished next to nothing, smoke blower. Brown as a political commentator is like Bernie Madoff teaching ethics. They make it up as they do and hope they don't get caught.