MA-Gov: Democratic Caucuses

Patrick certainly did well in my caucus in Amherst (perhaps the most liberal town in the state).  About 70 people showed up and only one expressed any preference for Reilly.  We elected 20 delegates to the June state convention, essentially a slate pre-arranged by the Patrick campaign but including many members of the town Democratic committee.  Several delegates-to-be spoke in favor of John Bonifaz, a voting rights activist and author who is challenging incumbent Democrat Bill Galvin for Secretary of State.

It was quite a contrast with the caucuses four years ago when about 300 people showed up to support Robert Reich, who was just putting his campaign together and needed a big effort to get 15% of the delegates.  (Candidates for the general are chosen in a September primary -- the only legal effect of the June convention is that you need at least 15% there to get on the September ballot.)

The only other statewide candidate with an organized presence was Tim Murray, the mayor of Worcester who is running for Lt. Governor.  After the weirdness involving Marie St. Fleur last week, none of the (four?) Lt. Gov. candidates have ties to either Reilly or Patrick (though Murray was annoyed in public that Reilly sought another candidate after an earlier expression of his intent to remain neutral).

It's already clear what the spin will be -- Patrick will trumpet his statewide organization, and Reilly will claim that these are activists rather than representative voters.  There is no chance of either falling below 15% , particularly as Reilly will be strong among the "superdelegates".

Anybody else have a report from another town in MA?


Poll
MA-Gov Dem primary?
Deval Patrick
Tom Reilly

Votes: 25
Results : Vote Link : Polls

Display:


Re: MA-Gov: Democratic Caucuses (3.00 / 1)

I was elected a delegate to the state Convention as part of a Deval Patrick slate.

Everyone on our slate was elected including alternates. Hingham is entirely Deval Country.

No one spoke in favor of Reilly;we had 2 union people run as undeclared - they were not successful and i student also undeclared, also not successful.

We expect those 3 to apply for add on delegate status.

Plymouth was also entirely successful for Deval Patrick. State Sen. Terry Murray who is backing Reilly saw a slate filled with her supporters go down in flames.

One of my supporters told me that unless Deval wins in September she WILL NOT vote for Reilly - and this is a die hard Dem.

Hope Deval wins the whole thing!!


by merbex on Sat Feb 04, 2006 at 05:54:28 PM EST

John Kerry showed up at Arlington (3.00 / 1)

I saw this nice write-up and thought I'd pass it on  (even though I'm from PA, not MA, myself) - warning, it's a "centrist" blog whose members seem to think McCain is "centrist" but this article seems fair and decently written:

February 04, 2006
John Kerry Comes To The Caucus

(snip)

John Kerry lives in Boston, but he was in Arlington to meet what turned out to be 347 caucus votes, who voted overwhelmingly for a slate of delegates to support Deval Patrick as the gubernatorial nominee, over Tom Reilly, the presumed frontrunner, who had a bad week last week.

I spoke to Kerry for a couple of minutes. I asked him if there was a disconnect between bloggers and other grassroots activists and Democratic elected officials--that it sometimes seemed like Democratic officials would take one position, and that opposition would percolate in the activist community until it came to a boil. He said that communication was instantaneous these days, but if Democrats were not proactive, it was because they did not control any branches of the federal government, and cannot not set the agenda of what gets taken up. "If we can win one house, we will be co-partners in the agenda," Kerry said.

Now that Kerry is blogging, I asked him how he was as a typist. Kerry said, "I'm good. Two fingers, but I can do it pretty fast."

Kerry spoke to the assembled caucus for about ten minutes, and received a standing ovation at the end.

(snip)

Responding to President Bush's State of the Union address, Kerry said, "Mr. President, America isn't addicated to oil. You're addicted to oil." Striking a note of optimism for 2006, he said, "It's possible with our energy, we could win the House. We could win the Senate."

(snip)

Posted by Rick Heller at February 4, 2006 01:52 PM

I chuckled at the part about typing with two fingers. Someone send that man a typing tutorial...maybe then he could answer more comments when he blogs. ;-)


by MH in PA on Sun Feb 05, 2006 at 09:26:21 AM EST

Re: MA-Gov: Democratic Caucuses (none / 0)

Here's the Boston Globe writeup on the caucuses, which gives a lot of good general information on the race.

Thanks to KTinTX for the recommend, which briefly put me on the recommended list for the first time.  Also thanks for the two eyewitness reports.

Reilly's strategy seems to be to make a virtue of his failures.  He bungled the running mate business because he's a "poor politician", and he lost these caucuses because he deliberately didn't try to appeal to the activist base.  The reasoning, which is not entirely crazy, is that the middle block of voters doesn't like skilled politicians and doesn't like the activist base.

In fact, I would argue that Patrick, along with being a better governor, would make a better general election candidate than Reilly, precisely because he doesn't come of as a politician and Reilly does.  (Reilly has the attitude without the corresponding skills, it seems.)  This could be particularly important if convenience store magnate Christy Mihos gets the Republican nomination over Healey -- not being a politician will be the center of his campaign.


by DaveMB on Sun Feb 05, 2006 at 11:20:00 AM EST

Re: MA-Gov: Democratic Caucuses (none / 0)

Here's a report from another caucuser on DKos.


by DaveMB on Sun Feb 05, 2006 at 11:29:34 AM EST


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