Sen. Kerry introducing Martha Coakley tonight

[TayTay]

And he made a good joke: (paraphrased)

Sending a Republican to the Senate from Massachusetts would be like awarding Dick Cheney a Nobel Peace Prize.

LOL!

Nice speech. My Senior Senator is unifying his state party behind Ms. Coakley for Senate. Nice work.

[ProSense]

1. LOL! Kerry's statement

here


Hi Tay.


:hi:

[TayTay]

3. Hey, how are you?

The Senator looked great introducing Mahther! (You haven't lived until you hear a room full of Mass-souls yelling, "Mahther! Mahther!")

Sorry. Sen. Kerry did a great job. He led off with a list of things the Democrats have done since 1/20/09 for the country. He expressed strong support for Martha and looks forward to working with her in the Senate in January. Again reminded everyone about all Teddy did for us and how we all have to take up his legacy.

Very nice job.

[ProSense]

4. Wonderful, thanks.

How is everything? Your Mom?

[Luftmensch067]

2. Pitch perfect statement on the nomination

Sorry I duplicated your comment ProSense! But since yours is a link, I'm going to leave this one.

Kerry on Attorney General Martha Coakley's Victory in Tonight's Democratic
Primary Election

BOSTON - Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.), who voted this evening in Boston,
released the following statement congratulating Attorney General Martha
Coakley on her victory in tonight's primary election:

"Tonight the glass ceiling in Massachusetts politics was smashed into a
thousand pieces. Martha Coakley is on her way to becoming the first woman
ever to represent our state in the United States Senate. She will be an
outstanding United States Senator.

"This is an historic Senate seat that for forty seven years was filled by
the most prolific legislator in Senate history. No one can fill Ted
Kennedy's shoes, but we can all work to follow in his footsteps. Just as
she has in her jobs as prosecutor and Attorney General, Martha Coakley will
blaze her own path and make her own mark in the fight to create jobs, police
Wall Street, reform health care, and combat climate change.

"I also want to add my deep respect and thanks for the friend and partner
we've been blessed to have fighting for Massachusetts in the Senate during
this interim period, Paul Kirk.

"I congratulate all the candidates for thoughtful, hard-fought, and spirited
campaigns in the best Massachusetts tradition. We must now band together to
finish the work of sending Martha Coakley to the United States Senate."

[ObamaKerryDem]

5. LOL! But so true. :D

Best of luck to Ms. Coakley! :D

[MBS]

8. indeed. but I hope that her campaign doesn't make the huge mistake

of taking a win for granted. Spokespeople for Brown's campaign, and the local Republican operatives, already had a decent, sound-bite-friendly narrative ready for last night's broadcast. Now the Coakley campaign has got to respond in kind.
Coakley got away with a safe-front-runner campaign, avoiding specific or controversial stands on almost all issues (other than abortion rights) in the primaries; she's going to have to step up to the plate and create a compelling, issue-specific campaign for the general election.

Other than the islands of Berkshires and Cambridge, MA isn't as liberal as you think.

[TayTay]

12. MA has never been as liberal as people think

We do indeed have two political parties in this state. They are the Democratic Party and the Democratic Party. One Dem Party is the legacy of the old unions and city machines. This is a moderately progressive party that speaks for lower to middle income people and advocates for jobs, policies and benefits that address the needs of working people.

The other Democratic Party is rooted in upper income people and advocates policy. (We can outthink and outwonk anyone.) This is where all the think tanks and colleges and universities and defense and IT and Pharma workers are. They emphasize progressive policies, but HATE taxes. (Irrationally so, in some cases.)

These two groups have, at best, an uneasy relationship formed on tentative alliances. There is now and always has been an undercurrent of mistrust between these two groups. There are, and always have been, go-betweens or ambassadors from each group who try to meet and cement alliances.

The easiest card to play in MA is the class card. A union in MA played this card against Kerry Healey in 2006 and used her money and residence in exclusive Beverly Farms in radio ads against her. This card has been played in Dem primaries against Dems as well, including John Kerry.

There is a fear that one Dem Party advocates for policy without checking to see how policy plays with real people with real mortgages and other demands on their paychecks. There is also a real fear that nothing will change in MA because of soft corruption on both sides. Soft corruption is means hiring people for "no-show" jobs because they know someone in state office. Soft corruption means hiring someone whose parents you know from college and who is just getting out of an Ivy League school and needs some experience. Things like that. "Sully's a great guy. We went to Holy Name together. Guy has 3 kids and needs a job, get him into the MBTA." "Jessica is a new Harvard grad. Her Dad and I graduated from Harvard '80. Bright girl, needs a job. Can you get her something at the Fed?"

Independents, btw, dislike both groups. They are on their own. They are descendants of one group of Dems and fear they will never enter the other group of Dems. (They didn't go to the right schools and are ashamed to admit they are 1-3 paychecks away from doom.) This is Massachusetts.

[MBS]

13. yup, bingo.

Registered Republicans may be only 10% of voters, but, according to NECN, independents outnumber Dems (remember what Tay said-- those are divided Dems) two to one.

[karynnj]

14. Wow, navagating between those two groups and presenting a coherent program

has to be tough. I can see why the Independents have a problem with both groups. It has to be infuriating for the more ambitious of them - as they likely were the ones that saw their opportunities go to the Jessicas of the world, even though their parents may have been among the "Sullys".

(Given this, I can see why they could play it against Kerry. He is far better than he had to be given the web of connections he had, but it makes sense that they resent what he had even when he wasn't wealthy. )

[TayTay]

15. Loyalty matters in the Northeast.

It probably does in most of the old states in the Northeast. (NJ included.)

Loyalty is what cements a group together. It enables the "soft corruption" I mentioned. It is far easier to trust someone when you have a common background. (And soft corruption occurs everywhere, in public jobs and in the private sector. Half of Wall St or more is there because they "knew someone.")

John Kerry was, in effect, an independent. He is not fully of either Dem Party. He is more representative of the reformer movement. (Ah, this gets complicated, bear with me.) The reformers or "good government" people who believe in just that, running a good government based on good sound policies that benefit the maximum number of people with fairness, relative equality and justice. Sounds great! But, when push comes to shove, who are his friends and who will he protect? Where is his loyalty? (The reformers are also suspect because they are unknowns as to where their loyalties are.)

This is strange stuff, I know. It is strange to think that we still have "ethnic" politics in MA, but we do, even if it is changing. (The future of ethnic politics in MA is not the old Irish/Yankee/Italian split. It is increasingly Latino, Asian, African-American etc.) It will be fascinating to see if those old splits hold in new groupings. (I am betting they will. These splits go back hundreds of years and have adapted even as new immigration groupings have been added to the State.)

Sen. Kerry was a sort of political orphan. He has said this himself many times. He often said that he had no "mentor" in MA to teach him the ropes. That is because he didn't start out with a base. He started out as an activist, someone who, by definition is outside the normal bounds of political activity. He was a challenge to both versions of the Democratic Party here and distrusted by both. These were old boy networks. No wonder the Senator was put into office with the overwhelming votes of women voters. Given what I have written here, that appeal was an outside run around both Dem Parties to the independents, who largely vote Dem, and who dislike the unfairness of the other groups and the insularity of them. If anything, John Kerry was "one of them." If your "one of them" is someone undefined, then what are you? And where is your loyalty?

Makes sense? probably not. Every place in America has it's own evolution of politics and a variation of what I have written. It is strong here, but I wouldn't be surprised if strains or splits, maybe along religious or ethnic lines, occurs elsewhere. We are the same, but different, LOL!

[MonteLukast]

16. Those were some great words to describe him there.

Which is why it makes no sense to say Kerry's a "Washington insider". From your description, he was always kind of an outsider, everywhere, even at home.
Must have been a pretty lonely place at times. So, it was most unfair for anyone to think of him as aloof, to not even try to get to know him better, especially now that his real gifts have come out in full force. It always makes me feel tender and a little poignant to see a personal glimpse of JK like this. What a wonderful, three-dimensional man: someone I'm glad I have representing my country.

[karynnj]

6. Her speech was really nice too - this has Kerry's into and her speech

http://www.necn.com/Boston/Politics/2009/12/08/Coakley-honored-and-humbled/1260332023.html

[Luftmensch067]

7. Oooh, thanks for link! n/t

[Luftmensch067]

9. p.s.

I almost thought I heard an homage to Teddy's style of introducing nominees in JK's intro there at the end. Maybe it's just me, but I really think he's starting to get comfortable in his Senior Senator skin and playing around a little with the idea of what that can mean. Nice to see!

[MonteLukast]

11. You guys make me jealous...

I wish *I* lived in Massachusetts and could watch JK as my Senator up close all the time.

[cadmium]

10. very nice. dems ran a classy campaign nt