The Substantially Similar Weblog

Massachusetts held its primary election yesterday and strangely enough, my preferred candidate for governor, Deval Patrick, won overwhelmingly, by a nearly two to one margin over both of his competitors.

In past years, the primary election has been followed by a “unity breakfast” the next morning so all the losing candidates can pledge fealty to the winner. As the breakfast has become a tired tradition identified with “old politics,” they did away with it this year (perhaps at Deval’s urging). Instead, again to my surprise, they held a unity rally about a block away from my house in Adams Park (no relation) in Roslindale.

Deval was introduced by Boston Mayor Menino, a politican who has somehow turned a complete lack of public speaking skills into an asset:

Deval’s speech was pretty great. A little something for everyone, and genuinely engaging. I attempted to record it on my pocket MP3 player, but apparently I ran out of batteries early on so it’s not worth posting.

Although Deval has been cast as the furthest left of the candidates, I was struck by his extremely moderate position on most issues. (Standardized testing: good, but needs improvement; economics: need to have several bottom lines, including a profit bottom line and a people bottom line; personal responsibility needs to be balanced with societal responsibility; etc..)

Anyway, the crowd loved it:

Apparently there was no experienced political handler present to orchestrate this event. Deval’s charismatic speech was followed by several less important and less eloquent speakers. Usually, you would want to build up from worst to best. In any event, Chris Gabrieli, the second place finisher, has rebounded instantly and was up there committing to work every day until November on getting Deval elected — I won’t be surprised if Gabrieli ends up in a development-czar role in a Patrick administration. The last place finisher (and original frontrunner) Tom Reilly was nowhere to be seen, a fact that I’m sure will be prominent in tomorrow’s reporting on the event. Where’s the unity without the Attorney General?

Everyone’s bracing for a horrid onslaught of fear-mongering campaign ads from the Republicans. My hope is that Massachusetts citizens are a bit wiser than the rest of the country and it will backfire. I won’t hold my breath, however.

(As a side benefit, I finally met Adam Gaffin, universalhubmeister, for the first time, as well as his eight year old daughter Greta. Greta is now famous for rejecting Deval Patrick’s plan for longer school days.)

Earlier this week, my cousin, who is a medical resident in New York City, came to visit my office in Downtown Boston after work. After giving him a quick tour of my office, we thought we’d chat over a cup of coffee. I’m not aware of any locally-owned downtown cafés or coffee shops, so we thought we’d have to settle for a Starbucks. The Starbucks across the street from my office, however, had just closed at 6pm. Although I’d been to the Peet’s Coffee around the corner dozens of times, it wasn’t until I actually tried to go there with my cousin that I realized that they don’t have any seating. We attempted to go to five other similar venues, and they were all either closed or without seating (including an Au Bon Pain right near Downtown Crossing that just has a walk-up counter).

Finally, we settled for a Dunkin’ Donuts that had two tables and was open for another half hour. The staff were busy mopping up and listening to a loud radio that was half-tuned to pure FM static.

I realize Downtown Boston isn’t the most residential area, but aren’t there other people who want to meet up after work at some place other than a bar? Isn’t this supposed to be a world class city? What about all the luxury condominiums that have been built recently in walking distance to the financial district… is it all a fiction?

It’s times like this that I have to admit feelings of New York envy.

Via Steve: Great expose report on the Daily Show — they go on location to investigate the effects of gay marriage in Massachusetts.

Hey, no one asked me, but here are my endorsements for tomorrow’s city council election:

• Mayor: Maura Hennigan. I actually think Tom Menino is doing all right, and he will obviously win, so this is more of a “strategic” vote. I think it’s generally bad for elected leaders to be too certain of their grip on power, and voting for the challenger hopefully will keep them on their toes and more responsive to the community. It also may lay the groundwork for a better challenger in the next election four years from now. (This is why I voted for Bobbie Rush in Chicago in 1999, even though he had no chance of winning).
• City Council – At Large
  • Felix Arroyo: Hands down the best guy on the council. I heard him referred to as a “rock star” on WBUR this morning. I can’t think of anyone I would prefer for Mayor in 2009.
  • Matt O’Malley: I agree with him on just about every issue, plus there’s a strong Roslindale “home town” feeling for Matt. Someone showed me some of his campaign literature from the last time around where he was unfairly critical of Felix Arroyo, but my feeling (and hope) is that he has matured significantly since then.
  • Sam Yoon: Yoon seems to have the best chance of the newcomers/outsiders of actually getting elected, and he has been absorbed into the progressive fold with Arroyo, Chuck Turner, and Charles Yancey. That would be a nice block to have on the council. Certainly having the first Asian-American on the council would be a good thing as well.
  • John Connolly: Mostly, I just prefer him to the remaining four candidates. Although I’m a bit torn because I would also like to see more women on the council, I’m not convinced that Patricia White is the candidate to do it. Ed Flynn’s entire campaign platform seems to be “veteran,” and he opposes reproductive rights and same-sex marriage, so he’s (way) out. Steve Murphy lost my support when the only house in our neighborhood to sport large Bush/Cheney signs also posted Murphy signs. Michael Flaherty lost my support when he procedurally squashed a resolution that would have opposed the PATRIOT Act.

In any case, if you’re a Boston voter, be sure to participate tomorrow, whomever you choose to support.

The New England tourism industry has been hit hard this year by a weak showing of autumn colors. This Japanese Maple in our front yard has finally turned brilliantly red, though:

Breaking news! As of about 10 seconds ago, we’ve received our first snowflakes in Boston. So long, Autumn. I’d post photos, but the flakes are almost invisible.

I spoke too soon. It started out just barely visible:

But pretty soon it was snowing cats and dogs:

And now it’s sticking!

A couple of weeks ago, I asked why the Boston mayoral debate video wasn’t available online. It turns out that that the great folks at WGBH, our public television station do have a streaming copy on their website, but it doesn’t show up in a few Google searches. So here it is—the Boston mayoral debate between Tom Menino and Maura Hennigan.

Apparently, the video of the Boston mayoral debate, which was supposed to be available for “on-demand” viewing from Comcast until the election, was only up for 48 hours after the debate. I don’t understand why it’s not just online—it seems to that political debates are the ideal sort of non-copyright-sensitive content that ought to be freely available on the Internet. The Supreme Court has noted that the Internet is “a vast platform from which the public may address and hear from a worldwide audience of millions.” Reno v. ACLU, 521 U.S. 844, 853 (1997). So why isn’t it working on this local political issue?

If has a link to a video of the debate online, please let me know. If not, if anyone has a videotape of the event, contact me, and I’ll put it up here.

I voted this morning in the Boston Primary Election. We have a semi-old-fashioned “fill in the box on the ballot card” voting system that worked perfectly well. It turns out I was the 31st voter today for my precinct, which means either I got up pretty early or there aren’t that many people voting in the primary.

As I approached the polling location, I was accosted by supporters of about six or seven candidates, making a last minute pitch for their guy (I didn’t see anyone lobbying for the female candidates, unfortunately). I have some vague recollection about laws restricting lobbying near the vooting booth, but apparently in boston it’s okay up to about 3 inches from the entrance to the building.

Rob Consalvo, our district councilor, was also handing out pens by the polling place, although there is no primary election for his seat. I asked him if he was endorsing anyone, and he said, “officially, no,” but then told me everyone he liked… which ended up being a good deal more than you can actually vote for.

The most moving plea was from an older lady: “Vote for my son, Ed Flynn, he’s a veteran!” (Ed Flynn is one of the few conservatives in the race. He also has no website.) I told her I would, but I lied.

The Boston City Council Primary Elections are tomorrow. This is an unusually contested race, with fifteen candidates running for the four at large seats. The primary will reduce the field to eight candidates. At least nine of these candidates have websites, and a few have blogs.

If any of my readers are Boston Primary Voters (you just need to be a registered voter in the City of Boston—you can check here), I’d urge you to vote at least for Félix Arroyo and Matt O’Malley. Sometimes, it’s hard to tell the difference between the candidates based on their platforms, since they are all pretty progressive (jobs, education, economic development, focus on the neighborhoods, race/gender equality, etc.), but these two guys have somehow managed to convince me that they’re better than the rest.

In the Boston Primary, you have a total of four votes to distribute among one to four candidates. At this point, I’m uncertain whether to give my four votes to Félix and Matt, or perhaps also include Sam Yoon and maybe… Particia White or John Connolly. I’m open to being lobbied in the next twenty-four hours.

Good discussion of the pros and cons of bullet voting.

Update: I’ve been lobbied to cast a vote for Kevin McRae as well. His “publicity hound” reputation had turned me off a bit, but someone-in-the-know suggests he’s got a good critique of the local elite’s undue control of the Boston Redevelopment Authority.