Brown-Warren Update: The MassInc/WBUR Poll

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Maurice T. Cunningham

Last week MassInc Polling Group/WBUR released a poll on the Warren-Brown race with the candidates in a statistical tie, Warren 46% – Brown 43%. Let’s look a bit deeper and see what else of interest might lie in the survey. There are strengths and danger signs for both candidates. Continue reading →

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Civil Discourse: Who Needs It?

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Maurice T. Cunningham

On Friday my school, the University of Massachusetts at Boston, hosted Civility and American Democracy: A National Forum featuring a very distinguished group of scholars and journalists who largely argued, “civility: meh.”

While I was at the forum (I could only get to the morning sessions; visit centerforcivildiscourse.com) my MPP colleague Professor Duquette was blogging on incivility in political speech, concerning a Facebook posting by one of his conservative friends that quoted Archbishop Fulton Sheen and began: “The world is rapidly being divided into two camps, the comradeship of anti-Christ and the brotherhood of Christ.” So did the conference have anything to teach Professor Duquette’s Facebook friends?

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More on the Mass Senate Race

Posted on February 19, 2012 by JeroldDuquette

The latest email update from the Warren camp includes the following: “Don’t believe the pundits who say this race is going to be an easy win for Democrats — this is going to be a tough fight all the way to November. We can’t take anything for granted. We have to beat back every false attack ad, we have to knock on every door, and we have to win.” Continue reading →

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Is Brown Winning!?!

Posted on February 17, 2012 by JeroldDuquette

According to a new Suffolk University poll, Scott Brown leads Elizabeth Warren 49 to 40 percent overall and 60 to 28% among independent voters. Oh my! Have I called this race too soon? No. Continue reading →

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Stop Culture Warriors at the Metaphor Stage

Posted on February 17, 2012 by JeroldDuquette

I have lots of facebook friends who are politically conservative. Sometimes they post things that are disturbing, but then again so do my more liberal friends now and then. Continue reading →

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Contraceptives and the Mass. Senate Race

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Maurice T. Cunningham

A true baby boomer knows how to duck and cover and that’s what President Barack Obama did recently in changing his administration’s policy on contraceptives in the face of opposition from the Catholic Church. How might the religious tempest play out in the Massachusetts senate race? I thought Senator Scott Brown had outmaneuvered Elizabeth Warren on the issue, until yesterday’s news that Brown would co-sponsor a bill filed by Republican Senator Roy Blunt to allow employers and insurers to limit health care coverage based on moral objections. The bill seems to go much further than the conflict over contraceptives. Continue reading →

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Romney’s Caymans Account: Protection Against Socialism?

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Maurice T. Cunningham

Back on February 7 in The Passion of the Mitt I wrote about what seems to motivate Mitt Romney and linked to a longer article I wrote, The Real Romney in CommonWealth Magazine. In CW I marveled that Romney hadn’t seen the populist attacks on his personal wealth coming: “Still, Romney couldn’t think ahead that an investment account in the Cayman Islands and a Swiss bank account might suggest distance from the average American?”

 My good friend and UMB colleague Chuck Chakraborty read the piece and sent me this link from Smart Money  magazine. According to the article the reason wealthy folk stash money in the Caymans is not to escape taxes. There are two reasons; first, to avoid the caprices of our court system. Second, “political risk”: “They’re concerned about our government, and where our society is headed. There’s a lot of socialistic tendencies, capital controls, the redistribution of wealth.”

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Sutter Loses

Posted on February 15, 2012 by Peter Ubertaccio

Sam Sutter’s race for the Democratic nomination in the 9th congressional district just hit a brick wall: Rob O’Leary is out of the race. Continue reading →

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Rethinking Party Conventions

Posted on February 15, 2012 by Peter Ubertaccio

An unsettled Republican primary contests brings us closer to the season I like to call Convention Flights of Fancy. The hope: that there will be a brokered Convention this summer.  The dream: to finally live through a fight for the nomination on the floor of the political convention. Oh how Newt sent tingles up our spine by declaring he’d take his cause all the way to the Convention!  And yet, like the far too many promises made on Valentine’s Day, we are bound to be disappointed.

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DeLeo, Deval, and the Democratic Party

Posted on February 14, 2012 by Maurice T. Cunningham

One of the more dispiriting aspects of reading the recent literature on national politics is not only the radicalization of the Republican Party in service to the wealthiest Americans but the acquiescence of the Democrats, in desperate need of campaign cash and bowing to perceived (if not real) electoral need, to the same forces. Last week’s dispute between Governor Deval Patrick and Speaker Robert DeLeo may hint at such tensions within the traditional party of the working and middle classes in Massachusetts. Continue reading →

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