Mitt Romney's line of the week was surely his late-game attack on O'Brien, Finneran and
likely Senate President Bob Travaglini - to Romney, the "Gang of Three." ...
But before the two pols let this get away from them,
it's worth pointing out that this isn't exactly the kindest of historical references.
The "Gang of Four" were hard-line communists who pushed for total transformation of
Chinese culture, hoping to replace it with true communist ideology.
The Boston Herald
Nov. 3, 2002
The Buzz: The gang's all here
Massachusetts was a one-party state once before, in
the late '80s. They called it "the Massachusetts Miracle." The miracle was that any of us taxpayers
survived....
This impending end of the two-party system is not just a problem for Republicans either.
When there's no opposition party, monkey business multiplies, and once the Republicans are
eliminated, the hacks start exterminating the dissidents in their own party....
In many ways, the Republicans deserve the oblivion
into which they are sinking. They rail against the House speaker, Tommy Taxes, but remember, he was put
over the top in 1996 only with GOP votes. Thanks for nothing, House Republicans. The Senate leadership is
just as deeply in the satchel.
Still, you need some opposition, even if it's way too loyal for its own good. So if you notice a
few Republicans running for local office on your ballot Tuesday, think about throwing them a
vote. If you don't care about two-party government, then think about your wallet, and how
empty it was the last time we voted ourselves a "Massachusetts Miracle."
The Boston Herald
Nov. 3, 2002
Save democracy - throw a bone to Mass. Republicans
by Howie Carr
But Romney was close enough to the truth. One-party
rule breeds arrogance and contempt.
Remember, voters in 1998 [sic - 2000] approved a reduction of the state income tax to 5
percent. The Legislature this year froze the final phase-out, in effect raising taxes.
A Clean Elections system of public campaign funds was simply starved, at Finneran's order,
until the courts raised a little money by ordering the sale of state property, surely as
ramshackle an arrangement as the state has ever seen for any legal activity.
Now the speaker is hitting up lobbyists for hundreds of thousands of dollars to defeat a new nonbinding
referendum on the issue. The lobbyists' clients, according to advocates for Clean Elections,
have gleaned millions of dollars in tax breaks.
That's why one-party domination is so dangerous to
our political health....
The Boston Herald
Nov. 3, 2002
Let 'admiral' steer the ship:
In turbulent seas, state needs Romney
by Wayne Woodlief
In 2 years as RMV registrar, Grabauskas, 39, managed
to transform the most dysfunctional, Byzantine state bureaucracy of all dysfunctional, Byzantine state
bureaucracies.
He cut waiting times. He opened branch offices in malls. He revamped an antiquated
computer system, moved transactions online, improved morale of workers weary of their
role as public whipping boys....
Now Dan Grabauskas, a Republican, is running for treasurer to do for the Lottery and state
pension system what he did for the RMV.
And in gratitude for all he has done for us, here's
what we've vowed in return: to vote for the other guy.
That's right. The latest polls have Grabauskas losing, badly.
What is wrong with us? Are we just uninformed? Or dopes? Or both? Isn't this our constant
rant? That politicians are all the same? That it doesn't matter who's in there: nothing changes
or impacts our lives? ...
But the reason for his uphill battle is obvious. His
Democratic opponent, Norfolk County Treasurer Tim Cahill, has made a cute ad featuring his cuter
daughter doing the cutest little "Tim for Treasurer" routine imaginable on TV and radio.
It might yet catapult Cahill in the final over Grabauskas, the more qualified, able candidate.
Pathetic, but true.
The Boston Herald
Nov. 3, 2002
Grabauskas could put Treasury on road to recovery
by Margery Eagan
"Question 3 is a thinly veiled attempt to repeal
Clean Elections without leaving the Legislature's fingerprints on the murder weapon," said Pam Wilmot,
director of Common Cause Massachusetts. "They're afraid that Clean Elections will work, because it
will make incumbents compete for their taxpayer-funded jobs." ...
"What's wrong with going back and saying, 'Are you
sure you want to pay for this?"' [Steve Allen, campaign director for the Coalition Against Taxpayer
Funded Political Campaigns] said.
Still, the campaign over the ballot question has been decidedly one-sided. The no campaign -
paid for in part through the fund-raising efforts of House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran - is
airing television advertisements that feature money going up in flames.
The Boston Globe
Nov. 3, 2002
Future could rest on voting results
How do you like that, the Boston Herald's weekly "The Buzz"
column today included an item that illuminated the origin of Mitt Romney's "Gang of Three" label and its basis in China's
repressive history! Of course, no slur was attached to it, no ridiculous and unfounded charge of "bigotry" -- as it was to my
passing allusion in last week's "The Buzz" column ... but it made my point, and I suspect we have Howie
Carr to thank for it.
Howie Carr also was slammed as a bigot in last Sunday's
Herald in a letter to the editor from the Anti-Defamation League, over his column about the Travaglini brothers
connections ["Senate president
deal loads hack trough to brim," Oct 23].
Boston Herald columnist Margery Eagan today asked the seminal question that I'm sure we've all been
pondering for some time: "What is wrong with us? Are we just uninformed? Or
dopes? Or both?" I'm sure she used the collective "us" because too many of
us have been asking the same question about the voting majority.
Her column focused on the race for state treasurer, with how
performance and results just don't seem to matter when competing with a silly campaign slogan. It equally applies to
ballot question language like Clean Elections.
Were voters stupid in 1998 ... or are they stupid today?
More than ever, I'm convinced we need some sort of MCAS or
IQ test before a citizen is eligible to vote. "Pathetic, but true."
Our newspaper ads highlighting anti-taxpayer incumbents'
votes on The Biggest Tax Increase in State History and their voting records on other taxpayer issues began running on
Thursday in the Brockton Enterprise and Friday in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette; they'll run tomorrow (Monday) in the Cape
Cod Times, the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune, the Lowell Sun and the MetroWest Daily News. Our thanks go
to each of you who contributed to the project and thus made possible our running
as many of them as we could afford.
|
|
|
Chip Ford |
The Boston Herald
Sunday, November 3, 2002
The Buzz
The gang's all here
Mitt Romney's line of the week was surely his late-game
attack on O'Brien, Finneran and likely Senate President Bob Travaglini - to Romney, the "Gang of Three."
The reference quickly emerged as a towering theme in
Romney's campaign, symbolic of all he hoped to change on Beacon Hill. O'Brien tried to fight back, saying she's been cleaning
up the mess from another gang: Govs. Weld, Paul Cellucci and Jane Swift.
But before the two pols let this get away from them, it's
worth pointing out that this isn't exactly the kindest of historical references.
The "Gang of Four" were hard-line communists who pushed for
total transformation of Chinese culture, hoping to replace it with true communist ideology. The four became leaders
in Mao's Cultural Revolution but, after Mao's death, the idea died, too
- and the four were tossed in jail, sentenced to death.
Their end? Only one made it out alive, with the other three
dying in prison under what can at best be described as suspicious circumstances.
Under this scenario, we're not sure who Shannon's fourth
would be, but we suggest that her husband, Emmet Hayes, and running mate, Chris Gabrieli, watch out.
Then again, Mitt simply could have been referring to the
British post-punk band of the same name.
Of course, that Gang of Four sold out, went pop and broke up
in the '80s - about the same fate as ending up in a Chinese prison, really.
Elisabeth J. Beardsley, Howie Carr, Steve
Marantz, Joe Battenfeld and David R. Guarino contributed to this column.
Return to top
The Boston Herald
Sunday, November 3, 2002
Save democracy - throw a bone to Mass. Republicans
by Howie Carr
Don't look now, but if Mitt Romney doesn't prevail on
Tuesday, it's pretty much the end of the line for the Republican Party in Massachusetts.
The last time the GOP was ousted from the Corner Office, in
1974, they didn't recapture it until 1990. Those 16 years in the wilderness may one day seem like a three-day weekend
compared to how long it'll take them to regain power this time.
It has been a long slide for the GOP. The local Republicans
last elected a majority in the House in 1952, in the Senate in 1956.
But in the Weld-Silber year of 1990, they won 16 of the 40
Senate districts. Now they control six. Under the old Senate rules, you needed seven votes to demand a roll call, but
Senate President Thomas F. Birmingham, running for governor, cut the roll-call number to
six, to defuse a potential campaign issue.
"It's OK," explains Sen. Robert Hedlund (R-Weymouth). "We
just have to be careful when we go to the bathroom."
The Republican collapse in the House has been almost as
stark. In 1991, 38 of the 160 reps were members of the GOP. They held on to 35 seats in 1992 and 1994, then plunged to 29
in 1996, 28 in 1998, and 24 in 2000.
And of those 24 elected two years ago, two have taken
federal hack jobs, and a third, the minority leader, has become a judge. They're down to 21, only one vote more than they
need to demand a roll-call on, say, the repeal of Prop 2½ , or a $2 billion income-tax hike.
A party needs to elect state legislators. They're the farm
system. The last two GOP congressmen were both state reps before they ousted scandal-scarred Democratic hacks.
By the way, those last two Republicans both lost their seats in 1996.
Massachusetts was a one-party state once before, in the late
'80s. They called it "the Massachusetts Miracle." The miracle was that any of us taxpayers survived.
At the risk of sounding like a high-school civics teacher,
the problem with one-party rule is that there are no brakes on the party in control. You want some examples?
Ever hear of Tim Mello, recently indicted by the feds on
charges of running organized crime in Bristol County? The fabulously wealthy 45-year-old gangster last year handed $500
to Sen. Mark Montigny, the Senate chairman of Ways and Means.
Was the second or third most powerful Democrat in the Senate
embarrassed to be caught taking money from a mobster? Apparently not. The local paper reported that when asked
about it, Montigny "reminded a reporter that anybody can give money."
If you have to worry about getting re-elected, you don't
take money from hoodlums. Period.
By the way, Bill Clinton will be in Montigny's hometown of
New Bedford tomorrow, campaigning for Shannon O'Brien. Let's hope someone snaps Clinton's photographs with
Rep. Jailbird George Rogers and ex-Sen. Biff MacLean, those two shady stalwarts of Bristol
County democracy. Unfortunately for both of them, it's a little late to ask Clinton for a
pardon.
This impending end of the two-party system is not just a
problem for Republicans either. When there's no opposition party, monkey business multiplies, and once the Republicans are
eliminated, the hacks start exterminating the dissidents in their own party.
Ask Lois Pines, a liberal Democrat from Newton, about what
happened when she was running for attorney general in 1998. The mayor of Boston had endorsed her Bulgerized
opponent, Tom Reilly, and in an amazing coincidence, on primary day, the key
that voters had to pull down to vote for Pines simultaneously malfunctioned on a number of voting
machines in different wards across the city of Boston. Go figure.
In many ways, the Republicans deserve the oblivion into
which they are sinking. They rail against the House speaker, Tommy Taxes, but remember, he was put over the top in 1996
only with GOP votes. Thanks for nothing, House Republicans. The Senate leadership is just
as deeply in the satchel.
Still, you need some opposition, even if it's way too loyal
for its own good. So if you notice a few Republicans running for local office on your ballot Tuesday, think about throwing
them a vote. If you don't care about two-party government, then think about your wallet, and how
empty it was the last time we voted ourselves a "Massachusetts Miracle."
Howie Carr's radio show can be heard every weekday afternoon on
WRKO-AM 680, WHYN-AM 560, WGAN-AM 560, WEIM-AM 1280, WXTK-FM 95.1 or online at
howiecarr.org.
Return to top
The Boston Herald
Sunday, November 3, 2002
Let 'admiral' steer the ship:
In turbulent seas, state needs Romney
by Wayne Woodlief
Maybe Mitt Romney the Republican really would be an admiral
and Democrat Shannon O'Brien just a sailor when it comes to commanding the ship of state while it's on the shoals.
So let's elect the "admiral" governor and spare Massachusetts a turn back to the bad old
days of total one-party domination, roaring deficits, too many taxes, overspending, bond
ratings close to junk status and political patronage of the late 1980s.
Let's choose a checks-and-balances ticket, including Romney,
his lieutenant governor running mate Kerry Healey and GOP nominee Dan Grabauskas as treasurer.
It will take a lot - let's hope Romney would give it his all
- to revive the sagging state GOP. But with him in office, there'd be a chance to rein in the big spenders and begin
resurrecting the party.
O'Brien used the naval lingo during last Tuesday's final
debate as she aimed to minimize her authority for whistle-blowing on illegal billing practices at a company where
she once worked, while seeking to maximize Romney's responsibility to spot and stop Medicare fraud
in another company.
"Mitt Romney was an admiral. I was a sailor," O'Brien said.
Ouch. What an unfortunate metaphor when you shift if to a different context - running the state. But sadly, for Treasurer
O'Brien, it might just fit.
She is a good public servant, thoughtful in some of the
reforms she has brought to the treasurer's office and the Lottery. O'Brien has been skilled and tough enough to advance
in what often is a man's world, down at that big locker room they call the Legislature. Her
priorities if she becomes governor are noble: Good schools, better health care, prudent
spending.
Yet too many lobbyists are contributing to her, too many
special interests - from the teachers' unions and other labor locals to Democratic coatholders - are invested in her
campaign. She may well try to resist their more costly demands if she is elected. But they will put enormous
pressure on her. It's only natural. The Democrats have been out of the Corner
Office for 12 long years. They want to fill the trough again.
Ah, but there's an alternative, a chance for us to gain
something rare in Romney.
He is a born executive, whose talents shine by comparison
with O'Brien's four years at running anything (the Treasury which includes the Lottery). He has been spectacularly
successful in saving troubled businesses, despite the Democrats' emphasis on his occasional
setback. And he was a world-class leader in rescuing the 2002 Winter Olympics from
disaster.
Romney led the Olympics organizing committee out of a
bribery scandal and out of a big budget shortfall, more than $1 billion (sound familiar?)
And he exceeded expectations: The organizing committee had
hoped for 22,000 volunteers, according to an article in the Harvard Law School Bulletin (he's an alumnus). Romney
brought in 67,000. And while local businesses had been expected to contribute $50 million
to the Olympics operation, he brought in triple that amount.
Some of Romney's Winter Olympics glow has been tarnished by
this dreary, rat-a-tat-tat election campaign. Yet most people must remember the emotional high those Olympics
produced in February, when the country - the world - needed a lift.
Not that Romney would be a guaranteed success as governor.
Economists and state officials are forecasting a revenue shortfall of $1.7 billion to $2 billion next year. Monthly
revenue downturns have produced the current crisis. He has promised (almost given a lead-pipe
guarantee) that he won't raise taxes next year - though he's been careful not to say
what he might have to do in his second or third year. He'd have to be a master cutter.
Yet Romney could attempt to cut without the inside-game
political pressures O'Brien would face. And his election would avoid any possibility of that one-party "Gang of Three" rule
that his campaign has made a centerpiece of its pitch in these final days.
With huge mug shots of O'Brien, House Speaker Thomas
Finneran (D-Mattapan) and likely new Senate President Robert Travaglini (D-East Boston) - a brother of O'Brien's top aide -
Romney warns that the three Democrats would be able "to do anything and everything they
want" if O'Brien is elected. They could "raise taxes with impunity ... extend patronage, more
spending, more debt."
Now, Mitt may be stretching that a bit. The Legislature
isn't always as monolithic as it sometimes seems with King Tom running the show in the House. And Auditor Joe DeNucci
- a longtime adversary of O'Brien who slammed her smartly with an unfavorable audit report
on the treasurer's office during the Democratic primary - is independent (and probably
vengeful) enough to keep a close eye on her as governor.
But Romney was close enough to the truth. One-party rule
breeds arrogance and contempt.
Remember, voters in 1998 [sic - 2000] approved a reduction
of the state income tax to 5 percent. The Legislature this year froze the final phase-out, in effect raising taxes.
A Clean Elections system of public campaign funds was simply
starved, at Finneran's order, until the courts raised a little money by ordering the sale of state property, surely as
ramshackle an arrangement as the state has ever seen for any legal activity. Now the speaker
is hitting up lobbyists for hundreds of thousands of dollars to defeat a new nonbinding
referendum on the issue. The lobbyists' clients, according to advocates for Clean Elections,
have gleaned millions of dollars in tax breaks.
That's why one-party domination is so dangerous to our
political health. That's why we need more voices, not fewer, in our system. A vote for liberal Green Party nominee Jill Stein
is not, as O'Brien supporters say, a vote for Mitt Romney. It is instead a vote for multiparty
competition. Same for votes for Libertarian Carla Howell and Independent Barbara Johnson.
Vote your conscience. Vote for your issues. As for me, given
the choice between a sailor and an admiral to run our ship of state, I'll take the admiral anytime.
Wayne Woodlief is a member of the Boston Herald staff.
Return to top
The Boston Herald
Sunday, November 3, 2002
Grabauskas could put Treasury on road to recovery
by Margery Eagan
Two weeks ago I renewed my Department of Motor Vehicles
registration. In five minutes, on the phone, at midnight, in the calm and quiet of my living room.
On Friday at the Chinatown Registry, Steven Dege, 46, of
Waltham, picked up a number as if he were at the Stop & Shop deli, except that his number, A020, included a printed
estimated waiting time: 15 minutes. It was enough time to stroll to Dunkin' Donuts and back.
"Oh, it's so much better. You used to stand in line for
hours and hours, in the wrong line, and then have to stand in line all over again," said Dege, who waited 20 minutes this
time, on a bench. "They didn't used to have benches, either."
Roland Flores of Boston, 18, is too young to remember how
the RMV used to be. Nasty, snarling clerks. Total confusion. Is this the license renewal line? The learner's permit line?
There were dirty carpets and disgusting bathrooms, assuming they'd even let a tax-paying
slob use one.
But on a scale of one to 10, Flores gave the RMV an "8."
Runner Randy Kohlenberger, 48, wouldn't go that far. But
even he has noticed a huge change in ambience from the old days, when the unspoken message from Registry worker to
Registry customer, said Kohlenberger, was "screw you."
So why have things so improved at the RMV, despite recent
budget cuts?
The answer: Dan Grabauskas.
In 2 years as RMV registrar, Grabauskas, 39, managed to
transform the most dysfunctional, Byzantine state bureaucracy of all dysfunctional, Byzantine state bureaucracies.
He cut waiting times. He opened branch offices in malls. He
revamped an antiquated computer system, moved transactions online, improved morale of workers weary of their
role as public whipping boys.
He learned to clerk himself and instead of operating like
the typical pol - who puts projects out to bid and, somehow, winds up with the highest bid anyway - he put prisoners to work
sprucing up grungy Registry offices, all for the price of some pizzas.
Now Dan Grabauskas, a Republican, is running for treasurer
to do for the Lottery and state pension system what he did for the RMV.
And in gratitude for all he has done for us, here's what
we've vowed in return: to vote for the other guy.
That's right. The latest polls have Grabauskas losing,
badly.
What is wrong with us? Are we just uninformed? Or dopes? Or
both? Isn't this our constant rant? That politicians are all the same? That it doesn't matter who's in there: nothing
changes or impacts our lives?
Well, along comes somebody who does make a modest difference, whose contribution has
indeed made less hellish one small segment of our lives and, what? We don't care? We're too
busy watching "The Sopranos"?
The other day in his Charlestown headquarters Grabauskas
detailed his achievements and replayed the single TV ad his meager budget has allowed. "I don't know," he said when
asked why his campaign has not caught fire. Then he added the hopeful prediction: that he'll
prevail Tuesday. We can only hope.
But the reason for his uphill battle is obvious. His
Democratic opponent, Norfolk County Treasurer Tim Cahill, has made a cute ad featuring his cuter daughter doing the cutest
little "Tim for Treasurer" routine imaginable on TV and radio. Over and over. It's widely credited
with catapulting Cahill in the primary over Jim Segal, the more qualified, able candidate.
It might yet catapult Cahill in the final over
Grabauskas, the more qualified, able candidate. Pathetic, but true.
The state treasurer oversees not only a $30 billion pension
fund but also millions in abandoned property as well as the Lottery, which sells a billion scratch tickets each year.
The potential for patronage and corruption is huge.
Yet most of us, apparently, are about to vote for treasurer
based not on proven results but on an appealing but totally irrelevant ad.
The worst? Holier-than-thou Democratic liberals, the
do-gooder, goo-goo set always chanting the good government mantra. Now Grabauskas has actually brought good
government to an all but hopeless case. And either the goo-goos missed it or
they're so myopic they can't recognize quality if it's got "R" for "Republican" after its name.
Margery Eagan's radio show airs noon to 1 p.m. weekdays and 9
a.m. to noon Saturdays on 96.9 FM-Talk.
Return to top
The Boston Globe
Sunday, November 3, 2002
Future could rest on voting results
By Rick Klein
Globe Staff
Four years after voters approved the Clean Elections Law,
the long battle over publicly financed campaigns in Massachusetts takes its latest turn as Question 3 on this
year's ballot.
While this year's vote won't change any laws, its results
will almost certainly be used by the Legislature to determine the future of the campaign-finance system known as Clean
Elections. That's brought an uncommon measure of attention to the nonbinding referendum,
though even the strongest supporters of Clean Elections concede that it could lead to the end
of the election reform effort.
"Question 3 is a thinly veiled attempt to repeal Clean
Elections without leaving the Legislature's fingerprints on the murder weapon," said Pam Wilmot, director of Common
Cause Massachusetts. "They're afraid that Clean Elections will work, because it will make
incumbents compete for their taxpayer-funded jobs."
But to Clean Elections critics, this year's question -
placed on the ballot by the Legislature - finally frames the issue accurately: Voters will be asked whether they "support
taxpayer money being used to fund political campaigns for public office in the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts." No one opposes the concept of clean elections, they argue, and many
voters were misled four years ago when they approved the Clean Elections Law by a 2-to-1
margin.
"I think the question could not be simpler, and could not be
more straightforward," said Steve Allen, campaign director for the Coalition Against Taxpayer Funded Political
Campaigns. "It forces taxpayers to pay tens of millions of dollars for
political campaigns. It is in our opinion wasting money that could be better used elsewhere for education, public
safety, health care."
But the law's backers say the question was designed to fail,
since it makes no mention of the potential benefits of Clean Elections, or that it provides funds only to candidates who
agree to strict spending and fund-raising limits. The law was meant to reduce the influence of
money on state politics and to attract newcomers to the political process by giving public
money to candidates for state office, Wilmot said.
Clean Elections began this year, but the repeated attempts
by legislators to scuttle the law left it limping through its first election cycle, and uncertainties over funding for
campaigns scared away all but a handful of candidates. Only one state in the nation has fewer contested
legislative races than Massachusetts this year, making for a stagnant climate that
shows the need for public campaign funding, Wilmot said. "People who want reform, whether they
agree with all the details or not, should vote yes," she said.
Allen said Clean Elections backers should have nothing to
fear. If the voters truly want public funds to pay for campaigns, they'll say so, he said.
"What's wrong with going back and saying, `Are you sure you
want to pay for this?"' Allen said.
Still, the campaign over the ballot question has been
decidedly one-sided. The no campaign - paid for in part through the fund-raising efforts of House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran -
is airing television advertisements that feature money going up in flames. The yes side, which
has raised very little money, has depended on sign-holding volunteers and leaflet drops to
get its message out.
Both sides agree the debate will resume in the Legislature
soon after the results of this referendum are tallied. Since both major-party candidates for governor have promised to
support Clean Elections, a two-thirds vote by the House and Senate would be needed to
remove the measure from the books. It's a high bar, but as past legislative votes on Clean
Elections have shown, it's certainly not insurmountable.
Return to top
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17
U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or
payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this
information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For
more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml