Progressive Democrats of Cambridge - DFA

If you're going to the Democratic state convention on Saturday, you might want to check this out:

DFA members "meetup" - A few DFA leaders across the state thought that
it might be nice to get together informally at the Convention on
Saturday. Representative Jamie Eldridge has invited us to get together
at his "Meet and Greet" on Saturday from 3:45 to 5:00 PM at the Cape Cod
Lounge in the Student Union Building. Jamie is running for Congress and
has been unanimously endorsed by the local DFA group, as well as the
Brandeis DFA group. He has generously allowed us to share his space so
that we can have an opportunity to touch base with each other at an
informal gathering. We'll be able to brainstorm about plans for a
statewide grassroots summit. Burlington would like to get together with
us this summer.

... via an email from Kate Donaghue.

Come support Barack Obama in Boston at his New England kickoff event on April 20th at the Agganis Arena. For more info follow the link below.

https://donate.barackobama.com/page/contribute/northeast420

Hope you see you there!

The Wave Maker has a very interesting post today about how the MA Republican Party can resucitate itself. Embedded within is an eye-opening perspective on the history of the party since Reagan's victory in 1980 or so.

I think it's a fine post, but I think Wave Maker places far too much importance on the personal appeal of a candidate, far too little on the candidate's organization, and less still on the candidate's ideology and platform. To hear him tell it, Deval Patrick won because he has a nice smile and can use words properly, not because he had an incredible grassroots following which was inspired by his experience and his ideas.

I can understand WM's point of view: his most relevant experience is running for state representative in the mid-80's. Indeed, at the local level, personality and charm can carry you a very, very long way. However, a lot has changed in 20 years. More and more legislative districts are filling up with transient 20-somethings who are motivated to vote, and have a keen sense of their ideology, certainly as it pertains to social issues, and their stand on a few key national issues that have local echoes, like health care and education. Their transience makes a personal connection with the candidate himself very unlikely, and their ideology and knowledge of social and national issues makes them more likely to vote based on a candidate's ideology and platform. Those twin factors are, I think, drastically changing the way state legislative races are run.

Moreover, gubernatorial politics and state rep politics are two totally different ballgames. State rep races are fought with less money, less media attention, and less volunteer time than gubernatorial races. No doubt Wave Maker knows that, but the effects are impossible to ignore. However little personality matters in state rep races, I would wager that it matters much less in the gubernatorial.

At any rate, I guess we'll get a chance to test out his hypothesis in the 2010 Patrick-Baker race.