VIDEO: Students of MA-4 Congressional Debate

by | Jul 29, 2020 | Congress | 17 comments

17 Comments

  1. Michael
    Michael on July 29, 2020 at 12:32 pm

    What an uninspiring bunch of candidates – it’s appropriate that Plainville is smack-dab in the middle of their district.

  2. Paul Levy
    Paul Levy on July 29, 2020 at 12:42 pm

    So lovely to see the students’ involvement in this election. And thanks to WBUR for their support.

  3. Meredith Warshaw
    Meredith Warshaw on July 29, 2020 at 1:59 pm

    Too many candidates. What I’d really like to see is a table showing their opinions on various important topics, to make it easier to compare them and at least narrow down the ones I might consider.

  4. Mary Mary Quite Contrary
    Mary Mary Quite Contrary on July 29, 2020 at 7:50 pm

    Way too many candidates, agreed. And so many of them are running on nearly identical platforms. I am intrigued by Linos and her epidemiology background.

  5. Paul Levy
    Paul Levy on July 29, 2020 at 8:52 pm

    I’m pleased there are so many candidates, but it would have been great to have a preliminary election to weed out some and be left with, say, three for the primary.

    Or ranked-choice voting. https://ballotpedia.org/Ranked-choice_voting_(RCV)

  6. Bryan P Barash
    Bryan P Barash on July 29, 2020 at 11:12 pm

    Agreed, this race is the posterboy for RCV Paul.

  7. Newtoner
    Newtoner on July 30, 2020 at 9:12 am

    +1 on ranked choice. We have a statewide ballot question on that in November!

  8. Paul Levy
    Paul Levy on July 30, 2020 at 12:26 pm

    We do? Great! Is it written to apply to federal, as well as state, races?

  9. Newtoner
    Newtoner on July 30, 2020 at 12:30 pm

    My understanding is that it will apply to all statewide and federal elections other than president.

  10. Ted Hess -Mahan
    Ted Hess -Mahan on July 30, 2020 at 12:47 pm

    Jesse Mermell is my choice, and last night, she ate Jake Auchincloss’s lunch in the debate.

    Here it is. Your moment of Zen.

  11. Lauren Berman
    Lauren Berman on July 30, 2020 at 1:25 pm

    Thank you for posting that “Moment of Zen,” Ted. Perfect. Just what I needed to help make up my mind!

  12. Michael
    Michael on July 30, 2020 at 1:29 pm

    Wow, I never knew that in addition to the Republican State Committee and the Quincy Republican Committee, Auchincloss actually donated directly ($500) to Lew Evangelidis, who is now the nutsy Republican Worcester County Sheriff. Absolutely shameful.

    Below is the best summary of Auchincloss’ mindset I’ve read so far – why is this guy running as a Democrat?

    Auchincloss’s actually had a third candidate in the race in 2017, but that guy had a habit of doing things like saying his female opponent was “a pretty face”. He tanked and Auchincloss came in second. Auchincloss also took second in the 2015 four-way race that brought him to the Council, but that race had abysmal turnout. All that’s to say that his electoral record is nothing special.

    Which is a good thing, because he sucks. You can kind of tell he’s not bringing the best perspective from his website, where he says things like “Today, the future first Hispanic CEO of the Dana-Farber may be in a cage at the Mexican border.” The fact that they might grow up to be a CEO is perhaps the worst reason not to put a child in a cage we’ve ever heard. Similarly, he thinks the reason we should be giving children an education is to “invest in human capital”. His consistently awful framing might be worth it were Auchincloss good on the issues, but he’s not. He was never even a particularly strong Democrat. Going back at least a decade, he’s only voted in one state primary – the Republican one in 2014. In 2014, he also donated to the Republican State Committee and Lewis Evangelidis, the Republican Sheriff of Worcester County. He called himself an independent in his 2015 race. On Twitter, he’s not just made eye-rollingly inane comments like “Constitution first, politics second”, he’s also gotten angry about cancel culture, managed to rail against socialism, not understand socialism, and condescend to millennials in the same tweet, supported platforming Steve Bannon, and claimed that the benefits of automation go to the workers. He’s also retweeted notorious race-science promoting blog Quillette, known for publishing obvious hoaxes and keeping friend of violent fascist gangs Andy Ngo on staff to write posts blaming fascist violence on antifa. That is when they’re not just promoting phrenology.

    https://primaries.substack.com/p/issue-33

  13. Jeffrey Pontiff
    Jeffrey Pontiff on July 30, 2020 at 1:48 pm

    Anyone who thinks increasing the minimum wage will help the recovery needs to go back to college and take economics.

  14. Shawn Fitzgibbons
    Shawn Fitzgibbons on July 30, 2020 at 1:54 pm

    @Ted thanks for posting that clip. I am also a strong Jesse Mermell supporter – she has an awesome track record and amazing experience.

    And folks on this blog know that I have long criticized Auchinchloss for presenting himself as a liberal even though his track record is the opposite. In my view, he is the worst choice for MA-04 voters who seek a reliable liberal in this very liberal Congressional district.

  15. Newtoner
    Newtoner on July 30, 2020 at 5:12 pm

    I am not voting for Auchincloss because of his public opposition to marijuana legalization. If there ever is a vote in congress to legalize at the federal level, I don’t want him representing me.

  16. Paul Levy
    Paul Levy on July 30, 2020 at 5:22 pm

    Jesse’s top rate. Even people who often disagree with her positions on issues tell me that they would trust her to be our Representative. She has integrity and grit.