Category: Politics

Casino gambling and the Senate race

U.S. Senate candidate Alan Khazei seemed to come out of left field (they’re all coming out of left field, aren’t they?) when he announced his opposition to casino gambling at an event on Monday morning.

Indeed, one fellow candidate, U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano, said he had no plans to get involved in the issue because it’s not something in which the Senate will have a say.

In fact, though, Khazei’s position could prove to be important. Earlier this year the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling that would, among other things, prevent the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe from taking property in Middleborough into a trust so that it could build a casino.

But it’s too soon for casino opponents to breathe a sigh of relief — the gambling interests are busily working to undo the court’s sensible decision.

U.S. Sen. Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, recently wrote a letter to Indian Country Today saying that the ruling “urgently needs to be corrected” with legislation that would, among other things, allow the Middleborough monstrosity to lurch back to life.

Massachusetts’ next senator could very well have to vote on such legislation. Not only is Khazei’s opposition to casinos relevant, but he and the other candidates should be asked how they would vote on the Dorgan bill.

Another distinguished nominee

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley throws her hat in the ring for a coveted 2010 Boston Phoenix Muzzle Award.

The Boston Herald keeps pounding away on Coakley’s absurd claim that she’s legally prohibited from talking about her campaign when she’s on state business — or even when she’s in the Statehouse.

It’s bad enough that she’d muzzle herself. But if she really believes what she’s saying, then she would muzzle others as well.

Did Acorn help Al Franken win? (II)

It’s been more than 24 hours, and Katherine Kersten has not responded to my e-mail asking how voter-registration fraud in Minnesota could have led to election fraud that helped put U.S. Sen. Al Franken over the top in his race with Norm Coleman.

At this point I have to assume she’s firing blanks.

The heart of her argument, published in the Star Tribune, is that Acorn registered 43,000 new voters in Minnesota last year; that, given Acorn’s track record, some of them must have been fraudulent; and that since Franken won by just 312 votes, only a tiny fraction of those registrations needed to be transformed into votes in order to explain Franken’s victory.

Of course, the alchemists believed that if they could transform just a tiny fraction of the lead they had in their possession into gold, they’d all be rich.

Let’s try to keep in mind what this is about. Acorn hired temporary field workers who, in many cases, were paid by the signature to sign up new voters. That created an obvious incentive for the workers to fill in as many names as possible and thus make more money.

I’m not aware of an allegation being lodged anywhere in the country that an ineligible voter showed up on election day, identified himself by one of those phony names and then cast a ballot. The right has spent months — years — looking for such evidence only to come up with nothing.

And when you understand the nature of the very real fraud that was committed, it’s impossible to see any connection. It’s like tying the health-care debate to the color of Queen Elizabeth’s hair.

Obama’s Nobel Prize (II)

Just want to make it clear that I’m not siding with those who say President Obama should refuse the Nobel Peace Prize.

He should accept it with great humility, and make it clear that he understands it’s a goad for what he might accomplish — not a lifetime achievement award for a president who’s only been in office for nine months.

Refusing the award would merely compound the Nobel committee’s mistake with an even greater one. (Via Hub Blog, which notes that Jon Keller and David Kravitz want Obama to reject the Nobel.)

Obama’s Nobel Prize

obama_20091009I should be reading the papers and getting ready for class, but I just want to get this out there first. No doubt the topic will inspire a long string of comments, and probably a few of you will have more coherent thoughts than I do.

President Obama is a leader of extraordinary promise. I think he’s already accomplished a lot. His policies helped steer the worst economic crisis since the 1930s into something like a normal recession. He’s come closer to enacting comprehensive health-care reform than any previous president.

And, yes, his approach to foreign policy has combined pragmatism, cooperation and an orientation toward negotiation and peace that stands in stark contrast with the belligerent Bush-Cheney team. I’m also glad he’s rethinking his original desire to escalate in Afghanistan.

That said, I’m puzzled, to say the least, by his winning the Nobel Peace Prize. I think Obama might well have been Nobel-worthy in a couple of years, depending on what he’s able to accomplish with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with Iran and its nuclear aspirations, with the Afghanistan-Pakistan mess and with North Korea. And that’s assuming he can find willing negotiating partners.

For the Nobel committee to award its most prestigious honor to Obama at this early stage of his presidency, the members must have been thinking one of two things:

  • He deserves it for all sorts of symbolic reasons: he’s the first African-American president, he represents a clean break with George W. Bush and he’s reached out to the international community in a variety of ways.
  • He doesn’t really deserve it, but he should get it in order to give him ammunition (oops; bad word) against his critics and to provide some momentum to his peace-making efforts.

I don’t think either of those reasons are good enough.

Conservatives, needless to say, are going to have a field day with this, comparing it to previous Nobels they think were undeserving, such as those given to Jimmy Carter and Al Gore. By contrast, I think Gore and especially Carter were very deserving recipients who received the honor on the basis of many years of hard work.

Many liberals are going to be thrilled that Obama won, although the early buzz on the left, based solely on my monitoring of Twitter, is that at least some liberals are as perplexed as I am.

Not that Obama is the worst selection ever. Certainly there have been much more undeserving recipients, such as Yasser Arafat and Henry Kissinger. (Despite what some conservatives are claiming on Twitter, Adolf Hitler did not win the Nobel. Try looking it up, folks.)

Anyway — there you have it. Discuss among yourselves.

Did Acorn help Al Franken win?

Mickey Kaus is excited about an opinion piece in the Star Tribune suggesting that U.S. Sen. Al Franken’s narrow victory over Norm Coleman may have been the result of Acorn voter-registration fraud.

For a long time now, the Acorn-obsessed right has struggled to explain how voter-registration fraud becomes ballot fraud. Well, here’s a golden opportunity. I’ve sent the following e-mail to Katherine Kersten, who wrote the Star Tribune piece in question:

Dear Ms. Kersten —

I would like to ask you a question about your commentary regarding Acorn and the Minnesota Senate race.

As has been reported pretty extensively, the Acorn voter-registration fraud consisted of field workers making up names so that they could get paid more. Your argument is based on the notion that some small percentage of those fraudulent names might have been used by real people who showed up at the polls on election day and cast ballots for Al Franken. You tell us that “Minnesota’s laws on proof of voter eligibility are notoriously loose.” I’ll take your word on that.

But what you don’t tell us is how it is even remotely conceivable that a field worker would write down a fake name — say, Peter Smith of 34 Jones Ave., St. Paul — and then some ineligible voter claiming to be Peter Smith of 34 Jones Ave., St. Paul, would then show up on election day and request a ballot. To me, at least, it makes no logical sense.

Could you help me out?

I plan to post your response on my blog, Media Nation.

Thank you,
Dan Kennedy

I’ll post Kersten’s response as soon as she sends it.

Please do not post any comments to this item. I’ve asked a question, and I want to wait for Kersten to reply.

Mayoral aide’s statement does not compute

I’ve been following the Boston City Hall e-mail story with interest since it broke several weeks ago. But today was the first time I really thought it might develop into something much bigger. The reason: Michael Kineavy, the mayoral aide whose deleted e-mails are being sought, reportedly said he doesn’t remember getting a new computer this past April, right after the Boston Globe submitted a public-records request. Globe reporters Donovan Slack and Hiawatha Bray write:

City corporation counsel William F. Sinnott said in an interview yesterday that he had been relying on what Kineavy had told him and that Kineavy, the mayor’s chief policy aide and key political strategist, still does not remember getting a new computer.

Is this possible? Even if you’re not a geek like me (I got my university-issued MacBook in the spring of 2008, thank you very much), you can’t not remember whatever inconvenience you went through setting up the new machine. This was less than six months ago. Is it possible that Kineavy doesn’t remember transferring his files? Doesn’t remember why the printer suddenly stopped working? Doesn’t remember that the button used to be over here, but now it’s there? I mean, come on.

What’s so intriguing is that Kineavy was in touch with City Councilor Chuck Turner and former state senator Dianne Wilkerson, both of whom face federal corruption charges. Kineavy may yet turn out to be a straight shooter. But it’s hard to imagine anyone would forget his office computer had been replaced.

More: I swear I did not read the Outraged Liberal before writing this.

Do the expedient thing

I am genuinely puzzled by a statement from U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano’s Senate campaign, reported in the Boston Globe. Capuano’s campaign treasurer, Bruce Percelay, was asked to comment on the fundraising advantage state Attorney General Martha Coakley has built. The Globe’s Matt Viser writes:

“Our hats go off to our competitors who were able to raise that much money,” said Bruce A. Percelay, treasurer for the Capuano campaign. He added that Coakley’s campaign had “a significant jump on us” because she declared earlier, while Capuano “made a conscious decision not to begin any fund-raising until Joe Kennedy made his decision.”

“If it temporarily puts us a little behind the starting line, then it was a small price to pay for doing the right thing,” Percelay said.

Yes, we all know that Capuano waited until Kennedy decided not to run for his uncle’s seat. No news there. What puzzles me is that the Capuano campaign wants everyone to know that.

Does the congressman want us to think he really does believe the Kennedys have a hereditary right to the seat? Does he honestly expect us to think Coakley disrespected the sainted memory of Ted Kennedy by jumping into the race while various and sundry Kennedys were pondering whether to run?

The outpouring of public affection for Ted Kennedy was genuine. In general, though, I think voters would like to see the Kennedys take their place in line like everyone else. You may have noticed that public reaction to Gov. Deval Patrick’s appointment of Kennedy coatholder Paul Kirk as interim senator wasn’t exactly enthusiastic.

Regardless of Coakley’s merits as a potential senator, I think her decision to jump in and not wait for the Kennedys can only help. As for Capuano, I would like to hear him explain directly why he apparently believes that Joe Kennedy would make a better senator than he would.