For a long time, it’s been established political lore that certain groups are inextricably bound to one political party or another. Veterans and big business tend to favor the Republicans, while the Democrats seem to have a lock on women’s groups, unions, and entertainers, just to name a few.
But sometimes those loyalties seem absolutely inexplicable, when the “wrong” party does right by them. And two cases in New England show just how that works.
In Massachusetts, the race is on to succeed outgoing governor Mitt Romney(R). His Lieutenant Governor, Kerry Murphy Healey, has made sex crimes and sex offenders one of her pet causes. She pushed through a new, tougher law on sex offenders, and has made several other moves that improve the lot of women in the Bay State.
Her opponent, Deval Patrick, is a lawyer. He spent several years trying to win parole for a vicious rapist, even contributing $5,000 out of his own pocket to help the scumbag win an appeal. When the DNA test Patrick helped pay for came back positive, Patrick finally stopped trying to win the freedom of the man he had described as “thoughtful” and “humane” — the man who had tied up and repeatedly raped a 58-year-old neighbor over a 12-hour period. Patrick is also in favor of making it easier for convicted felons to expunge their records.
So, naturally, several Massachusetts women’s groups have endorsed Patrick.
And in New Hampshire, we have the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. It has a long and distinguished history, most notably for building submarines. It lost a lot of business when the US Navy switched over to exclusively nuclear-powered boats, but has remained in operation by doing refits, repairs, and other work on them — just not new construction. It has been put on the chopping block for every single base-closure list, but has repeatedly squeaked off it.
In the last round, New Hampshire congressman Jeb Bradley worked like hell to keep the shipyard open. He lobbied the White House and the Pentagon, marshalled the yard workers, their families, and their friends, called in tons of favors, and finally managed to succeed. Bradley was so popular that numerous shipyard workers appeared in some of his “Thanks, Jeb” campaign ads.
But that didn’t matter to one of the unions that represents the shipyard workers. The Metal Trades Council, which is the largest union present at the Shipyard, made their endorsement — and it’s for Bradley’s Democratic challenger, Carol Shea-Porter.
At the time, I was skeptical about the efforts to save the Shipyard. While it is a vital part of the seacoast economy, with over 4,000 workers, I don’t like the notion of keeping military bases and facilities open just because of their benefits to the local community. The first priority of the military has to be defending our nation, and its resources should be allocated based purely on efficiently doing just that — and not on who needs the money most. I was glad when it was spared, but I still hoped it was done for solid reasons, not not politics.
Now, though, I have to wonder if Jeb Bradley still thinks it was worth the effort he poured into it.
I wonder if Massachusetts politics would be any different if the capital were in a small town in the center of the state rather than in Boston. Michigan avoided Detroit-only politics with its Lansing capital, and lots of other states have smaller capital cities intentionally to avoid the issue of one city’s attitudes swaying the whole state.
I don’t think any “women’s groups” have endorsed Patrick … only “abortion groups” who don’t care about anything but abortion and are blind to the “friend of rapists” aspect of Patrick’s personality.
Planned Parenthood (one of the supposed women’s groups endorsing Patrick) isn’t a “women’s group.” It’s an “abortion rights advocacy group.” Many women, in fact, oppose abortion and Planned Parenthood.
That Patrick is portraying these as endorsements from “women’s groups” says a lot about his character.
It’s amazing how many scumbags the Democrats can find to run for political office….
It wouldn’t surprise me that the Democrats have killed more people than the terrorists….
We could add ’em up starting with ol’ Ted Killerenedy himself….
So, naturally, several Massachusetts women’s groups have endorsed Patrick.
Like the NAACP endorsing Clinton after Clinton made the United States the world’s #1 jailer per capita — not because he was against drugs per se, but because he wanted to have one less issue in the Republican arsenal. And of course the largest block of people affected by Clinton’s actions were black Americans arrested for casual drug use, a fact that slipped the NAACP’s notice.
“Man,” wrote Father Heinlein, “is not a rational animal, he is a rationalizing animal.”
Jay “the independent” -that howl you hear is me laughing- What’s wrong with convicted felons who have served their time to society getting their records for certain types of crimes expunged? Personally,I am all for it. If someone actually wants to vote and become engaged politicallly we should encourage, and not discourage such actions.
Oh that’s right, this would effect more potential minority voters than anyone else. Sorry, of course you are not for it. What was I thinking?
Well bless your little disavantaged heart there field negro. tsk tsk
Jeb Bradley showed up when it was politically correct for him to do so during the SAVE OUR SHIPYARD fight.
As a matter of fact it was his own party and their misadministration that indeed did put our
Portsmouth Naval Shipyard on the Base Realignment and Closure list in the first place.
For that Bradely knew he had to at least make any effort he could to appear to be fighting along with the thousands of others that were energized and lead by UNION leadership to stand up, show up stepped up and to speak up.
Jeb Bradely did not SAVE OUR SHIPYARD he showed up when it was politically correct for him to do so. The workers at the shipyard saved our shipyard. for without their records of success for over 205 years defending national security, nobody could have saved it, surely not Jeb Bradley since he was and still is attached at the hip to the folks that put us on the closure list on May 13, 2005.
Last year we saved our shipyard this year we are going to save our congress and in 2008 we are going to save our country.
What, none of you mouth-breathers want to reply to JJ?
Of course not, seeing as he knows WHAT THE FUCK HE IS TALKING ABOUT.
But then, were Jay Tea to limit his blogging to things on which he could be considered an authority, there would be a serious lack of content.