In Menotomy..."The Democrats Caucus Well"

160 democrats in attendance, four paper separate paper ballots for delegates & alternates and all done in less than four hours.  Menotomy just "Gets It" and when the democrats caucus there is sound reason for numerous name politicians to be in the room observing, Everyone from Treasurer Deb Goldberg to Congressperson Clarke and including Gubernatorial Candidate Bob Massie himself (a bantam rooster of a man with an almighty pompadour suggestive of the Late Fiorello LaGuardia at his chestiest).
All that is thanks to the hard work of the town chair Aimee Coolidge and her caucus crew a blooded and experienced cadre of political organizers...they are impressive to watch believe me.
It ended up being a delegation mostly beholden to Jay Gonzalez which isn't surprising as his local supporters started organizing for the caucus around Christmas, that kind of work pays off believe me.
For a while I thought Massie's supporters might've closed the gap a little tighter but in the end they managed to elect about six delegates all told and two alternates. I suspect that was their plan all along, their main goal is to collect credibility, raise some money and most importantly get on the primary come convention time.  So his progressive base seem to be playing the usual "long game" what Setti Warren's plans are I cannot say, he had almost no discernable support in the caucus not a single delegate was elected on his behalf, Menotomy is a huge liberal/progressive enclave with a well earned reputation for a high turn out, not contesting this caucus indicates that Warren has organizational issues or else isn't attracting much support in the party base.
Frankly, I think Setti Warren is in the wrong contest, he'd be the logical front runner if he'd contested the Lt Governorship's democratic primary, he's young, an experienced mayor...camera ready he'd be a serious player come primary day.

What can I say, it was a good caucus...legit and free of controvery...its what the local democrats do best quite frankly.

Mike Pence....

is a Herculean Bore.  He makes the Late President Gerry Ford look like Little Richard when the Veep gets up to Bloviate.
There is no other word for it, the man is a crashing droning bore. Lester Holt of NBC News interviewed him at the Winter Olympics on Friday,  a soft touch set up in even the most twitchy amateur could dominate, and still Pence bungled the appearance droning on and on with that fake squinty stony expression.  Granted the man's mind is a Xian Fever Swamp but his powers of persuasion are unusually limited. At the moment, this is small beers, but if Pence should somehow succeed to The Office of President he is gonna find his limited rhetorical skills put him at a disadvantage when his has to defend his barbaric theological notions...just saying'.

The democrats are a-caucusing in Menotomy Tomorrow

a town with very high democratic turnout with strong leadership cadres on the committee level, so it's an important "get" for anyone who wants to unite the progressives behind their candidacy and sweep themselves onto the nomination & the general election.
If I had to call it beforehand I'd say it's gonna be a Gonzalez instructed delegation from Arlington, he's made two appearances before the town committee and both times he went over well. Based on what I can see, his local supporters are the only ones making noise and trying to recruit attendees...haven't much from Bob Massie's crowd and I've heard of no one actively supporting Setti Warren.
In an election year you cannot show up at a caucus unorganized and unprepared, there is no "succeeding by accident" at this time of year.  On the other hand, surprising things can and so happen, Robert Reich rose out of nowhere in 2002 and swept the caucus in a uproarious four hour long affair...so there is still room for serrendipity in this process, and thank Ghod Too.

Oops!

Turns out, State Rep Kaufman is RETIRING at the end of his current term, so all the primary palaver up in Lexington is over a very safe seat that is now officially tantalizingly open. Apologies to anyone takenin by my prior musings...I was wrong. But seriously folks, I'm supposed to be a wheel in this goddamned contraption, "nobody tells me anything!!"

The President's Latest Crackpot Idea

is that he wants to stage a gigantic military parade in Washington DC this summer on the order of the tasteless displays of military might once favored by the former USSR on MayDay.   He apparently got this idea from a similar he either saw in Paris or on Youtube...or some damn thing.
Y'know there are still some old timers in France who can attest first hand that the single greatest military parade in French History was on Bastille Day, 1939 some six weeks before the outbreak of World War Two.  Apparently it was an AWESOME display of military firepower, endless ranks of infantry marching in perfect lockstep, hundreds of heavy tanks, clouds of aircraft flying overhead and hundred of the biggest artillery pieces in Europe.  Forget all that "Cheese Eating Surrender Monkey" nonsense you get on Social Media, this was public & naked display of military might that shocked the Wehrmacht in Berlin and caused them to revise upwards their estimate of French rearmament in near panic.
Ten months later those same French signed a shameless armistice with Germany have been thoroughly beat on the battlefield by superior generalship & tactics.
And I write this merely to point out the obvious you can boast and pile up arms & ammunition a mile high, but without able leadership you may as well be unarmed, you are only providing stockpiles for your enemies.

State Senator Rosenberg

can likely fix his political career or his marriage, but he cannot do both at once. To do so is to invite becoming a liability to the democrats this fall, especially in the gubernatorial race. But so far as I know Rosenberg's plan is to fix his marriage, run for re-election and try and reclaim the Senate Presidency.  Personally I think he needs to stand down, and I write that as someone who has met Stan Rosenberg and liked him from his back bench days as Amherst/Pelham's State Representative. There is just gonna be more cringeworthy revelations about his spouse going forward, Rosenberg isn't the first politician to make a fool of himself in love, but this is a situation damaging to the democratic party's prestige and general election prospects...

Stan I'm sorry ya gotta rethink this thing...

Mark My Words...

no good will come of the looming primary battle between Ayanna Pressley and Congressman Mike Capuano. They both aggressively agree on so many points of public policy that the debates will have to turn on emotional normative and purely stylistic factors...and when that is the case, especially democrats those debates can get toxic.
Moreover Capuano has done nothing to merit being "primaried", he is progressive in a US House of Representatives ruled by retrograde weirdoes, even if Pressley some how supplants him in office she will accomplish about as much absent a democratic majority.
I'm not sure Pressley has chosen the right race here, I get that her options were limited even as her personal potential as a statesperson remains impressive.
How I wish she was running for Lt Governor as a democrat, thats a challenge I could get behind, win or lose she'd make a shit ton of new friends state wide and that is never ever a bad thing.