He didn’t get mentioned until the fourteenth paragraph of a very speculative story in the New York Times about who the Democrats might run for president in 2020, but that […]
Presidential Election
Posted inOpinion, Politics
DNC needs to be turned upside down
IT HAS BEEN OVER A MONTH since the 2016 presidential election. For Democrats, the collective empty feeling and sleepless nights are still present. Why did the Democrats lose? Simply, it […]
Posted inPolitics
The antiquated Electoral College
WHEN THE FOUNDING generation realized the Electoral College they created contained serious flaws, they changed it to reflect emerging norms of democracy. We should follow their example. The method of […]
Posted inEducation
Students push for ‘sanctuary campuses’
UMASS AMHERST OFFICIALS, under pressure from students, said on Friday they were committed to making the campus a safe haven for undocumented students, faculty, and staff. But they stopped short of […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
Warren sets rules of engagement
THIS WASN’T A PRETTY ELECTION. In fact, it was ugly, and we should not sugarcoat the reason why. Donald Trump ran a campaign that started with racial attacks and then […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
Electoral College must go
THIS COLLEGE HAS NO IVORY TOWERS, no campus lawn, no library dedicated to a major benefactor. You can’t apply for admission to this college or get a degree from it. […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
Rearranging the electoral map
Last in a series MAPS ARE ONE OF THE OLDEST WAYS known to humankind to illustrate a location or make a point. Like the great Medieval stained glass windows depicting […]
Posted inPolitics, The Back Story
A wasted vote of conscience
IN THIS PERIOD of discontent with the Republican and Democratic nominees for president, many Massachusetts voters are talking about writing in their own candidate when they enter the voting booth […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
US needs a mobility moonshot
Fourth in a series THERE WAS A BRIEF PERIOD, in muscular, post-war, auto-centric America, when the Democratic nominee for president would officially commence the general election campaign with a large […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
Clinton’s debate victory margins historic
HILLARY CLINTON ADMINISTERED a historic thumping to Donald Trump in the three presidential debates. The candidates met Wednesday night for the third and final time, and the outcome was the […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
Foreign policy context of Clinton-Trump race
Third of five parts. THE TWO MEN WHO SOUGHT the presidency in 1960 shared one important distinction: they were, respectively, the first nominees of each major political party born in the 20th Century. Both Richard Nixon and John Kennedy were, […]
Posted inPolitics
Can Elizabeth Warren legislate?
DURING HER FIRST four years representing Massachusetts in the Senate, Elizabeth Warren has become the chamber’s leading progressive voice. Hillary Clinton considered her for the vice presidential slot and, while […]
Posted inPolitics
Why Trump’s performance matters in Mass.
REPUBLICAN KATE CAMPANALE stunned the state’s political establishment in 2014 by winning the 17th Worcester district House seat, edging out Democrat Douglas Belanger by just 43 votes out of 9,750 […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
The evolution of the presidential campaign
THERE WAS A TIME when presidential candidates stayed home and left their campaigns to surrogates. In his majestic history of the Civil War, Shelby Foote described the 1860 campaign as […]
Posted inPolitics
Trump needs a debate win. Bigly.
DONALD TRUMP SORELY needs to turn in a strong debate performance this weekend. The last two weeks have brought a near-constant stream of bad news for the Republican candidate: After […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
Third party defections endanger Democrats
THE GOP NOMINEE, a former entertainer whose presidential prospects were once ridiculed, gains in the polls with a not-so-subtle pitch to whites in the Rust Belt. His Democratic rival who […]
Posted inThe Download
The thin blue target
There have probably been better times to be a cop, possibly some worse, but has there ever been a more tense and dangerous time than now? Police are under fire, […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
What Independence Day is all about
WE APPROACH INDEPENDENCE DAY 2016 at a time of great economic change and uncertainty, when most of the western democracies are struggling to deal responsibly with an unprecedented flood of […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
History and demagoguery
A raspy-voiced Hillary Clinton shared the news with supporters at Long Beach, California, rally as the word broke yesterday that the Associated Press tally of her pledged delegates and superdelegates […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
The return of Big Red
It’s an apt metaphor that the Libertarian Party is holding its convention next weekend in Orlando, Florida, the home of Disneyworld, because anyone who thinks the nominees for president and […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Voters trump media predictions
There’s nothing those in the media like reading and writing more than “we got it wrong” stories, provided they have company. And in the case of Donald Trump, there are […]
Posted inPolitics, State House News Service, The Download
Is the media to blame for Trump?
It’s become almost accepted wisdom that the news media have fanned the flame of Donald Trump, basking in his click-bait commentary and covering his every move as if he was […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Warren’s end game
In a series of tweets and Facebook posts, US Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Monday pounded away at GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump. Borrowing a page from Trump’s rhetorical playbook, Warren […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
For GOP, is it sanity’s last stand?
They called it the second Super Tuesday, and it proved to be very good, if not super, for Hillary Clinton, who won four of five contests, with Missouri still too […]