Massachusetts Politics

Now that Mike Capuano has lost, I’m hearing some grumbling to the effect he could have run a better campaign.   Some say he wasted too much time talking about Trump when he should have been taking the fight hard, much harder than he did, to Ayanna Pressley. “In terms of experience and ability to get things done, she doesn’t belong in the same ring with him,” said one lifelong resident of the district who was sorry to see the curtain come down on Capuano's career.   “For whatever reason, or reasons, he decided it was too risky to attack her.   Well, look where that got him.” At first, this line of reasoning made sense to me. But, the longer I thought about it, the less convincing it became.   I’d try to conjure a mental picture of Capuano ripping into Pressley on the stage at some candidates’ forum or on the set of some TV program, and every time I did, Capuano came across as a bully and the audience looked pained. It now seems to me that Capuano's candidacy was ...

In the case of Steven “Stat” Smith, the people of Everett were not willing to let bygones be bygones.   Thank God. On Tuesday voters there decisively rejected Smith’s bid to regain his old seat in the Massachusetts House, a position he was forced from in 2012 by the U.S. Attorney because he’d abused the absentee ballot process. Smith paid a $20,000 fine, was sentenced to four months in federal prison, and banned from running for public office again for a period of five years.   That ban was up in April. Within days Smith was asking his townspeople to sign nomination papers to put him on the September 4 ballot in the Democratic primary for representative in the 28 th Middlesex District.   He amassed more than 500 signatures in one weekend -- many multiples of the required number. Smith ran an energetic, high-visibility campaign throughout the spring and summer.   He persuaded untold hundreds of Everett homeowners to put signs up promoting his candidacy.   You co...