Latimer on Law & Politics

It?s Keating In The Tenth

                                                           It's Keating In The Tenth

                                                                       Visceral Giving

                                                                               -fear

                                -extreme negative feelings toward existing administration. . . .

                                                                       -reactionary

                                         - Flow chart for motivating rank  file GOP donors,

                                                     RNC Fundraising Plan,March 2010

              I went to the LWV candidates' debate Monday night with an open mind as to most of the candidates, though on the Republican side  I already knew more than I really care to about Perry who would slither back into the hole he came out of if he had any decency.    I came away disappointed with Malone and Kasperowicz, however.  I had hoped for something better from them, in contrast to Perry, but  they seem to have adopted the same rigid, ideological demagoguery that characterizes today's post-Reagan GOP, with its signature negative appeal to "visceral" voters playing to the kind of fear and loathing we get from the Teabaggers.

             This isn't just me accusing the GOP camdidates of divisive negativity from a partisan perspective, either.  Hey, it comes right out of the national GOP playbook:

 http://www.politico.com/static/PPM136_100303_rnc_finance_leadership.html

Remember last spring when the RNC fundraising plan was leaked, with all the Republicans incumbents scurrying around like so many little rodents running from the tabby cat trying to distance themselves from its unequivocal focus on fear and negativity? 

            I commented then that despite their protestations, that's just what we would get from GOP candidates this year. And the disappointing performance by Malone and Kasperowicz at the LWV debate, in addition to Perry as a given, confirmed my prediction.  After all, once you get past "No," the national GOP has absolutely nothing to say -no vision and no credibility and, sadly, that seems to be true for today's Massachusetts Republicans as well. It's a sorry reflection on the party of Frank Sargeant, Ed Brooke, Elliot Richardson and Bill Weld.

           On the Democratic side, I had been leaning toward Keating, and the debate only cemented that for me -both for what he said and for what O'Leary said. Either one of them is head and shoulders above any of the GOP candidates, but O'Leary said two things that troubled me -two things that remind me too much of the reactionary negativism we get from the GOP.

          First was his unqualified "no" when asked about Cape Wind.  Oh, I know he says it's all about the siting  process, and he has gotten legislation through to set siting standards for offshore wind, as well as advocating for renewable energy generally.   And he did concede during the debate that he might support Cape Wind if the cost analysis made it competitive.   Still, the tenor of his ongoing opposition to the Cape Wind project has always seemed to be as much NIMBY pandering to his Cape Cod base as anything else. And whether that's fair or not, appearances count a lot in an election -as we just saw with Coakley's feckless campaign against Senator Brown.  

            What really turned me off  to O'Leary, however, was his picking up on the GOP shibboleth of medical malpractice tort reform -which is really nothing more than writing a blank check to the insurance industry.  Unlike the Republicans, O'Leary did qualify his position by recognizing that malpractice insurance was only a minor part of health care costs generally, but that only serves to make his grandstanding on the issue more gratuitously demagogic than the Republicans. Tort reform is a cynical, reactionary talking point right out of the GOP playbook, and it is at best unseemly for a Democratic candidate to engage in such dishonest right-wing demagoguery.

            On the plus side for Keating is the fact that he is not an ideologue like Perry and as the other Republicans who are following the RNC game plan here in Massachusetts appear to be.  He stated in  his closing remarks that the GOP candidates were wrong to say that we should "send a message" to Washington this November, when what we need is to send a messenger who will articulate our specific local concerns as opposed to parroting the Teabagger party line as the Republicans do.

           Another plus for Keating is the fact that he is a lawyer, and a district attorney as well.  If the Republicans should be foolish enough to give Perry the primary win, Keating will eat him for lunch on law and order.  Keating has a record of putting child molesters and other predatory perverts in jail, while Perry has a record of protecting and enabling a serial molester -even calling it "good police work" in a recent interview with the Cape Cod Times. During a head on debate this fall, Keating will not have to be a subtle as Robert Hayden was when he asked Perry why the voters should trust him.