Podcast Central: Marriage Equality, John Walsh, the State Senate and More!

I've been seriously negligent on my LeftAhead promos here on RyansTake, so here's a batch of our last few.

• Interview with Boston City Councilor Steve Murphy. We chatted lots of Boston topics, but also focused in on the proposed Suffolk Downs casino. Here's your chance to see what the President of the Boston City Council thinks about that, including whether or not the entirety of Boston should be able to vote on it, or just East Boston. I'll spare folks my thoughts on that matter, because if you're here, you probably know it already.
• State Democratic Party Chairman John Walsh. We love having John Walsh on and it always makes for a great show. He went over the strategy for this year's elections and I loved his thoughts, toward the end of the show, on the brewing Tierney-Tisei congressional race, which promises to be a doozy. Let's just say Tisei, the 'moderate' got behind the Blunt amendment... 
• Mike and I on the Republican Reality TV Primary, especially Santorum and Romney. Mike's always amazed that our pundit-like shows often do as well as shows with good guests, but I'm not as surprised. We had a lot of fun with this one, and people like fun. Plus, we're totally better pundits than most of the bobble-heads from CNN and Fox News.
• Freedom to Marry Board Member, Rev John Buehrens. Buehrens brings a national perspective as a 9-year member of Freedom to Marry, one of the chief national organizations fighting for marriage equality across the country. He's also a local UU minister, who just so happened to chair the national organization for a while.
  
  He brought even more insight into the state-by-state battles going on in Maine, Washington, Maryland and elsewhere than I expected -- so if these are on your radar, definitely check it out. He also brought in a fascinating understanding of where marriage equality, partisan politics and religion intersect, and how that influences the battle. This show shouldn't be missed.
• State Senate Candidate Mara Dolan. Our show with Dolan today was great. She is clearly a very credible candidate, with a wide policy background, as well. I was very pleased to hear that she understands the fact that the "MBTA issue" is a Beacon Hill issue as much as anything else.
  
  If you're from the 3rd Middlesex District, this is a can't-miss show, and even if not, you should still check it out, because these races have impacts that are far more wide-sweeping than their own borders. 

Tres (for) Treasurer

LeftAhead Internet Radio, which I co-host, has now finished interviewing all three (known) candidates for State Treasurer. Click the links to listen in, or use the BlogLeftRadio player on the sidebar.

• Steve Grossman (D)
• Steve Murphy (D)
• Karen Polito (R)

Yes, LeftAhead interviewed a Republican. We were polite and everything. On Polito's show, skip ahead 15 minutes if you just want to hear the interview. All of the shows were interesting -- and I thought all of the candidates made some good points. I do have to say that Murphy's notion of just how the State Treasurer's office could grow jobs is appealing to me, but I don't see how he gets passed the juggernaut that is Steve Grossman (who would be a fantastic State Treasurer, too). No idea who I'll support in the end, but I think Massachusetts benefits tremendously by having this very competitive race, including the Republican.