Sal's Seat and Susan Passoni

I had the chance to meet (briefly) with Susan Passoni at a meeting in Watertown on Wednesday night with a glbt organization that I'm involved with. She brought with her a whole cadre of team members and stayed for most of the meeting, leaving her campaign manager behind for the entire time. She is a very intriguing choice to take Sal DiMasi's former seat.

Sco, over at .08 Acres, interviewed Passoni back when she ran for City Councilor in '07, where she performed exceptionally well in the very neighborhoods she's running in now, coming pretty close to winning. Obviously, that's a little outdated and for a different race, but there's still some details about issues that are important to her - and what kind of a legislator she'd be (in a word: progressive). There's also some interesting comments on a BMG diary posted a few weeks ago by Cos, though mostly on the horse-racing aspects of the campaign and less on issues.

What I find most intriguing of all is who's getting involved in her campaign: a lot of very talented, smart progressives, people like Dan Cohen, Sonia Chang-Diaz's chief strategist and pollster. A lot of the progressive volunteers and campaign workers in the area that I'm friendly with were active during her city council run two years ago and fans of Passoni today. At the very least I'm intrigued. Any readers in the district or who know her have any thoughts or opinions? Toss them in the comments.

I'll be trying to book her for LeftAhead, or maybe even in front of my video camera for an interview. (Why on Earth I didn't think to ask her campaign manager tonight, don't ask. Clearly, my brain wasn't working at full capacity.)

PS. Here's her website. It's very bare right now and, given the fact that this is a special election taking place on May 19th, I wouldn't expect it to get much better. I've run a special election campaign for state rep in that time span -- it's crazy.

Help Sara Orozco

I an email from her campaign today. It's absolutely endearing, talking about all the many ways leadership matters. Electing Sara Orozco to the State Senate would remove an absolute dead weight from the Senate, replacing it with someone filled with compassion, energy, enthusiasm and a desire to help the working people and middle class of this state. As bad as Senator Brown is, a Senator Sara Orozco would be that good: good for her constituents and good for the entire state. Here's the email:

Dear Friend,

As hard as it is for me to write this note, it would be harder for me to wake up in three days wondering what else I might have done to win my election if I hadn’t let my pride get in the way. I know that so many of you are simply tapped out and I get it. But I am so afraid that I will not take the chance of asking for help in these final days only to find that it would have made all of the difference in the world. If there is any way you can make an online contribution before noon on Monday, I would be so very grateful.

So why is winning this race so important to me? At first, it was because I was personally dissatisfied with the representation I was getting from my opponent and because I knew I could do a better job, offering more thoughtful, compassionate, active leadership. Now that I have met thousands of people in the district, my ambition is to serve their needs. Here’s a snapshot of just four of the people that have touched me already:

1. Recently, I made a ‘cold call’ to a female undecided voter. As it turned out, she had been diagnosed with Stage III breast cancer that very day. She broke down on the phone and was so worried about how she would keep her house and that she would not be able to give her son a better life than she had because her medical bills would prevent her from paying for college or keeping her home.

2. Early in the spring, I met an elderly woman whose husband of over 50 years had died in May. She was embarrassed by the way her yard had become overgrown in his absence and we talked at length about her fear of having to leave the home she raised her family in because the local property taxes were going to make it impossible for her to stay there on a fixed income. I did a lot of research to learn about ways to alleviate property tax burden on the elderly and know I can fight for her on Beacon Hill. I, coincidentally, ran into her outside of a supermarket last week, while shaking hands, and she remembered our first visit and was still so touched by just having someone listen to her and care.

3. A married young father of two small children who became actively involved in my campaign and recently wrote a long opinion piece that he sent to all local papers in which he explained the many ways in which my opponent has used his power to attempt to discriminate against gays and lesbians. This man had the courage to challenge his community to really think hard about what their support for my opponent signified and to reconsider supporting a person who would have made gays and lesbians second-class citizens. He didn’t do this for himself – he did this for all of us and our children and because it was the right thing to do. His public voice lifted me and my family.

4. And, finally, I am doing this for the nine-year-old girl I met while taking my kids trick-or-treating. She was wearing a bejeweled turkey headdress and kept staring at me. I thought, perhaps, she was puzzled by the plastic knife that was going through my head, but when her mother nudged her over to me, she stuck out her hand and told me in a nervous voice that she was my biggest fan. I almost cried. Her mother told me that she has been following the news of my race closely and it seems she wants to be able to do the same thing some day. Maybe to run for office – to do something big for others.

So these are the people whose stories I carry in my heart. They represent so many others and for me, today, they are the reason I must ask for your help one more time. I don’t want to let them down. What began as a terrific leap of faith now feels like a responsibility and a humbling honor. To represent these people and to fight for them and their needs and to – hopefully – make them feel visible, valuable, and heard – would be my proudest accomplishment.

All of the ‘experts” say that I can win this race and that the Obama Blue Wave certainly works in my favor. I cannot leave any stone unturned.

If there is any way you can make an online contribution before noon on Monday, I would be so very grateful. And, if you can forward this desperate appeal to any of your friends, neighbors and relatives who might be sympathetic to an eager Democratic under-dog, please send it along with a personal note.

I still need to raise a few thousand dollars to pay for a ‘robo-call’ and perhaps some newspaper inserts. My opponent has done more than 20,000 of these calls and I have focused on mail pieces and free media, but am now convinced that one friendly call could make all of the difference in the world. If you can make a donation of any amount, please do so online at www.SaraOrozco.com or click the DONATE BUTTON.

If you can make a donation (or another donation), I respectfully ask for your help. And I also ask for your warm thoughts, prayers and good karma to carry me and my team to victory on Tuesday.

Thank you so much.

Sara
www.SaraOrozco.com

Candidates I Wish I Could Vote For on Tuesday:

I've never been a huge fan of endorsements; I don't think they sway very many voters. That said, if I believe strongly enough to support a candidate and become interested in their race, I may as well say it out loud for everyone to hear. So, for the pleasure of my readers, the following people make me passionate enough that I only wish I got the opportunity to vote for them in these supremely competitive elections. If any of you feel as passionately as I do, please click on the link to their website and find ways you can help in this last week of the primary season.

For State Senate: Sara Orozco & Sonia Chang-Diaz.

For State Representative: Pat McCabe in Medford, Jon Hecht in Watertown & Carl Sciortino in Somerville.

I believe these are five candidates who, if elected (or reelected, in Carl's case), would do a lot to bolster the progressive movement in Massachusetts. They're candidates who have an extensive grasp of policy, as well as the energy and drive to bring about the kind of change the people of this state want. Make no mistake about it; these are people who will make a difference.

There's been a lot of progress since Deval's been in office - and a lot of that has to do with the progressive change in the Beacon Hill legislature. These five people will ensure that not only will things keep moving in the right direction, but that they do so even faster, with leadership that will make us proud. I wish I could be at all five places on election day, but since I can't, I hope readers will find a way to get involved in their most important hours of need.

Finally, most of these candidates have done interviews on LeftAhead, the Massachusetts Political Podcast. If you need to find reasons to be enthused, go take a listen. These are people who know their stuff and will do a lot of good, if elected.

Sonia on LeftAhead!

Note: Sonia is the first in a series of candidates we're welcoming onto LeftAhead as the local election season heats up. If you're a candidate running for something and want to discuss the issues and the race with people who actually care, send me an email and we'll book you for one of our upcoming shows. We're looking forward to hearing (from) you.

Today, we had a very special guest, Sonia Chang-Diaz, on at LeftAhead. Lynne, Mike and I took up all kinds of issues during the podcast and asked Sonia for as many details as possible. Lots of tough questions and issue specifics were asked, and we got some pretty good answers.

Sonia is particularly thoughtful on the core issues facing urban areas such as education and housing; I also found what she had to say about taxes toward the end very refreshing. Lynne was at least slightly concerned about the new debt this state is taking on through the recently-passed (and soon to be signed) transportation bond bills. While Sonia hasn't made a cost-benefit analysis on the transportation bond bill yet, she also shares some of Lynne's worries. Here's a window to Sonia's soul re: tax philosophy.

I always look with a weary eye on taking on debt. How does our tax policy work? One thing we [at the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center] always try to get out there and give people a good grounding on is the theories of fairness that are generally recognized when talking about tax policy... one of the theories is the 'use principal' - the idea that the people who use the goods should pay for them. Generally speaking... the use principal is not the fairest... I think it would strike people silly to structure a system that only the people who use a police system should pay for it... if you get mugged, you're charged a fee. That's not how the public system should work.

That's why generally the use principal is not one that should be our guiding principal when talking about taxes. But, the big exception to that ... is longterm infrastructural costs - for things like roads, bridges... that are going to be used over multiple generations in a state, where in no cases does it make sense to share costs across time and not just across the population that currently exists as a state.

Pretty nice drapes on that window, huh? If only the Republicans in D.C. got that principal on things like a certain war in a certain part of the country which is being bought and paid for by people my age (23) and younger, maybe the world would be a better place. Sometimes a bond bill makes sense - and I've actually come out in favor of Governor Patrick's bond bill, because in the long run doing these projects now will save money (and lives) over inflation in the long run. But we need more thinking on Sonia's line, as a whole, across the state and country. With that, she made for a very nice guest and I'm hoping people will listen.

Also: Included in the tags are all the issues we hit on the show.