The nickname for any Massachusetts Secretary of Administration and Finance is “Deputy Governor.” Jay Gonzalez, A & F Secretary under Governor Deval Patrick, wants to remove the “deputy.” He’s working hard to defeat lifelong activist and minister Bob Massie in the September Democratic primary and go on to beat Governor Charlie Baker (himself a former …
Continue reading Gonzalez brings liberal gubernatorial campaign to Newton
All three presidential candidates are pandering to voters on trade rather than educating them to the complexity of the issue. Demagoguing it, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders simplistically blame trade pacts for disappearing jobs and dimmed future prospects. Back in 2012, Hillary Clinton, an early advocate of NAFTA. said the Transpacific Partnership was "the gold standard of trade …
Years ago, Barbara Bush is said to have commented that son Jeb was the best politician in the family. That's the side of the former Florida governor that I saw in New Hampshire on Friday morning at the Institute of Politics at St. Anselm College. The hall was filled to overflowing and the boyish looking, …
Continue reading Jeb Bush – for now, more appealing than appalling
The question during the 2014 gubernatorial campaign was often "Will the real Charlie Baker please stand up?" Today, Governor Baker stood before a meeting of the New England Council, the real Charlie Baker, the one I knew from his days in the highest echelons of the Weld and Cellucci administrations. He is smart, comfortable in …
Continue reading Charlie Baker: charm, practicality and reassurance
Most of us probably find ourselves somewhere around the center of contemporary political thought, whether it's to the right of center or left of center. Our movement in elections often determine outcomes, and we're usually out of touch with outliers in both parties. We are unsettled by a Congress now with an increasingly hollowed out center, …
Continue reading Ideological purity no help to the body politic
Two trumpets, a horn, a euphonium and a tuba, a brass quintet performing the music for Saturday’s memorial for the late Boston Globe food writer and editor Gail Perrin. The music was loud, bold, brassy and confident: how very Gail Perrin. Gail was remembered for her warmth, her whimsy, her hospitality, her lust for international …
Continue reading Globe food editor Gail Perrin and her link to Peter Frates
Times have changed for Sixth district Congressman John Tierney, and things are looking good. This, though he faces a rerun of the 2012 challenge from Republican Richard Tisei and, in the September primary, four challengers within his own party. Tierney went through a few miserable years, thanks to his wife's legal troubles (She pled guilty to helping …
Reports of rape and sexual assault were up 50 percent last year, according to a Pentagon study released on Thursday. What's unclear is whether that reflects more reporting or more assaults. And what of the record in bringing justice to victims (of both sexes, by the way)? Recently, the U. S. Navy reassigned a Blue Angels …
If Boston Mayor Marty Walsh can avoid giving away the store in the next rounds of union negotiations, he'll save some money to help fund some of his promised initiatives. He avoided discussion of the challenge of union money demands this morning when he laid out his vision to the greater Boston business community, with the New England Council packing the Boston Harbor Hotel's Wharf Room. …
Women have always played an important role in service to the community and to the Catholic Church. They are at the helm in various Catholic hospital systems, universities and foundations. The great unanswered question for many women is whether they will ever be allowed to become priests. Short of that, however, there is every expectation of women …
Marjorie Arons-Barron 