the two presidential candidates from Ma.
Don't forget us, senator
By Eileen McNamara, Globe Columnist | May 8, 2005
If Senator John F. Kerry really wants to influence the Democratic Party in Massachusetts, wouldn't he have more impact in Lowell than in Louisiana?
ADVERTISEMENT
The failed Democratic presidential nominee was in Baton Rouge last week when he said it would be a mistake to include a statement of support for gay marriage in the platform of the Massachusetts Democratic Party because the issue is so divisive.
But Kerry himself won't be attending the party's platform convention in Lowell next weekend. He is traveling the country, testing the waters for another White House run. I mean, he's already on the road holding town meetings on children's healthcare needs.
It is a shame Kerry could not fit a stop at the Tsongas Arena on his cross-country tour. He would discover what the 3,000 delegates to the convention already know. He could bring the news to the rest of the nation. The earth did not tilt off its axis one year ago when same-sex marriages were legalized in Massachusetts. The demonstrations are over. Massachusetts has moved on.
Like Governor Mitt Romney, a Republican, Kerry is spending a lot of time these days talking to audiences far from the Merrimack Valley. That might explain why both men find themselves so often misreading the sentiments of the folks back home.
Last week, while Kerry was ignoring a March poll that showed solid support for gay marriage among Massachusetts Democrats, Romney was ignoring the endorsement by state law enforcement officials of a bill to allow over-the-counter sales of hypodermic needles. Romney opposes the bill, his office says, because it ''facilitates illegal drug use," a rationale rejected in public hearings last week by two prominent district attorneys and a representative of the Boston police commissioner. Even his own Department of Public Health endorses the needle sale legislation as a means of slowing the spread by tainted syringes of the virus that causes AIDS.
It is easy to fall out of touch with Beacon Hill when you spend so much time dining with political strategists in Washington or courting audiences in Missouri, South Carolina, Michigan, or Utah.
These days, the two frequent fliers look less like potential adversaries for the American presidency in 2008 than tactical twins courting the same bloc of socially conservative voters. In their political calculation for higher office, both men are running away from the one constituency they were elected to serve, the people of Massachusetts.
Romney might get a laugh when he tells audiences that in liberal Massachusetts he feels like a ''cattle rancher at a vegetarian convention," but the joke is on him. Recent polls indicate those vegetarians might put him out to pasture if he stands for reelection next year.
Kerry's continued determination to distance himself from his liberal roots is even more perplexing. Didn't the presidential campaign confirm that his political makeover was both a lost cause and a losing strategy? Does he really think that his support of civil unions, instead of marriage, for same-sex couples is going to win over voters in the 11 states that passed bans on gay marriages last fall? Does he think Massachusetts voters will forget how they have been ignored when he finally gives up his doomed presidential ambitions and decides to run for reelection in 2008?
As he courts heartland conservatives, Kerry is falling more out of step with the state party that nurtured his political career. Philip W. Johnston, the chairman of the Democratic Party in Massachusetts, anticipates no controversy when the gay marriage plank is introduced next Saturday. Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who will address the platform convention, supports its inclusion as a reflection of the state party's commitment to civil rights. So much for divisive.
It was only a few weeks ago that Johnston said of Romney's out-of-state political forays that it is clear he is ''leaving Massachusetts behind." He's not the only one.
Eileen McNamara is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at mcnamara@globe.com. |
