Squashed

Voter Intimidation and the Tea Party

(This particular story seems to have slipped under the media spotlight—so I’d love a signal boost on it.)

The Tea Party has resorted to voter intimidation in Worcester, Massachusetts. This happened at a Democratic Primary a week ago—though speculation is that it was a warm up for the November election. Voter intimidation is a simple and nasty trick. You just need to find the people on the margins and do something to make voting a bit scarier.

Here’s how the Tea Party group did it in Worcester:

• They photographed or videotaped people in the polling stations.
• They raised fake challenges to people’s credentials.
• They chalked sidewalks outside housing complexes claiming, falsely, that people needed an ID to vote in the election.
• They slid fliers under residents’ doors making the same false claims about fliers.
• They asked voters to provide identification.
• “Chastising” voters and their helpers for speaking Spanish

This is all, of course, illegal.

There’s really no dispute about why the Tea Party spin-off Activate Worcester is doing this. As the organizer of this effort wrote, “Worcester has just registered at least 3,000 new voters thanks to the Voter Participation Center and the Secretary of State — these are welfare recipients and disenfranchised people.”

Shooting a few fish in a barrel

uncommonsenseblog writes that he thinks Scott Brown is polling neck and neck with Elizabeth Warren …

… mainly due to her being a terrible candidate (I always say she’s like Coakley minus the charisma, credentials, and credibility) overall, her off putting personality (as demonstrated in her shrill and angry delivery of her anti-capitalist remarks in this video), and the controversy over her ancestry …

It seems you’ve outlined three reasons for opposition to Elizabeth Warren’s candidacy.

1. You think she doesn’t have charisma, credentials, or credibility
2. Her voice is “shrill”
3. Her ancestry is “controversial”

I’m a bit concerned about each of these. First, if one of Harvard’s better-known law professors, the chairman of the TARP oversight panel, one of the more influential women in the world, and the Special Assistant to the President on the CFPB doesn’t have “credentials or credibility,” it’s not clear who would.

Second, “shrill”? So … Warren’s voice really isn’t high-pitched and whistle-like. So I assume you mean “shrill” in the way that the word is traditionally used to attack female politicians. As in “characteristic of those noises women make when I’m trying to ignore them.” Not cool.

Third, “controversial ancestry.” The concern is that Elizabeth Warren has been listed, in some cases, as having Cherokee ancestry. Upon investigation, it appears she would need to go back about five generations—and things get pretty murky there. To a lot of conservatives, this seems to suggest that Warren was a “diversity hire.” Or, to put it slightly differently, “not a white man and therefore presumptively unqualified, despite the mountain of obvious qualifications.” Not cool.¹

Of course, that’s only half the concern with the “ancestry.” The other half is that it gives guys like Austin a chance to talk about “Fauxcahontas” because to them any mention of Native American people invokes a Disney Princess and is really just a laugh line. This too is not cool.

So what else have you got? I’d love to debate Warren and Brown’s relative qualifications. But could you start out with something reasonably relevant and not rooted in sexist or racist stereotypes? Bring it.

I just read the National Review’s hit piece on Elizabeth Warren

I was amazed by how ambivalent the article was. It’s sort of a misfired madlib. I has all the usual, generic stuff Republicans say about every Democratic candidate. (Her election would be a disaster. She’s radical.) But the writer, Kevin Williamson, was supposed to put the where specific negatives should have been inserted mostly talk about how intelligent and accomplished Warren is. The worst the Williamson managed to say was that she didn’t fit in very well in South Boston on St. Patrick’s day as she’s not particularly prone to ribald humor and heavy drinking.

It’s like Wiliamson got the template:

Democratic candidate NAME would be a disaster because Democrats are Occupy Wall Street communists and this candidate embodies communist flaws by being NEGATIVE ADJECTIVE, NEGATIVE PERSONAL DETAIL_, and MASSIVE CHARACTER FLAW. All right thinking people should vote for the Republican, NAME, who is ADJECTIVE.

He filled it out something like this:

Democratic candidate Elizabeth Warren would be a disaster because Democrats are communists and this candidate embodies communist flaws so smart, honestly kind of pretty_, and not a very heavy drinker. All right thinking people should vote for the Republican, Scott Brown, who is mostly a Republican.

Williamson only cites specific proposals of Warrens where he considers them pretty reasonable. Most of the article is spent discussing supposed personal or political failings that Williamson clearly doesn’t consider actual failings to suggest that she is “out of touch.” Or at least “out of touch with South Boston on St. Patrick’s day.” She is “smart,” “tough,” “principled.” I’ve been a huge fan of Elizabeth Warren since long before her candidacy was announced. But even I could write a more persuasive critique.

Tip to the National Review: Even if you’ve already commissioned the drawing of Elizabeth Warren with a hand drum, a bunch of tents, and a vacant expression and are proud of your headline, “The Occupy Candidate,” you can still spike the article. Every once in a while, we try to write something that just doesn’t come together. Let it stew in the drafts folder for a few months.

Initial Legislative Priorities

sarahschultzma:

If elected, I would like to focus on passing ‘Right to Work’ legislation, increasing the FTE threshold, requiring Massachusetts citizens to show ID to vote, pushing for merit-based pay for teachers, and increasing the number of charter schools in the district and across the Commonwealth

#mapoli #schultz2012 #massgop #beaconhillpriorities

Why would Massachusetts want any of these things? (I’m not trolling—I’m completely serious. Why would you run for office in Massachusetts on a platform of policies so unsuitable for the state?)

• Right to Work legislation is, essentially, an effort to gut unions in the name of increasing employment. Massachusetts currently has a lower unemployment rate than Texas. I understand why Republicans would want a right to work law based on political self-interest, but that’s hardly a selling point for people who care about things other than getting Republicans elected.
• Increasing the FTE threshold just means that a bunch of low-income people lose their health insurance so larger businesses can have higher profits. Again, not exactly a populist selling point.
• Voter ID laws effectively disenfranchise people who don’t have an ID. There are a whole lot more people who don’t have state IDs than there are recorded incidents of voter fraud in Massachusetts.
• Charter schools and merit-based pay at least fall into the “it’s complicated” category. While I’m not categorically opposed to either of these ideas, I think they need to be approached from a perspective of what is best for students rather than what is best for a political agenda. Massachusetts has some fantastic charter schools and some not-so-fantastic schools. A careful approach to the issue could be great. But people who approach the problem as yet another element of the union-busting, right-to-work style agenda are uniquely unqualified to handle this competently. Why not leave delicate education balance to local decision-makers?