Why Connecticut needs Martha Coakley in the Senate

I'm breathless (2.00 / 1)

Are you affiliated as a volunteer or paid campaign worker?

If so, could you please let us know that?  Sometimes when people sign up and immediately post a highly favorable rave about a candidate, it comes across as an astroturf effort.

If affiliated with the campaign, usually people here say their real name and announce their affiliation so that others may judge their words in context.

If not I would like to know whether "trying hard" strikes you as a sufficient commitment on health care, and how galvanizing "supporting the Senate bill" is likely to be to MA likely voters, as compared to the GOP rabid opposition to any reform of health care?

Can you vote in MA or only in Fairfield CT?

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by: greenpeas @ Mon Jan 18, 2010 at 18:02:36 PM CST

So this is how you post a comment/reply (0.00 / 0)

My reply/comment (see below?) should be on here somewhere. This reply pops my "reply" cherry. Forgive the inexperience with replying.

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by: NewEnglandCJ @ Mon Jan 18, 2010 at 18:30:38 PM CST

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Re: I'm breathless (0.00 / 0)

Re: I'm breathless.
I've volunteered with the campaign. I'm a Fairfield voter. Nobody asked me to do this, I felt moved to do it myself. The closest the Coakley campaign ever came to paying me was when another volunteer brought in doughnuts.
And, as for your "trying hard" comment, it does strike me as sufficient because the Republican alternative is less than compelling.

I'm not wild about giving my name away on a website, but when I was in high school, I put together this event: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05...

I hope that helps you in terms of identifying me.

Furthermore, voters here in the commonwealth want real healthcare reform. My understanding is that Martha isn't wild about the Senate bill, like most MA voters she recognizes it isn't perfect.

FYI, I've been a MLN reader since 2006. This isn't Astroturf stuff. I get irritated when other campaigns put up stuff come election day too.

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by: NewEnglandCJ @ Mon Jan 18, 2010 at 18:17:08 PM CST

of course the alternative is not good (0.00 / 0)

Thank you for clarifying your connection to the campaign and that this is your own work.  Due to the fact that what you wrote was very laudatory and really didn't touch on anything other than that, I was unsure if this was a promo piece or someone's true reflections on the candidate.

I had just read this piece before reading yours.  
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

It made me reflect on the closeness of the race and how much of that was due to people not finding enough to get excited about either in the Democrats, or in their perception of this candidate.  A candidate that reportedly didn't get out and talk to people (accepting whose counsel?) and who gets the benefit of presidential support may come across to people as far more of an insider than does the pinup boy.

I was trying to get at what appears to be a highly amped up and motivated GOP voter (even if based on bad info and lies) versus  whether it will be galvanizing that the Dem candidate's stance is that she is supporting a Senate bill that has a number of provisions seeming to be e at odds with polls about what the general public supports and  wants.  Don't get me wrong, she's got a tough row to hoe running in a special election at this time and to replace Kennedy. I don't see she has a choice but to support the bill.  I just don't know that the stance is likely to be galvanizing.  In the face of the reasons the GOP is churning out not to vote for her, do people have reason to feel greatly motivated to vote for her?

For example, I note your response, "And, as for your "trying hard" comment, it does strike me as sufficient beause the Republican alternative is less than compelling."

The comment makes it unclear to me whether Martha is the greatest thing since sliced bread after all - or "better than Scott", as we could say of candidates to the left of the far right -- much is better than an alternative of stale bread.

How motivated are people and if not too motivated, what has dampened or tempered that motivation?  

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by: greenpeas @ Mon Jan 18, 2010 at 22:01:41 PM CST

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Coakley's Prosecutorial Abuse (4.00 / 1)

I'm all for electing a Massachusetts Democrat to the Senate, and Coakley at first glance seems like a worthwhile one, but her record as prosecutor is extremely dubious, especially in working hard to keep innocent people in jail.

Read all about it here.

H/T A Public Defender

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by: Jon Kantrowitz @ Tue Jan 19, 2010 at 08:19:02 AM CST

Worth looking at multiple sources on this one (0.00 / 0)

I haven't had a chance to read extensively and have not read Dorothy Rabinowitz's pieces.  Obviously somebody thought her work had merit if she won a Pulitzer.

This letter from the prosecutor in the case does raise some questions that I believe cannot be fairly ignored --

http://web.archive.org/web/200...

namely, that unlike a number of other "abuse" cases, in the Amirault case, the prosecutor maintains that the kids after growing up have never recanted and still say they were abused, and that the physical examinations of the children did support their having been sexually abused. A pediatrician who was said to have expertise in the matter said that usually, kids who have been abused do NOT show physical signs of it, making the fact that there were repeatedly physical signs consistent with abuse that much more noteworthy.  (The MD apparently also said that kids who have not been abused rarely have the signs that these kids have.  So, if one accepts his expertise and accepts that he has the data to make those assertions, I think this is significant information.)

And, even with this letter, there is more to understand -- clearly this does not prove they were abused by the Amiraults, but the alternative theory is that the kids were all being abused elsewhere.  Still it is the responsibility of the prosecution to make its case fully.)  Unlike what is represented on the blog link, the prosecutor says that multiple people did the interviewing of the kids, and unrelated kids from different interviewers kept coming up with stories of abuse.

For some reason I keep getting called for jury duty -- I moved a few years back and ever since moving out of Greenwich have gone from no calls to hitting the jackpot.  Anyhow, I was called this fall and was considered for a criminal trial. What impressed me was what appeared to be the honest effort to use a methodology that would only admit information relevant to the case, and to make sure that the way the information was presented was fair.  We hear all the time about corruption of justice -- but I gained an increased respect for the methodology of court proceedings for the purpose of learning if the prosecution has made its case or not.

I am ambivalent about Coakley -- some of the descriptions of her are great and some of course leave me that she's yet another machine politician or just wanting to know more about her to clarify who she is -- but I think it's important to note that the right wing has been all over this Amirault case and I want to be clear whether this is acceptance of trial by innuendo BY Coakley -- or trial by innuendo OF Coakley.  At this point, I don't have enough information to know.  time is up - election is today.

Have you read the Rabinowitz pieces?  How does this letter stack up by comparison?

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by: greenpeas @ Tue Jan 19, 2010 at 10:58:33 AM CST

[ Parent ]

I had read it at the time- here's an update (0.00 / 0)

the signs of abuse? She says there were none:

http://online.wsj.com/article/...

Most people who have reviewed the record come out on her side - details in her report above.

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by: Jon Kantrowitz @ Tue Jan 19, 2010 at 11:09:57 AM CST

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on the editorial board (0.00 / 0)

Reading only this piece, quite compelling and well written.

OTOH, Dorothy Rabinowitz has been on the editorial board at WSJ since 1990. Has any other paper of record detailed this story?  Since she's both on the board and wrote a book arguing that injustice had occurred, Iwill be looking for an arms length source.

They should be there since you say most who have reviewed the record have come out agreeing with her.

She did not, by the way, say that there was "no evidence".  She picked one child's testimony and said that the testimony of the child didn't correlate to physical evidence.  Other testimony did (4 out of the 5 girls who testified had physical manifestations consistent with abuse -- such as damaged hymens).  Correlation is not corroboration that the accused inflicted the physical signs that were found.   But saying exactly what is so is important imho.

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by: greenpeas @ Tue Jan 19, 2010 at 13:22:54 PM CST

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