Bulging union campaign coffers | MassGOP moderates hunt for candidate | Sticker shock in Quincy | Recycled news |
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Deep-pocketed Republican investor eyes governor’s race
Looks like the moderates in the MassGOP, an endangered species with Gov. Charlie Baker’s decision to bail on a third term, are making their move.
Wrentham Republican Chris Doughty is weighing a run for governor, the Globe’s Matt Stout reports.
Doughty, president of Wrentham’s Capstan Atlantic, has been testing the waters with calls to party officials with hopes of running on his background in manufacturing.
Doughty’s firm “produces gears and other metal parts” for California-based Capstan Inc., the paper reports.
If so, Doughty will provide some competition to Trumpie Geoff Diehl in the crazy train otherwise known as the state Republican Party primary.
Interestingly, Doughty gave a $1,000 contribution in December to State Rep. Shawn Dooley, a Wrentham Republican who tried last year to unseat Jim Lyons as state party chair, the Globe reports.
Lyons, a hard-core devotee of the last president, has been a major thorn in Baker’s side.
Still, Doughty will have his work cut out for himself trying to prevail against Diehl in a Republican primary dominated by hardliners.
The quote of the day goes to Eric Fehrnstrom, a longtime Republican consultant and, way back when, a reporter at the Boston Herald.
Fehrnstrom may be best know for his work with Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and two-time presidential candidate who is now a Republican senator for Utah.
"So, it might be easier to pass a camel through the eye of a needle than getting a moderate through a Republican primary," Fehrnstrom told WBUR’s Anthony Brooks.
Mass. governor’s race Rockefeller? Walsh
Ok, Marty Walsh, the former-Boston-mayor-turned-federal-labor boss, is still prowling the sidelines.
But we are pretty confident he’s not on the lookout for spare change, for if Walsh decides to jump in, money will definitely not be a problem.
That simple mathematical fact was driven home Thursday, when a list of the most loaded political action committees in Massachusetts was released.
And wouldn’t you know, eight of the ten are union PACs, and of these, four hail from the building trades sector, where Walsh got his start as a laborer and rose to become head of the Boston Building Trades Council.
The construction unions alone control $3 million – or a bit less than what Attorney General Maura Healey, another noncandidate candidate weighing her options, has in her campaign war chest.
That’s before we get to the $5 million and change in Walsh’s own campaign account from his years as mayor.
During the 2013 campaign that catapulted Walsh from a state rep to Boston’s mayor, unions, including national labor groups, chipped in more than $2.5 million.
And it’s not just the cash, but the thousands of foot soldiers the labor movement can provide for ringing doors, manning phone banks, and passing out flyers.
Now take all that, and put it on steroids, for if Walsh runs, national labor leaders will certainly open the coffers to help elect one of their own as governor of a major state.
Staring at $170 million price-tag, Quincy hits pause on new police station
No, the chief wasn’t demanding gold plate fixtures for his office or a luxury, blast-proof bunker, though let’s just say Quincy’s planned new police HQ doesn’t lack for size.
Plans for Quincy’s new police station call for a four-story, 120,000-foot building with a 276-vehicle garage, along with a firearms training range, an emergency operations headquarters, and a roll call room, with some training space thrown in.
All of which would be just fine in normal times, which, with supply chain issues and galloping inflation, these most definitely aren’t.
With the original $150 million estimate for the project having jumped to $170 million in less than a year, Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch, hit with a major case of sticker shock, took plans for the public safety complex back to the drawing boards.
Working with Suffolk Construction, the general contractor, city officials are looking at new plans that would delay construction by eight to 10 months, but would also shave up to $5 million off the project’s price tag.
As for the parking garage, it is now looking like it will be assembled from pre-cast pieces, as opposed to being poured in place, which could also yield a savings in the seven figures.
We can’t speak for Quincy’s finest. But it’s hard to imagine that pre-cast versus poured in place will be a deal breaker here, though stranger things have happened.
A touching story, if a tad bit recycled
It was quite the touching story that appeared near the top of the Globe’s website on Friday.
In December, 1945, a GI in occupied Germany mails a letter to his mother.
Seventy-six years later, the U.S. Postal Service, having skipped over half the 20th century and a chunk of the 21st, delivers John Gonsalves’ letter to his widow, 89-year-old Angelina “Jean” Gonsalves, at her home in Woburn, the Globe reported Friday.
Yet, there was a familiar ring to the Globe’s story about the soldier’s letter.
Could it have been it appeared in the Washington Post two days before? Why yes, it did.
But if the postal service can deliver a letter 76 years late, I guess a couple days is no big deal for a follow up.
A hopeful note in the Washington Post blues
Speaking of the Post, it remains hard to figure out where new Executive Editor Sally Buzbee, former head of the just-the-facts AP, is hoping to take one the world’s greatest news organizations.
The Wall Street Journal recently dug into some of the issues at the paper, and it’s not pretty. Facing a decline in readership with the end of Trump’s presidency, Buzbee has been pushing more features.
The paper’s coverage, which hit new heights under Marty Baron, feels adrift.
But there is glimmer of hope. Buzbee, who took over in the spring, just put the finishing touches on her management team, appointing Steven Ginsberg, who led the paper’s Trump coverage, as managing editor.
Maybe Ginsberg, who was seen as a potential candidate to succeed Baron, can bring some stability and a sharper direction to the paper’s coverage.
What is Contrarian Boston?
I have fielded emails over the past couple weeks asking what Contrarian Boston is about.
Here’s a link to our mission statement – you can find it in the “about” section.
For a more prosaic, nuts-and-bolts description, read on.
An online newsletter, Contrarian Boston publishes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. In Contrarian Boston you’ll find analysis of the day’s news, and original reporting as well.
Our focus is:
· Politics and all levels of governance, good and bad, with an emphasis on state and local, with some national mixed in;
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· And whatever else catches our fancy.
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Thanks for reading and see you Monday.