Member of the reality-based community of progressive (not anonymous) Massachusetts blogs
This is pretty funny (and also pretty embarrassing). Mysteriously, Eric Fehrnstrom tweeted something incomprehensible coming from him:
Tonight at 8:05 PM, Scott Brown strategist Eric Fehrnstrom tweeted the following from his account:
“I’m excited to announce that Cindy Creem is the newest hire at my charity, Be the Change #mapoli #masen”Why in the world would one of Scott Brown’s strategists tweet a reference to Sen. Creem and Alan Khazei’s Be the Change organization? Why would he do it from the first person? [Lynne’s note: the Khazei campaign just yesterday announced state Sen. Creem’s endorsement.]
For any BMGers on Twitter, you’re probably familiar with the @CrazyKhazei account. For the most part, the account has been impersonating U.S. Senate candidate Alan Khazei and mocking him.
From all this you can more than assume Fehrnstrom is the one behind the @CrazyKhazei account.
As someone who has several Twitter accounts (the most active of which right now is @leftinlowell), I can see how this can happen. I use a program to manage my accounts all at once on my laptop and my smartphone, with all my accounts logged in. I get streams from all my feeds in several columns, and I can post updates to any or multiple Twitter accounts, and even to my Facebook account and pages. I have, on occasion, meant to post something to one account and accidentally had another account checked off instead.
Of course, none of my accounts are tweeting extremely questionable and mocking Tweets about a candidate for US Senate, either.
You have to go read the rest of the BMG diary, as well, where chrismatth gives us some highlights from the @CrazyKhazei twitter account. Additionally, commenter kloechner catches another Brown campaign staffer (his “online campaign strategist” Robert Willington) who was the one to register “crazykhazei.com.”
One assumes Scott Brown signed off on this, on some level. Right? Way to act like you’re in junior high, guy.
Update: the Globe and WaPo blogs have picked up on the story.
And an important one at that, it would seem. Interesting! The Massachusetts Nurses Association decided to endorse Elizabeth Warren before she announced formally as a candidate. This is unusual, though strategic (obviously it’s encouraging to Warren to already be getting them, making a decision to join the race easier to make).
“Even though she is not yet an official candidate, the MNA Board has taken the unprecedented step of voting to support her,” said Donna Kelly-Williams, RN and president of the MNA. “Her dedication to the nation’s middle class, which she has demonstrated through her work as a faithful consumer advocate both locally and nationally, reflects one of the MNA’s key goals: Restoring a basic standard of living for working people by creating financial remedies that hold Wall Street accountable while protecting those who live and work on Main Street USA.”
MNA is “the state’s largest union and professional association for registered nurses” with 23,000 members in MA, so it’s definitely no small thing.
[Via BMG.]
Recently, I blogged “YouTube is Better Than facebook,” in which I criticize facebook cheerleading practices and lauded C.Murphy for setting the standard, so far, for homespun YT campaign videos.
Well, almost immediately, the MacDonald campaign answered with a video: Who’s Listening Lowell The feedback I heard was lukewarm. So, effectively, the bar was not encroached upon. The soundtrack locked that in tight. Personally, I don’t buy into the Taxachusetts victim whimper. My sense of community goodness stretches day in and day out, not just when a hurricane, flood or tornado sweeps through. I lend a hand, when and where I can. My taxes help hold up the safety net that, frankly, we all should find comfort in knowing is there.
Things are tough, but how tough, really? There, normally, are long lines inside the local coffee shops. Wouldn’t torrid economic stress dry up the purchase of such frivilous conveniences? No one is knocking on my door asking if I need my roof done. (Which I do.) But, there seems to be a consensus that we are hurting. Maybe there are those that seek, for the purpose of this City Council race, to co-opt Phil Gramm’s weird observation:
“We have sort of become a nation of whiners. You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline,” said the former Texas senator. “You’ve heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession.”
Is John MacDonald echoing Phil Gramm’s erroneous views in his latest YouTube campaign video?:
Lowell: City Council should always remember the faces that are impacted when property taxes and fees are increased in these tough economic times.
I feel like I’ve used a similar title recently. ;-P
Anyway, who needs steenkin’ poor people to make a living wage, anyway? Especially when your vote against working people is…totally moot.
Saying that the minimum wage kills jobs, yesterday New Hampshire’s Tea Party-dominated legislature abolished the state’s rules on the issue. As is so often the case, however, it was a meaningless move.
The change takes effect Sunday, but it will have no consequence for employers or employees because New Hampshire’s minimum wage was the same as the federal wage, which remains in force. During the fight over the removing the state law from the books, Republicans insisted the wage law not only makes it harder to create jobs, it kills them.[snip]
First term GOP state Rep. Carol McGuire, the repeal’s sponsor, says young workers aren’t worth the minimum wage anyway: “It’s very discriminatory, particularly for young people. They’re not worth the minimum.”
Corporations don’t kill jobs. Minimum wage kills jobs. *facepalm*
That’s why Massachusetts, which has a higher minimum wage than the federal’s $7.25 (MA is at $8.00), has one of the slowest rates of economic growth in the nation - oh, wait.
Just for comparison, NH does have a low unemployment rate of just 5.2%:
But you’ll note that VT also has a very low rate of 5.7% as well, and their minimum wage is higher than ours ($8.15). And to add to that, between workers working in MA, VT, ME etc, fully 19% of NH’s workforce don’t work in NH.
Just sayin’. Not that we don’t welcome the 13% of NH’s citizens paying our income tax, mind you.
There’s reality, and then there’s the redneck leaders of NH’s ginormous volunteer legislature…
[HT to the Mr.]
Really. Don’t make it so easy for us, Scotty!
Customer at restaurant: You’re asking us about jobs and the economy. I mean, what are you seeing?
Scott Brown: People are hurting, they’re frustrated, they’re scared. They’re just basically getting up day to day and paying the bills…what I’m finding as I’m traveling around is that they need regulatory certainty, tax certainty, and taking that wet blanket off…they need government to just take that wet blanket off and leave them alone.
It goes on from there, the whole thing, Scott Brown droning on with the standard anti-governing memes you would expect.
Putting aside for the moment the fact that Senator Pickup Truck is doing his August recess “tour of the state” with only people who’ll pay or are invited to get in (a self-selecting group of constituents that’ll tell him exactly what he wants to hear), what do you see wrong with this campaign video?
All right, I’ll tell you, if you haven’t spotted it. So normally, you see a candidate speaking to a crowd or a small group and hearing from them. Listening to what they have to say and being sympathetic with [insert issue here]. What’s different about this exchange, is it’s all about Scotty. HE gets asked a question about what HE is seeing and HE gets to drone on about it. Normally in a campaign event it’s the other way around.
Talk about man of the people. Even his language, “what I’m finding…is that they need…” Condescending, self-righteous, and then couple that with his self-selecting campaign events full of funders and no one else, and you just have to shake your head. Is this just the real Scott Brown and these were the best clips they could get of him talking to so-called “constituents”? Or are they just stupid?
I am pretty sure this is the real Scott Brown - top-down, faking the “man-of-the-people” routine, totally out of touch. But I wonder why his campaign is so eager to showcase it.
Just to add to the snark, from one of the links talking about his “invite only” policy:
Even reporters were barred from the actual tour portion of the day, with staff citing “liability concerns.”
Riiight. Liability concerns. Like the candidate himself.
[Via BMG.]
You just have to read BMG’s guffawing at the woe-is-me “tradmedia” columnist Jack Spillane. Seems talking to voters and directly posting on blogs instead of going through the media is making him cry. (News for you, Jackie boy, the New Bedford Standard-Times would not be on the top tier for access on a good day). Spillane writes (bold mine for comment later):
From Elizabeth Warren’s fragile performance in New Bedford Wednesday, I couldn’t help wondering if she’s going to be another Martha Coakley. …
She was afraid to even make eye contact with a reporter wanting simply to ask her questions before and after her “listening tour” with area liberals. Rushing past like a typical politician to the safe haven of a friendly audience, Warren seemed like a frightened sparrow. …
The progressive community can convince themselves from now until November 2012 that Elizabeth Warren is the perfect candidate, the little woman who stood up to the big banks for the consumers.
The problem is they have to convince independent voters and the delicate woman who appeared at the United Way building in downtown New Bedford on Wednesday won’t be able to do that….
Warren performed like a hot house flower on Wednesday. If she can’t even deal with the New Bedford press, it’s hard to imagine how she’s going to deal with the Boston, and even national media, that a Brown-Warren race will attract.
The Democrats, it seems to this writer, need a candidate far less fragile, and far more able to deal successfully with the unexpected.
OK, wow, where to start with this. Not to reiterate everything BMG’s David said, but first of all, what an ass, from a feminist perspective. Would he have used those terms if she were not a woman? Automatically I am forced to conclude this guy is at least a mild chauvinist if his writing is any indicator. “Little woman“??? Jesus, could you be any more transparent?
But let’s go with the other obvious truth here. I would like to ask, who’s fragile, Warren…or Spillane?? Take Warren, who stood up against a lot of nasty opposition in her Congressional hearings for the new agency, who, anyone is forced to admit, managed, despite the ridiculously moneyed interests allied against her, to help pass a consumer protection agency with actual teeth? Whose appearance on numerous news and talk shows, both friendly and unfriendly, could hardly be characterized by the words “frightened sparrow”?
Either this guy has been living under a rock, or else he’s ignoring these truths, or else he really is that deluded (any of these is bad for a reporter, don’tcha know?).
But she didn’t talk to Jack. That makes her a hothouse flower. *facepalm*
Whatever you think of Elizabeth Warren, like her or hate her, you have to admit she’s got gumption, and not merely a little bit of delivery style. Jack Spillane, not so much.
So on fairness, reporterFAIL. On substance, reporterFAIL. Who’s cutting this guy’s paycheck? I wonder if they’re really getting their money’s worth.
Speaking of Warren and house parties, I attended one of these today in Andover. First, it was packed. To the brim. And not just all the usual suspects - but a lot of very interested people.
Second, Elizabeth Warren was very good. She spoke a lot about where she comes from, and what she has done, and then she took questions. (Let’s see Mr. Pickup Truck do that with someone who has not paid to be there.) It was obvious she came there to speak and listen to the voters and activists, she’s taking serious consideration of the issues and about the mechanics of campaigning, and readying herself for what will be a grueling year of unfair attacks - and not just from her opposition. Apparently from poor l’il reporters of two-bit newspapers, as well.
She was specifically asked if she had the wherewithal to stand up to attacks, because everyone in that room knew that this was coming (though maybe not so soon). I loved her answer - that she had spent a long time thinking about if she were ready, sometimes with knots in her stomach…and then thought about all those people in America who are struggling day by day, people who’ve gone two years without a paycheck, people who’ve lost their homes, and all the suffering going on with this collapse of the American dream…and if these people, she said, could still get out of bed in the morning and push through despite everything thrown at them, then she could do this.
That is fire in the belly, folks. Not chatting up a minor reporter in a minor newspaper when what she really wants to do at this stage is talk to the people who will vote for her, and work for her campaign should she (in all likelihood) run for Senate. Jack can’t do that for her. But Elizabeth Warren knows who can.
As an aside, I find this whole thing even more ironic in light of the fact that the tradmedia constantly lament how candidates live in a bubble instead of taking it to real people. *rolls eyes*
Lizz Winstead, co-creator of the Daily Show, nails it…just nails it. I almost spit my water out on my laptop keyboard.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Classic, forever and ever. Nevermind the rest of the clip I cut this from, talking about Perry’s “big mouthful,” also a total exercise in absurdity.
Seriously, with entertainment like this, who needs comedy any more?
It’s only August and I’m tired of the City Council election. It’s my own damn fault. I keep my nose in it. I don’t know where the Red Sox are in the standings. I’m sure Tom Brady is still our QB. Heard Milan Lucic brought The Cup back home to Vancouver. The only thing I know about TV and movies comes, pretty much, from my kids. I’m lame.
And I’m bored.
See, all the drama that puts this city into fits, turns into nothing more than local machinations. Very predictable, for the most part. One thing that offers a hint a pizazz is how campaigns approach new media outreach. This is a thing that speaks to the future. It is untried, discoverable. Aka, not boring.
What is boring is the parade of fluff glomming up my FB feed. Like yard signs, facebook don’t vote. For every 10 status updates a candidate puts up cheerleading themselves, I’d like to see one Lowellian post something positive, unsolicited. I put more credence into a coffee shop anecdote about, “I ran into ‘X’ dropping lit in my neighborhood,” than I do a FB update telling me about it. Managing expectations, via FB, is not the way to go folks. Especially, if the candidate is the source of the posts.
Now let’s talk about YouTube. Here is a venue where creativity and imagination can shine. Short clips are effectively digital “lit drops.” These things can fly by e-mail, splash on FB and dwell on the local blog(s). A well crafted YouTube video can tell you a lot about a candidate. By “well crafted,” I don’t mean pro or high production. I mean smart, savvy, homespun brilliance. The type of thing that conveys the aptitude and expression of a campaign with it’s finger on the pulse of this vibrant city.
It’s mid-August. Murphy is out front in this arena. Who else can hang?
Cool! $1M to build out the Riverwalk. I need more places to walk my doggie. 
Anyone know if there’s a single source or map of all the river/canal walkways? I know the riverwalk extends up the Concord River opposite of Middlesex College. And of course the older parks along both sides of the Merrimack near south campus of UML. I know there are also some going through the heart of the city along canals…but I don’t know where things line up, meet up, or meander, otherwise. Ideas?
[Bumped. It’s tomorrow night! It’ll be a really great forum.]
In the last year or so, Lowell has implemented CitiStat, a data-gathering system that is meant to help monitor and analyze the delivery of city services.
Michael Herbert, the city’s new data analyst, will be speaking at the Pollard Memorial Library on Wednesday, August 17th, 7pm. He’ll be talking about his role in city government, CitiStat in general and LowellStat in particular, what LowellStat has already discovered, and the future of LowellStat. The forum is organized by our Move Lowell Forward PAC.
Light refreshments will be served, and you can RSVP on Facebook! Please join us!
PS: This is a great opportunity for candidates. The information Michael will provide will be invaluable.
[powered by WordPress.]
56 queries. 1.026 seconds