Outsiders Stage Convention Coup

WORCESTER—It’s a story of a little David against a big Goliath—literally—and Robert Reich couldn’t be happier to be the small hero.

After garnering just over the 15 percent of delegates’ votes necessary to make it onto this fall’s primary ballot at Saturday’s Massachusetts Democratic State Convention, the Cambridge resident and former Harvard lecturer said that his victory was symbolic of something even greater—the victory of clean politics.

In fact, the current Brandeis professor turned Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate addressed cheering fans—including Harvard students and professors such as Malkin Professor of Public Policy Robert D. Putnam—on top of his signature block, saying that his Saturday victory was “just the beginning.”

“All I can say is they said it couldn’t be done,” he said over cheers and the sound of rustling trademark yellow and blue signs. “We did it without any deals, we did it the straight way, the grassroots way, the Reich way.”

There was celebration all around the convention, from grassroots activists to party establishment insiders.

State Treasurer Shannon P. O’Brien narrowly won the party endorsement over state Senate President Thomas F. Birmingham ’72 by garnering over 50 percent of the vote in the third round of balloting, giving her a strong edge in the three-month fight for primary votes.

Even Clean Elections candidate Warren Tolman had something to smile about, as he made it through to the primary by catching nearly 30 percent of the delegates in the second round of convention balloting.

Reich praised delegates for giving voters the opportunity to decide who would represent Democrats in the Sept. 7 primary.

And, indeed, with all the eligible candidates receiving at least a 15 percent portion of the delegates in a single round of voting, the choice of the party’s candidate was left entirely up to fall primary voters.

Nevertheless, Saturday was a day for delegates to cheer on individual candidates—and cheer they did.

Kilts and bagpipes, “Don’t let MITT happen” buttons, purple hats and mardi gras beads were all ways in which delegates expressed their support for their candidate of choice. Reich fans’ signs and cowbells were arguably the most prominent force on the convention floor, but O’brien begged to differ.

“You guys are lunatics, you know?” she told her supporters from the podium. “I have the best lunatics in the room.”

Taking Turns

As per convention rules, each candidate for governor was allowed to make a 20-minute presentation pitching their platform.

While most consisted of a combination of video and speeches, they differed drastically in tone and composition.

O’Brien stressed issues of fiscal responsibility and her record of strong leadership, while longtime Beacon Hill insider Birmingham, who also began with a smoothly-edited video, pushed hard on his background as a labor union lawyer.

“He fights for us, and wins,” read his delegates’ hunter green t-shirts and signs.

Tolman, the 1998 Democratic pick for lieutenant governor, took a distinctly different tact with his 20 minutes.

His video, which opened with a clip of him singing “I’m a toll-man” to the tune of the Blues Brothers’ “Soul Man,” focused on a Back To the Future theme, using clips from the 1985 sci-fi thriller to “travel” through the course of his life, from his early days as a child in Brighton housing projects to his career in the state senate.

Former Massachusetts and national Democratic party leader Steve Grossman used a short video, but relied on the son of a local hero to speak for him.

Josh Zakim, the son of former Anti-Defamation League Boston Regional Director Leonard P. Zakim, spoke on behalf of his father who died of cancer in 1999. The younger Zakim stressed Grossman’s close friendship with his father, and the support he provided to the Zakim family upon his father’s death.

A Common Enemy

It was not moral character, or even proven leadership potential, that characterized the slant of most candidates’ pleas for support.

Proving that the best defense is a good offense, each candidate stressed why they were the party’s best chance to beat Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

O’Brien’s video presentation began as a mock tourist advertisement for Utah, complete with shots of forest and mountains, ending with the line “Scenic Utah. Let’s send Mitt Romney back,” and inspired widespread cheers from delegates.

O’Brien asserted what polls have shown—that she is the party candidate best suited to beat Romney in November.

“She can win for all of us,” read the practiced voice of an announcer at the end of the video portion of her presentation.

Birmingham accused Romney of attempting a “corporate takeover” of the commonwealth.

“We’re not just an economy,” he said. “First and foremost we are a society.”

Grossman went furthest, airing a roughly five-minute segment with a Romney stand-in (shot only from behind), getting cheap laughs in the audience over Romney’s lack of definitive policy positions.

Grossman ended his presentation with Elvis Presley’s “Return to Sender,” and he had members of his family with giant styrofoam red pointing hands sway to the music, hands in the air, symbolically sending Romney back west.

Except for the gags, however, Democrats were serious about regaining control of Beacon Hill’s corner office after 12 years of looking in from the outside in a traditionally Democratic state.

O’Brien blasted Republican leadership for failing to deliver on campaign pledges of financial reform and fiscal responsibility.

“Those were false promises then, and they’re broken promises now,” she said.

—Staff writer David S. Hirsch can be reached at hirsch@fas.harvard.edu.