THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION election unleashed forces of racism, sexism, anti-immigrant sentiment, and authoritarianism that, we now know, have been simmering just beneath the surface of the collective American polity. But the election of a president who campaigned on threats to dismantle protections for the least among us also has mobilized millions of freedom-loving people to […]
Massachusetts
Posted inOpinion, Politics
Galvin’s low energy dampens voting innovation
SINCE THE FLORIDA election debacle in 2000, the United States has seen dramatic developments in the administration of elections. States are modernizing and innovating so much that the act of voting in 2016 would be almost unrecognizable to a voter from the 1990s. But not in Massachusetts. Here in the Commonwealth, where innovation is typically […]
Posted inPolitics
Urbane mechanic
GOV. CHARLIE BAKER, who took a decidedly workaday approach to his first year in office, favoring a head-down focus on the basics of government over a sweeping vision for Massachusetts, peered ahead in his first State of the Commonwealth address – and promised more of the same. The well-heeled MBA with a nuts-and-bolts bearing offered […]