Tag: Insider

66% of Democratic voters said it’s important the 2020 Democratic candidate has decades of political experience, along with 52% who are looking for an insider. Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders are viewed as closest to the establishment, while Democrats see lesser-known candidates as outsiders. Two-thirds of Democrats surveyed March 15-17 said it’s important that the party’s eventual nominee has decades of political experience under his or her belt. Fifty-two percent of the party’s voters said it’s important that the Democratic presidential nominee be a political insider, compared with 29 percent who preferred an outside operator. The poll asked voters to rank a list of current and possible 2020 Democratic candidates on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being a political insider and 10 meaning they’re a political outsider. Both septuagenarians are leading in Morning Consult’s weekly Democratic primary tracking polls of likely primary voters, despite a strong preference among Democratic voters for someone under 70. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who’s sought to frame herself as an outsider by swearing off traditional, big-dollar political fundraisers, scored 3.7. At this early stage, whether or not a candidate was considered an insider, and their standing in the horse-race, is highly correlated with name recognition. On the 1 to 10 scale, Buttigieg was one of the least likely to be scored as an insider, scoring 5.5 on the 10-point scale, putting him almost equal to businessman Andrew Yang, a long-shot contender. A Morning Consult/Politico survey in January found the bulk (44 percent) of Democrats said that when considering their vote, picking someone they think has the best chance of beating Trump in the general election was more important than the candidate sharing their preferred policy positions or values.

Then the chairman of the New Britain delegation, Bill Shortell, stepped forward to announce vote switches in his delegation, an integral part of every convention that allows, even encourages deal-making before the vote closes. Now, five days later as the Democrats open their two-day convention, a political debut that could have been a feel-good moment for Democrats, no matter who ultimately wins the nomination in a primary in August, has turned into something else, with angry questions from the NAACP about the motives for the vote-switching away from a black woman, resentment from some Glassman delegates about Murphy’s involvement — and just a whiff of a voting irregularity. Shortell had announced three vote switches Monday night. On Monday night, other delegations announced vote switches at the 5th District convention, a practice allowed by the rules and common to Democratic and Republican conventions in Connecticut, a state with a hybrid nominating system of conventions dominated by insiders and relatively open primaries. Winning enough votes to primary on that ballot, he released his delegates on the second. The voting system is simple: Each delegation chair has a form with the name of every delegate from their community. On Shortell’s paperwork, he identifies only one delegate, Peter Kochol, who switched from Hayes to Glassman. His explanation about how the vote switches came about was succinct: “The switchers made up their own mind.” Robert Berriault, who says he also switched his vote, said, “When it comes to close votes like that, you have to do what’s best for New Britain.” Glassman got the edge as a New Britain native. The problem is votes being switched with nobody’s name on that,” Esdaile said. “I’m a teacher.” Outside the state convention on Friday, Murphy wondered if the time had come to forgo conventions.

If only Donald Trump were party to the deal to shut down Mount Ida College and turn the 74-acre campus over to the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Healey also announced an investigation into Mount Ida president Barry Brown, the board of trustees, and assorted Mount Ida officials as to whether they breached their fiduciary duties. Brown, a longtime professor at Suffolk Law School, was appointed provost of that university in 2008 and became acting president in 2010. He took the Mount Ida job in 2012. After Brown and Jason Potts, Mount Ida’s chief financial officer, ducked the Senate hearing on Wednesday, Senator Kathleen O’Connor Ives, the chair of the committee, threatened to subpoena them. But to borrow from Macbeth, the shock expressed in the aftermath of this deal so far boils down to “sound and fury, signifying nothing.” According to Carmin Reiss, the chair of Mount Ida’s board of trustees, the school’s administrators knew in 2017 that they were at the financial “point of no return.” That didn’t stop Mount Ida from admitting students or taking their money. “We’re confident we’ll do just fine in that review,” she said after the Senate hearing. While Mount Ida deserves scrutiny, no one should forget the other party to this deal: UMass. What happened at Mount Ida is unconscionable. But UMass and the state’s top political leaders didn’t try to stop it.

He began his career in government in 1970 as the youngest state senator elected in North Carolina history. Overall, he has worked with 10 of the state’s governors. In 1989, Kirk was named president of N.C. Citizens for Business and Industry, the state’s most powerful business lobby and official state chamber of commerce. Back in the good old days of bi-partisan co-operation and civility, Gov. Scott was reported to have said, “We need at least one Republican in the group and he is too young to have any influence.” Q: What was the most significant political event that you participated in and why? Jim” because she wanted me to run for governor and thought I would have a better chance if my name were Jim! For 28 years we had governors named Jim and all were Presbyterians. Kirk: I have always loved to read; however, many years ago all my reading was related to my various jobs in education, politics and business. I don’t remember how or why I chose John Grisham, but I probably wouldn’t have selected him if I had known he would write more than 30 books! Kirk: When I became involved in politics as a Teen Age Republican in Rowan County, there were no Republicans in office.