Well, one out of three ain't bad.I voted to endorse
Bob Massie for Governor,
Jimmy Tingle for Lieutenant Governor, and
Josh Zakim for Secretary of State. I am not giving any trade secrets away by saying so. The very public, very analog nature of Massachusetts state politics in the twenty-first century continues to astound and delight me.
Last year I voted by shouting "Aye" and "Nay" and in cases of close calls literally standing up and being counted. This year I voted, when the pair of tellers reached my name in the town-by-town, ward-by-ward roll call of the Second Middlesex District, by calling out the names of my chosen candidates, hearing them echoed by one of the tellers, and watching them be written down double-entry-style in the spreadsheets of an iPad and the pages of a three-ring binder. Anyone within earshot could hear me. I could hear them. There was a lot to hear, since the Second Middlesex apparently brought this year's greatest number of delegates to the convention. (This was alleged as the excuse for sticking us up in the nosebleed seats of Worcester's DCU Center, where we were eye-level with some catwalks and a rather large Canadian flag I assume is reserved for hockey night. I made my congressman,
Representative Mike Capuano—perhaps better known outside of Somerville as
Captain America's uncle—laugh by telling him, since he had glad-handed me and asked how I was doing as I passed him on the steep concrete stairs, that I was fine except for the altitude sickness.) Now imagine this same call-and-response playing out in every one of the state's forty senatorial districts, all across the convention center, all at the same time, intermittently punctuated by whoops and cheers whenever a ward or a district finishes casting its votes. Australian ballot? That must be for weirdos who don't want to shout back and forth at each other for two hours in the middle of the afternoon. Seriously, I think the major difference between my day's experience and your average nineteenth-century election was a relative absence of booze. And probably fewer hats.
I had wanted very much for Massie to win the endorsement for governor. I think he's worth it; I even think he's electable. He gave a lucid, passionate
tzedek tzedek tirdof speech that I liked better than anything I heard this morning except maybe Jimmy Tingle's "This is the message of the Democratic Party. Feed the hungry, house the homeless, heal the sick, welcome the stranger—and, I would add, fix the T," but in neither case did the majority of my fellow delegates agree with me. I am still glad I was there. I propped my head on my hand and dozed a little during the opening remarks, but I did not fall asleep during any of the candidates' speeches and I had some nice conversations with fellow delegates, the same colleague of
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spatch's whom I ran into last year, and my alderman whom I last saw on the bus. Sometimes we talked activism, sometimes children's books. I never did find a lanyard for my delegate's badge, so it's still in the pocket of my grey jacket. I do not think I will ever say "under God" when I pledge allegiance to the flag.
I had to extricate Hestia from under the cushions of the couch almost as soon as I got home, but after falling ravenously upon some leftover pad thai and a sour cherry brownie I am now lying on the Hestia-free couch, watching the sun set; this morning I watched it rise. The gubernatorial primary is in September, the election itself in November. There will be plenty of local politics to pay attention to between now and then. First, however, I think I am going to fall asleep. I was counted.
