The Democrats debate

Channel surfing the local access stations today I came across an interesting debate between the two Democrat challengers running for Scott Brown’s old State Senate seat. There is a special election on May 11^th, and a primary for the Democrats will be held this Tuesday, April 13^th. There is no Republican primary as there is only one Republican running, Richard Ross.

The Democrat debate pits a long-time Beacon Hill hack Lida Harkins against a political new-comer/Doctor Peter Smulowitz. In my opinion the newcomer doctor won the debate handily, even though his political positions seemed to the left of Ms. Harkins. Ms. Harkins has been a State Rep for the last 22 years, and has carried water for some of the most infamous House leaders such as Sal DiMasi,Charles Flaherty and Tom Finneran. The contrast between the cog in the State House machine and the fresh face of Mr. Smulowitz was fairly dramatic, in my opinion.

Of course both were wide off the mark in terms of coming up with any solutions to the state’s problems. Mr. Smulowitz, when asked how he would jump-start employment in the state, indicated that he would address the healthcare burden on small businesses, which jumped dramatically last year. He seemed to identify the problem correctly, but failed to make the next mental leap to the cause of the problem: the state’s version of Obamacare passed into Law under Mitt Romney. Mr. Smulowitz is a big supporter of Obamacare.

Ms Harkins solution to the unemployment problem seemed limited to ‘spend more money’ and ‘build casinos’. She seemed to acknowledge that there were serious harmful effects that were likely to develop from casino construction, pointing out herself the likely negative effect on the lottery and local aid, but she indicated she was willing to take that risk to get some work for construction unions. Mr. Smulowitz is against casino building.

Bottom line: watching these to leading lights of the Democrat party debate brought home in spades why Massachusetts has run aground under Democrat leadership. Lets begin fixing the mess: vote for Richard Ross on May 11^th.