Yeomen and Tea Party part three
I’ve been posting my thoughts about updating the classic work by Edgar Litt, The Political Cultures of Massachusetts. In part one I spoke about Litt’s yeomen as our modern-day Tea Party, their current...
View ArticleRegulate and Punish
Last week I attended a forum on a new way for the state and municipalities to bargain productively with public employee unions. In the midst of the hopes for reform one discussant raised as a barrier...
View ArticleMoral Foundations Theory
I think quite a bit about how to create productive lines of communication between left and right. One of the most productive developments regarding the foundations of individuals’ political...
View ArticleThe Governor Party Managers II
Managers were the rising power when Edgar Litt published The Political Cultures of Massachusetts in 1965. They were a group that in some ways combined the Worker heritage of second and third...
View ArticleThe Governor Party – Managers III
So why do Republicans have such success at winning the governor’s office while facing ritual disaster in contesting other seats (putting aside the Brown victory for the moment). For one thing, as my...
View ArticleBoston Globe Goes Pollyanna on Political Culture
The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine ran a hopeful cover highlighting a Scott Helman story arguing that the legislature’s 2012 redistricting law shows a culture change on Beacon Hill. Perhaps. But one...
View ArticleThe Governor Party – Managers V
I’ve been so distracted by polls and contraceptives I haven’t finished posting on the cultural group “the Managers,” the key group to winning a gubernatorial election. Managers is one of the four...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Popular Perception versus the Evidence in the Brown-Warren Senate Race
Scott Brown’s re-election campaign has a much tougher fight this fall than the pollsters, pundits, and press corps seem to realize. The popular perception that this Massachusetts US Senate race is a...
View ArticleBest of: Boston Globe Goes Pollyanna on Political culture
Boston Globe Goes Pollyanna on Political Culture Posted on January 17, 2012 by Maurice T. Cunningham The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine ran a hopeful cover highlighting a Scott Helman story arguing that...
View ArticleIrish Pols 2, Puritan Prosecutors 0
Lost in the wake of the Marathon bombing and the senate race was John O’Brien’s good news-bad news week. The good news for the former Probation commissioner was he was found not guilty of bribery...
View ArticleCongressional Report Cards Are Out!
An article in Monday’s Springfield Republican discussed the “2013 Report Cards” of the members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation. These annual assessments of the performance of every member...
View ArticleMass Politics: Ambition Welcome
An appreciation of political culture is very important to effective campaign strategy at any level. The way in which candidates deal with the question of political ambition (theirs and/or their...
View ArticleA juror’s take on the O’Brien trial
Last week, an anonymous juror schooled a powerful Mayor while also raising concerns about due process for a powerful Speaker and federal prosecutorial power. Our anonymous juror took Mayor Marty Walsh...
View Article
