Another Chris Doherty piece arrived in the mail, as well; this one on illegal immigrants. Doherty’s piece of it affirms the non-controversial stand that “illegal immigrants who commit violent felonies or drug trafficking offenses should be deported.” I believe that’s already the case.

This flier also contains a very sharp attack on Eileen Donoghue, highlighting a case she handled as a criminal defense attorney in which her client was alleged to have sold forged social security and green cards to illegal immigrants. The defendant ended up on probation and paid a fine. About that, Doherty says “Eileen fought to keep them out of jail and put our community at risk.”

Doherty doesn’t name the defendant in the case, but he does provide the docket number – 91-cr-10233-EFH. The “91″ means it was a 1991 case and the “EFH” means it was heard by Judge Edward F Harrington. So this case is 19 years old and was commenced four years before Donoghue first ran for the Lowell City Council.

Before anyone brands this as a Democratic scandal, the Globe story reminds us that this prosecution only targets violations of Federal law for illegal donations to Federal candidates (i.e., Congressmen). Raffol allegedly used the same technique to make $30,000 in additional donations – all illegal under state law – to candidates for governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, the state legislature, district attorney, Mayor of Boston and Boston city council. Presumably some state agency – the Attorney General, perhaps? – will soon prosecute those violations in state court.

If these allegations are true, Mr. Raffol clearly violated the law but his behavior is not uncommon (he was just unlucky enough to become ensnared in the FBI’s Diane Wilkerson corruption investigation). In the shadowy underworld of big money political fund raising, this practice is well known. The recipient politicians happily turn a blind eye to the practice while the money rolls into their campaign accounts. There’s never an express quid pro quo, just an unstated “understanding” that subtly nudges government decisions in a way that will ultimately be to the donor’s benefit.

Why does the system work this way? Because in politics, money is king. The pundits, whose salaries are paid from these funds, say so. The media, whose stations and papers profit handsomely from paid political advertising agree. So it must be true.

A profile of disgraced former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich in the July 26, 2010 edition of The New Yorker (“What about me?” abstract available here) illustrates the transformative effect prolific fund raising has on a politician. Before being elected governor, Blagojevich, the son-in-law of Chicago political titan Dick Mell, served in Congress. Here’s how Pete Giangreco, a former Blagojevich’s media adviser, describes the transformation:

“The moment he transitioned from a backbench kind of nobody congressman to a serious candidate for governor was when he filed with a million dollars,” Pete Giangreco said, citing Blagojevich’s financial reports. “Overnight, Rod went from Dick Mell’s schmucko son-in-law congressman with the goofy hairdo to ‘Holy shit, this guy could be governor.’ And he never forgot that lesson, that the thing that made him real was money. After that, the thing that made people come to him, to advise him or advocate on policy or whatever – your advice was only as good as how much money you could raise.”

Here is the video description: This is the line at the The Amazing Race casting call in Tewksbury,MA on August 28,2010. We arrived at 6:30 and the end of the line was at the same point where it ends in this video. We were out of there at 9:30 AM so the wait was ~3 hours.

I am not an economist, nor do I play one on TV. I am struggling along with others to understand all the moving – and not moving – parts. And I am yearning for President Obama to outline a bold and comprehensive approach to solidifying gains and moving forward.

Today’s “hastily arranged” Rose Garden speech by Obama was hardly satisfying. While he called for a comprehensive strategy on the economy, the only specific message was to blast Senate Republicans for blocking a bill providing tax cuts for small businesses, which is where jobs are created. It ought to pass, but he was beyond vague in laying out other strategies. I get the sickening feeling he doesn’t know. That feeling was reinforced by microphone difficulty, promptly the President to tap it repeatedly, asking “Can you guys still hear us?”

We can hear you, Mr. President, but what impact are you able to have? He reminded us that it “took ten years to dig us into this hole,” and it’s going to take longer than we want to dig us out. But we shouldn’t be paralyzed into inaction because of the more than $11 trillion debt built between 2001 and 2008. (In fact, the greatest build-up of debt since World War II occurred under Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.) Yes, we all worry about the annual deficit and the aggregate national debt. But the answer to that is to grow the economy, and that means adding jobs.

We’ve been in a vicious downward spiral, wherein the economy lost some $12 trillion dollars in the housing and stock market crashes. Reduced consumer confidence, purchasing power and demand for goods chilled business investment. Steps taken at the end of the Bush administration and by the Obama administration stopped the great recession from becoming a full-blown depression. The economy has added an average of nearly 200,000 jobs a month this year, half in the private sector. At a minimum, the economic stimulus act reduced our net job loss. But we have a long way to go to make a dent in the unemployment rate. And, even if the rate does go down, if you don’t have a job, for you the unemployment rate is still 100 percent.

As has been noted, the economy has to grow 3 percent just to keep the current 9.5 percent unemployment from increasing. (Many economists say that the number is closer to 16 percent if you count those who have stopped looking for new jobs and those who are underemployed.) Yet quarterly economic growth (1.6 percent) was well below the 2.4 percent estimate; the rate of recovery has been slowing. Even if we achieved the rate of employment growth we enjoyed in the late ‘90’s, we wouldn’t reach pre-recession unemployment levels until 2015.

As Congressman John Tierney said in a recent speech, quoting others, “’I told you’ so is not a policy, and blame is not a solution.” Tierney and others in the Massachusetts delegation say it is premature to stop priming the pump. We need to sustain investments in infrastructure. (Even Scott Brown, speaking at the New England Council, conceded the need for “targeted stimulus,” while insisting he remains opposed to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act..)

Will Obama’s “comprehensive” strategy include tax incentives for starting new businesses and for hiring? Will he address the need to end tax breaks that encourage corporations to outsource jobs overseas? Where do we go from here, and what will President Obama do to lead us there?

For a man who inspired hope and big picture vision just two years ago, for a President who led this nation to pass a generational health care bill as well as financial services reform, his vision is flirting with failure on the economy. As E.J. Dionne points out today in the Washington Post, “Obama has created the impression that he is taking things one decision at a time, without a passion for how he would like the country to look in the long run.”

Let’s hope he uses the Labor Day holiday to outline an imaginative and comprehensive approach to creating what Labor Day is all about: jobs.

Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below

“Glacier National Park in Montana is home to the Going-to-the-Sun Road” (Web photo courtesy of NYT / Anne Sherwood for The New York Times)

Being related to the Democratic candidate for Congress has its ups and downs. I get my pick of overly large T-shirts with the appropriate logo for that year etched on it, and that’s a plus, especially when you run a landscaping company and you need many shirts to do your work. Functions are really quite enjoyable. You have some cheese and crackers, and talk with people you agree with about politics. You try to figure out how to appeal to those voters who are on the fence or even on the other end of the spectrum. It is good mental exercise.

You have to have a thick skin in the political spectrum. You have to defend the right of a friend or an enemy to disagree with you in the most fundamental way. You have to allow them to scream everything they believe at the top of their lungs while you wait your turn to scream the things that you believe in at the top of your lungs. And, in the end, you need to still be friends at the end of the day.

Most of my friends are conservatives who are voting for Niki because of her outstanding (my word) support for the Veterans, and for the City of Lowell. I mean, Lowell Public Schools just got a bundle from the state which will help us continue to post increases in our standardized testing. We can hire more teachers and retain the good ones we have. Under this governor, Police and Fire Departments have not been as hard hit as they could have been. I like this governor but that is the stuff of another article.

It is hard to see your family and its good reputation tossed around like a piece of chicken in a picnic basket. You lived through some incredibly difficult times, saw persons of great learning and ability die from cancer. Your wife remembers when she was twelve and she met her sister-in-law to be for the very first time. It was exhilarating.

Now you are fighting a fight in which your President’s policies seem to be harming people’s campaigns. This was a President in which you held, and still hold, a great deal of promise. What about the deficit, you ask? Statistically, I believe we had a larger deficit to finance WWII. We practiced, and are currently practicing, something called Keynesian Economics, the spending of money to jumpstart an economy that this President had nothing to do with until the past year and one half. The benefits of Keynesian economic principles is that there is actually a plan to make the money and give it back. As Keynes says, it would be cruel to not spend the money and let the people starve. And, Keynesian economics does not see the nonstop use of money borrowed on credit. It sees an end to it, an end which must be regarded highly.

My question is, “Why are we so mad?” We knew this would be tough. We knew that we were not paying for the Iraq war during the Iraq war. We were not surprised to see that George Bush had put us in debt to the tune of eight trillion dollars in eight years, a trillion a year. Let’s let Keynesian theory run its course. And, let’s not panic in the Fifth District. We are the district, after all, of the start of the American Revolution. We are the district that dictates to other districts how to save money; remember Paul Tsongas’ book, “A Call to Economic Arms.” I was challenged by a man in Gloucester as to how Paul was going to finance education with a balanced budget. I remember my response was something akin to ‘Take a look at page –,”

I met Scott Brown and I know as a Democrat I was not supposed to be impressed but I must admit I was. He seems like a reasonable guy. Little Miss Palin says that he would not measure up in Alaska? Who would? This is a vital election year and it is important that we don’t “throw out the baby with the bathwater.”

Anyway, the Fifth District race is, in my opinion, a testament to our ability to see the whole picture. Veteran’s Issues, Deficit Spending, and all of the other issues keep us educated and honest. We have to stay involved, or our lack of involvement will cost us our country. So whether you agree or disagree with my Democratic leanings, stay involved. It is the best way out of the mess we are in.

WCAP scored an interview with Republican Congressional candidate Jon Golnik during the 8 am newscast. The topic was yesterday’s disclosure that Golnik had been arrested for DUI back in 2001. Questioned by news director Kim Saltmarsh and morning host Ted Panos, here’s what Golnik had to say: On the night of his arrest, he was coming home from a concert. He had had too much to drink and made a bad decision to drive. The case was disposed of with a Continued Without a Finding (CWOF) after he had admitted sufficient facts to warrant a finding of guilt. He completed an alcohol education program as part of his sentence. When asked about the police report that said Golnik had admitted to smoking marijuana and had rolling papers in his possession, Golnik said “There’s no truth to that; it just didn’t happen.”

When Ted Panos asked him why he hadn’t voluntarily disclosed this earlier, Golnik said he had given a lot of thought to how to deal with it. He said he knew it was “out there” and “didn’t try to expunge it” from his record. He did contradict himself a bit saying at one point “I knew it would come out” and then (something like) “I thought that because it was a decade ago it wouldn’t be relevant.”

Golnik did say that he’s been gratified by the “outpouring of support” he’s received since the disclosure and that “it” – I assume he meant the arrest and not the disclosure of it – has made him a better person. He said that he’d never driven while intoxicated “before or since” the night he was arrested. He finished by saying “We have momentum” and “I think we’ll be in good shape [on election day].”

In the First Middlesex Senate race an Eileen Donoghue flier arrived in today’s mail. The piece focused on Donoghue’s support and accomplishments for the public schools while serving as mayor of Lowell: “With experienced leadership and a fresh perspective, we can bring everyone to the table to ensure that public schools receive the resources our kids deserve.” The piece is illustrated by several photos including one of Donoghue alongside Mayor Jim Milinazzo, City Councilors Keven Broderick and Bill Martin, and School Committee member Jim Leary, all holding Donoghue signs.

As I wrote last night, during her four years as mayor, Donoghue was a very effective advocate for and leader of the city’s public schools. Her leadership of the school committee during that time would have to be judged as one of her most significant accomplishments in public office. That’s why yesterday’s Chris Doherty flier attacking Donoghue on the topic of funding for education is so ironic. Doherty seems to have taken a page out of the Karl Rove playbook. You may remember that in the 2004 presidential race, John Kerry’s military service in Vietnam was thought to be a huge asset. The country was at war, so wouldn’t it be better to have a commander in chief who had been in combat rather than one who had been sheltered in a stateside Air National Guard unit during the war? Rather than change the subject, Rove, as Bush’s campaign manager, chose to directly attack Kerry’s military service. And thus we had the “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” whose allegations were anything but that, but who succeeded in muddying up the waters enough to turn Kerry’s strength into a negative. By attacking Donoghue on education funding, Doherty is pretty much doing the same thing – trying to turn a Donoghue strength into a negative. It worked for Rove and Bush. In twelve days we’ll know whether it will work for Doherty.

No candidate wants news of a prior DUI arrest to break two weeks before the election. I suspect that Republican primary voters will be in a forgiving mood and won’t penalize Golnik too harshly two weeks from today. Should he be the nominee, however, general election voters might not be as forgiving. Golnik is an unknown quantity and has thus far been defined to the broader electorate as someone who failed to vote in quite a few elections and now as someone who, at age 35, was arrested for driving with double the legal limit of alcohol in his system in addition to having smoked marijuana (if the police are to be believed).

Shifting focus to the First Middlesex State Senate race, another Chris Doherty flier arrived in today’s mail. In this one, Chris pledges to “protect our children” and to “support our schools” while at the same time attacking Eileen Donoghue for “voting to double her pay when our schools could have had more funding.” As I wrote in this post last week, this line of attack is misleading – the “doubled salary” was only $7500, a minuscule amount when compared to the school department’s $120 million budget. It’s also misleading in that during Donoghue’s 4-year tenure as mayor, she was a vigorous and aggressive advocate for increased funding for the public schools. But plenty of misleading attacks have proven to be very effective and this one might end up being just that, especially if Donoghue fails to respond or responds ineffectually as was the case last week when the attack was countered only with a press release from her Boston-based political consultants.

A note in today’s Globe about a vintage postcard exhibit at the Boston Public Library, reminded me of the value of post cards as historical and cultural documents.  While this exhibit focuses on early 2oth century Boston, the millions of cards in the hands of private collectors and in local historical societies and libraries have opened a door on the past. Images of pastoral and recreational scenes, cemeteries and gardens hold sway along with those of municipal buildings, bridges, schools, train depots, hotels, street scenes, waterways and much more. Some cards even have multiple images alongs with catchy greetings – all wanting to bring a touch of an area visited to home and family. According to the Globe article, Americans mailed more than 677 million postcards in 1908 alone. Many cards of traditional American scenes  were made  in Germany back then. Lowell collectors know that’s why the sand-colored stone of Lowell Tech buildings often appear red-brick in color post cards. The German artists must have thought all buildings were like mill buildings!

I wonder what the historical ”post card” resource will be for the early 21st Century. Do we even use postcards these days? What role could “Facebook-ing” greetings and images play? I don’t want to see  post card usage become so passe that they disappear!

The Lowell Historical Society has published two post card books that are windows into a past time. Check out these publications here: http://ecommunity.uml.edu/lhs/sales.htm

“First-year students are officially welcomed to the university community at Convocation on Tuesday, Aug. 31 at 10 a.m. at the Tsongas Center at UMass Lowell. The keynote speaker is Bill Strickland, winner of a MacArthur Foundation ‘genius grant’ and more than 10 honorary degrees for his work to combine the arts, job training and culture to fuel positive social change.

Bill Strickland (web photo courtesy of mcgyouthandarts.org)

“Strickland began his own personal transformation as an inner-city high school student more than 40 years ago when he saw a talented art teacher spin a mound of clay into a work of art on a potter’s wheel. Strickland, his creativity ignited, used art to inspire other youths from his Pittsburgh neighborhood through the Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild, an after-school program he founded while still a college student. Today, he leads the Manchester Bidwell Corp., a national model for education, culture and hope that works with both adults and youths to provide market-driven career education and training.

“Convocation also introduces the Class of 2014 to two of the 24 new student organizations founded since the same time last year, the UMass Lowell Gospel Choir and the new a cappella singing group, ‘Hawkappellas.’ A special presentation will be offered by ‘In Your Company,’ in which students will perform spoken word pieces about their life experiences as they navigate young adulthood and life at UMass Lowell. Their stories are used to make connections to the audience by providing avenues to appreciate difference while highlighting commonalities.

“Following Convocation, students are invited to a barbecue outside the Tsongas Center that features a club fair where they can find out about UMass Lowell’s 130 student-run organizations and how to participate.”