With my election earlier this week to the West Brookfield Board of Selectmen, I am thinking carefully about my priorities. While I do that, I have decided to put The Eisenthal Report on hiatus. I have not decided how - or in what form - The Eisenthal Report will continue. I know that I need to keep writing in some form - for all kinds of reasons. I expect to make long-term decisions regarding TER before the end of June. I expect to announce my plans regarding TER by July 1.
I was elected yesterday to the West Brookfield Board of Selectmen.
On a beautiful spring day, 621 of West Brookfield's 2,159 registered voters, about 28 percent of the total, went to the polls - a very impressive turnout for a local election in which there was one race to be decided. I received 400 votes, or 64.4 percent of the total. My opponent, former Quaboag Regional School Committee member Diane S. Vayda, received 219 votes, or 35.3 percent.
This is a victory for West Brookfield. There is now a real opportunity for the Town to build the confidence that its citizens have in the services it provides. I'm looking forward to working with Selectmen Barry Nadon and Tom Long to build that confidence.
During the campaign, I really got to see how beautiful and friendly West Brookfield is. I knocked on almost 600 doors since mid-March - something like half the households in West Brookfield. While this was hard work, it was a real treat to see the town's natural beauty in a way that it can't be seen from a moving car. It was also heartening to see the reaction of those whom I visited in my door-to-door campaign - that reaction was almost uniformly friendly. Perhaps they were relieved that I wasn't a Jehovah's Witness, but I think that many people were pleased that a candidate cared enough to ask them for their vote.
There's one more thing. I had a great group of supporters - I couldn't have done this without them. They have my deep and humble thanks.
Now the hard work begins.
With three days to go to West Brookfield's annual town election, two area newspapers have stories on the race for Board of Selectmen - in which I am one of the contestants.
The Quaboag Current ran profiles of the candidates for the West Brookfield race, as well as races in other communities that will be decided in the coming week. (Page 3)
This morning's Republican (Springfield) ran a story on the race by reporter Chris Hamel, with whom I spoke on Thursday evening. (You may need to scroll down to view the story.)
This week's edition of the Spencer New Leader, a weekly newspaper that serves the Route 9 corridor west of Worcester, has responses that my opponent and I gave to a questionnaire that addresses our qualifications and our positions on issues that affect West Brookfield. The responses are on page 12. Also in the paper was some paid advertising (page 9).
The Quaboag Current, a weekly newspaper that covers West Brookfield and other nearby communities, ran interviews with me and my opponent in the edition that came out on Friday. These interviews, which begin near the top of the front page, were fair and well-presented. There was one minor factual issue; the paper said that I send my kids to local schools. We actually send them to a religious day school out-of-district. The Current will be running a correction in next week's edition.
Welcome to those of you who came here because of the article in the Spencer New Leader about my campaign website, David for West Brookfield.
The focus of this blog generally is the whole world of politics, public policy, and culture, but recently my focus has been mostly on my race to win a seat on the West Brookfield Board of Selectmen.
As we get closer to Election Day in West Brookfield, May 6, I expect to comment on - and link to - more stories in the local media about the election. I'll also comment on any major events that happen in the campaign.
If you are a West Brookfield resident, please feel free to contact me by e-mail by clicking on the e-mail link in the upper left corner of this page.
Readers of TER will have noticed that I have not posted in the past week.
There have been some interesting and important events that have been worthy of comment. The Massachusetts House passing new revenue measures this week is an example. However, my focus has been mostly on my own race for Selectman in the Town of West Brookfield.
We're now 25 days from the election - it will be on May 6. Things are starting to get interesting - lawn signs for me and my opponent are popping up around West Brookfield like spring flowers. (So far, more mine than hers.)
I've been working at it. I took the advice of a client of mine who said to me, "David, you need to get out and get on the stump" - and so I have.
MassInc, the Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth, is holding a high-profile panel discussion this coming Thursday on the politics of the budget difficulties facing Massachusetts.
The panelists include former Senate president Thomas Birmingham, former Senate Ways and Means chairwoman Patricia McGovern, former secretary of Administration and Finance and MassINC board member Thomas Trimarco and former secretary of Administration and Finance Steve Crosby. It is moderated by Jim Braude from WTTK and NECN.
The discussion will be at the Omni Parker House in Boston from 8:00 AM to 9:30 AM on Thursday, April 10.
Given the budget problems that face the Commonwealth and its cities and towns, including West Brookfield, this sounds like it should be a very interesting and timely discussion.
On this terrible anniversary - the fortieth anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., I can do no better than to point back to a TER piece from about fifteen months ago - on the occasion of the Martin Luther King holiday in 2007.
In that piece, I wrote that
As a society, we are still sorting out his legacy - and his work is far from finished. However, if we survive as a coherent society in the coming decades and centuries - if we avoid the fate of other ethnically diverse societies such as Northern Ireland, Yugoslavia, and Rwanda - it will be in no small measure because of the work and the example of Dr. King.
Today is an important anniversary for me.
Twenty-four years ago today - April 2, 1984 - I was elected to the School Committee in Sharon, Massachusetts. I had turned 22 the previous November - and so was the youngest elected official in the history of the Town of Sharon to that time.
I was elected to a one-year term to fill a vacancy created by the resignation of a member of the School Committee. One year later, I was elected to a three-year term of my own. I served two years of that term. I resigned from the School Committee in the spring of 1987 at the age of 25. I had gotten married the previous summer - and my wife and I decided to move away from Sharon.
My three years on the Sharon School Committee was the beginning of a career that has focused on city and town government. In 1986, I went to work for the Massachusetts Division of Local Services, where I provided technical assistance on financial matters to Massachusetts cities and towns. Three years later, I started with Shawmut Bank, where I began working as a financial advisor to cities and towns on borrowing issues. I have been in that line of work ever since.
With the experience and knowledge that I've gained over the past 24 years, I am ready - if I am elected to the West Brookfield Board of Selectmen on May 6 - to start working immediately for the people of West Brookfield. I would come into office with ideas and a vision for West Brookfield's town government. I believe that I would combine fresh ideas, strength of principle, and an ability to forge good working relationships in a way that would make me an effective Selectman from day one.
This year's town election is an important one for West Brookfield. For the first time in five years, West Brookfield will be electing a new Selectman. This is happening at a time when we face possibly the worst recession since World War II. Indeed, West Brookfield is beginning to face the financial pressures that other Massachusetts communities have been facing. With my local government finance background, I believe that I am the strongest candidate for Selectman in this environment.
And so I ask the people of West Brookfield for their votes on May 6.
This week, two local newspapers included stories that mentioned local campaign-related activities.
The Spencer New Leader included an article (page 2) on the shape of the May 6th election. It confirmed that the only contest in West Brookfield will be the race for Selectman. The election for Regional School Commitee will not even fill all of the seats in this election.
The Quaboag Current ran a story (pages 1 and 8) on the proposed reconfiguration of one of the major intersections in West Brookfield. This intersection is along the perimeter of the West Brookfield Common, which is one of the very attractive features of this community. As one might expect, this proposal has gotten a lot of scrutiny - and raised a lot of emotion. The Board of Selectmen held a public hearing on the topic this week - I attended that hearing. The Current's story included a question that I asked regarding funding for the project.
Former Sen. Mike Gravel, who has been a candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination, announced yesterday that he is leaving the Democratic Party and joining the Libertarian Party.
Gravel, who was a Senator from Alaska from 1969 to 1981, had gotten some attention from Democratic voters, but not much support for his populist views. Gravel favors establishing a national referendum process for enacting laws at the federal level; he also favors elimination of the federal income tax, favoring establishment of a national sales tax called the "Fair Tax."
TER interviewed Sen. Gravel in a 90 minute session in December 2006. This interview, which was presented in two parts along with an analysis, covered a wide range of the Senator's views. I felt at the time that given Sen. Gravel's distinguished record of service in the United States Senate, he was owed a respectful and attentive airing of his views (even though those views were far from my own). I described those views as constituting a "radical populist agenda." I thought there was some chance that he might catch on as an outsider candidate - somewhat like Ronald Reagan in the run-up to the 1980 presidential election. I thought that, like Reagan, Gravel is an affable and capable politician who could couch radical views in an unthreatening way.
As it turned out, Gravel came across in Democratic debates during 2007 as angry and somewhat bizarre. My feeling is that had the economic turndown started some months earlier, and if Gravel had been more Reaganesque in his approach, he might have gained more traction with primary voters. He was very unlikely to be a contender for the Democratic nomination, but he might have won some delegates and - given where Senators Clinton and Obama stand - might have been able to have influence on the Democratic agenda.
Now, Mike Gravel turns to the Libertarian Party. He intends to seek that party's nomination for President. It is not clear how much success he will have given that a number of Libertarian Party activists are already seeking that nomination. Even if Gravel does win the Libertarian nomination, the Libertarian nominee for President has gotten more than one percent of the popular vote in only one election: 1980, when Ed Clark got 1.06% of the vote. It is hard to think that Gravel will do even that well.
This week, my campaign for a seat on the West Brookfield Board of Selectmen launched a campaign website.
David for West Brookfield (http://www.david4westbrookfield.com) is not as fancy as the sites for some candidates for higher office, but it tries to convey some of the same kinds of information - my reasons for running, my positions on the issues, and my background.
We're also planning more pictures on the site - there's one already of a meeting of our campaign committee - and other visual media. We'll also link to information on new developments in the campaign - these will actually be posted here at The Eisenthal Report in a new category called My Campaign. This category now includes several posts that I have already posted over the past several months on the campaign.
The election is coming up on May 6 - less than six weeks away. We have our work cut out for us - but with many hands, we can be successful.
Arthur C. Clarke, one of the great science fiction writers of all time, died this afternoon (U.S. time) at his home in Sri Lanka; he was 90.
His most famous work was the novel and film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, but he was known also as a futurist, who was credited with the idea of geosynchronous satellites, among many other ideas.
On Thursday afternoon, Sen. John Kerry (D - Massachusetts) held a "blog conference" with a number of Massachusetts bloggers, including Bob Neer of Blue Mass. Group, Mike Ball of Marry in Massachusetts, and this observer - Bob actually liveblogged the session.
This was the second "blog conference" held by the Senator. Sen. Kerry's first "blog conference" was held in April 2007. That session was an extended - and enlightening - discussion. Thursday's session was less substantive - though Sen. Kerry (prompted by a question from Bob Neer) did present a good overview of the issues that he believes are important to Massachusetts as he seeks re-election to the Senate this year. These include the economy, immigration, energy, national security, and the environment.
On the economy, Sen. Kerry said that he had proposed a provision in the recently approved stimulus package that would have addressed the crisis in mortgage foreclosures. This provision was struck out of the legislation, however.
On immigration, the Senator expressed frustration with the politics of the issue. He said that the temporary worker visa program - important particularly to the economy of Cape Cod - was being "held hostage" to Bush administration priorities.
The Senator said that he is "fully engaged" with his re-election campaign, "taking nothing for granted." He is back in Massachusetts this weekend in conjunction with his drive for signatures on his nomination papers.
(A note about terminology. This observer is attempting - without much apparent success - to create a neologism. "Blog conference" is intended to mirror the usage of "press conference." We'll see if it eventually catches on.)
This morning, I delivered my nomination papers for Selectman in West Brookfield, Massachusetts to the Town Clerk's office.
I expect no problems gaining a place on the May 6 ballot. However, I also expect now that there will be a contest for the seat. A former member of the Quaboag Regional District School Committee has taken out papers - and I fully expect this person to be a candidate.
I plan to run a positive campaign that emphasizes my strong combination of experience, knowledge, and commitment to public service. This race should not be about individual political agendas - it should be about who can best work with Selectman Barry Nadon, Jr. and Selectman Tom Long to do the best possible job for the people of West Brookfield.
Even with its strong financial reserves, West Brookfield is facing tough budgetary pressures this year. With my background in municipal finance, I have ideas and solutions to protect the Town's financial position while maintaining Town - and School District - operations. One such idea is the adoption of a reserve policy - setting targets for upper and lower limits for free cash and the stabilization fund. Such a policy could be critical to maintaining the financial health of West Brookfield.
West Brookfield has recently had issues in a number of town departments, including the police department, that have shaken the confidence that townspeople have in their town services. With my background in local government, I have ideas and solutions to help restore confidence in town services. One such idea is that department heads be held accountable for the operations of their departments through goal setting and performance evaluations. As I envision it, this process would not be punitive - rather, it would be constructive in helping the department heads - and their departments - perform better for the people of West Brookfield.
With my professional and volunteer experience in local government - going back 24 years - I know what it takes to combine fresh ideas, strength of principle, and good working relationships in a way to be an effective Selectman.
As a Selectman, I will always seek to be approachable and available - I will always return a resident's phone call. I will never forget that the Selectmen are elected by the people to do the people's business. I will not always agree with everyone on every issue, but I will always seek to be responsive and respectful.
Winning this election will only happen if many hands participate. I appreciate the friendship and support already shown me - from within and beyond West Brookfield. We will need money and volunteer support - from within and beyond West Brookfield - in order for this campaign to be successful. Please contact me at the e-mail address in the upper left corner if you are able to help.
In the wee hours of this morning, most of the United States moved to Daylight Savings Time (DST).
For a number of years, DST began the first Sunday in April. This year, Congress approved an earlier start date for DST - the second Sunday in March. The rationale for this was that the extended daylight in the early evening would reduce energy costs and improve automobile safety.
For a majority of Americans, the change will likely have precisely that effect. Morning commutes and other routines will not be greatly affected, but evening commutes and routines will be enhanced by the extended daylight hours.
However, for a portion of the country, the change may not have a completely positive net effect on energy and safety. Those are the parts of the country that are located in the eastern portions of their time zones.
Time zones were originally created in the nineteenth century to provide some uniformity to railroad schedules. They were grounded in the system of longitude based at Greenwich, England. As there are 360 degrees of longitude in total, and 24 hours in the day, each time zone would encompass about 15 degrees of longitude. The time zones would be centered - roughly - on the longitudes evenly divisible by 15; in the United States, these "center meridians" would be 75, 90, 105, and 120 degrees west of Greenwich.
As time zones actually evolved in the United States, and population grew, the effective centers of the time zones moved west. Only 11 states - with less than 20 percent of the nation's population - are either mostly or entirely east of the "center meridians": the six states of New England, New Jersey, Illinois, Wisconsin, Alabama, and Nevada. In these places, the sun rises and sets earlier than in the rest of their time zones.
The effect of the earlier switch to DST in these states is that the early morning, which had been seeing daylight, will go dark again for another month. In Boston, the sun rose yesterday, at 6:08 AM EST. Today, it rose at 7:06 AM EDT. In Chicago, the sun rose yesterday at 6:14 AM CST. Today, it rose at 7:12 AM CDT.
In metropolitan areas like Boston and Chicago, there are many people who rise early and arrive home late. The later sunrise might actually mean increased energy use for such people. It will be interesting to see the effect on energy usage in such places.
At this point, around 2,500 pledged delegates to the Democratic National Convention - a little over three-quarters of the total - have been chosen.
Only 138 pledged votes separate Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton. According to CNN, Sen. Obama has 1,328 pledged delegates to Sen. Clinton's 1,190. If one adds in "superdelegates," the margin is a bit closer - Obama is estimated to have 1,527 total delegates to Clinton's 1,428.
There are nine states remaining that have not cast ballots in this process - not including Florida and Michigan. Mississippi will the next state to weigh in - the Magnolia State votes on Tuesday. Sen. Obama has been leading in the polls there. After Mississippi, we will be waiting six weeks for the next contest - the Pennsylvania Primary on April 22.
According to currently available polling data, if the remaining states - Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Indiana, North Carolina, West Virginia, Oregon, Kentucky, Montana, and South Dakota - vote as the polls currently indicate, Sen. Obama will be leading in delegates over Sen. Clinton by about the same margin as he is now, but will have between 1,700 and 1,800 total delegates - between 200 and 300 delegates short of the number needed for the nomination.
At this point, there seems to this observer to be no discernible momentum toward either candidate. Even with his win in the Wyoming Caucuses yesterday and his expected win in Mississippi on Tuesday, the Illinois Senator has not regained his post-Super Tuesday momentum. However, Sen. Clinton has not really gained any momentum on her part. While she has succeeded in stopping Sen. Obama's momentum, it does not seem that she has gained any of her own.
Perhaps Pennsylvania will be a turning point in establishing momentum for Sen. Clinton or Sen. Obama. However, it is also possible that a win - as expected - by Sen. Clinton could leave the waters even more muddied than before. After the final Montana and South Dakota primaries in June, the candidates could be even closer together in their numbers of pledged delegates than projected now - with neither having the 2,025 delegates need for nomination.
It is possible that even the "superdelegates" will not be able to decide the contest. According to CNN, out of 796 "superdelegates," 437 have endorsed a candidate - 238 for Clinton and 199 for Obama. According to these numbers, 359 "superdelegates" have not declared a preference. These remaining "superdelegates" could still split in such a way that neither candidate has 2,025 votes.
If the nomination process gets to this point, the Democrats have a number of options. The "superdelegates" could caucus and agree to support that candidate that the majority of "superdelegates" support. This would seem to be both unlikely and undesirable - unlikely because it's hard to imagine figures like Ted Kennedy, who have endorsed Sen. Obama, agreeing to hand the nomination to Sen. Clinton in this way and undesirable because it will inevitably lead to charges of "backroom dealing." The party could seek revotes in Florida and Michigan. If the expense of such revotes can be figured out, this might be a good way to go. Of course, there would be the ultimate compromise of a Clinton/Obama or Obama/Clinton ticket. The difficulty here is deciding who would get the top spot.
Presidential primaries have been the dominant method of selecting Presidential nominees since the 1960s. In the context of this recent period of history, the Democrats are in uncharted territory. We need to go back to the 1920s to see a Democratic nominating contest as potentially deadlocked as this one. In 1924, it took 103 ballots for the Democrats to nominate John W. Davis; Davis went on to lose to President Calvin Coolidge in the November election. The 2008 Democratic convention might be able to nominate a candidate on the first ballot - but it should not be taken for granted.
TER now takes its monthly look at virtual markets. These are markets found on the Internet in which participants invest virtual money - no real cash - to make predictions or to assign value. These markets function like real stock and bond markets. If participants invest more in a given prediction or value, the "price" of that prediction or value gains; if participants invest less, the "price" goes down.
TER has been following the Hollywood Stock Exchange and some of the prediction markets at Inkling. (Disclosure: I do not participate in HSX, but I do participate in the Inkling markets discussed below except for markets that I administer - and I do not currently administer any markets.)
Hollywood Stock Exchange
TER has been following six actors on the Hollywood Stock Exchange: George Clooney, Halle Berry, Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, and Gary Oldman.
Gary Oldman - Sirius Black in the Harry Potter films, among many other roles - has taken first place overall from Emma Watson - Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter films. Oldman rose from $220.81 to $225.22 per share, while Watson decreased from $221.85 to $216.81 per share. Daniel Radcliffe - Harry Potter - retains third place among actors at $195.47 (a slight decrease from the previous month), but fell to fifth place overall behind directors George Lucas and Andrew Adamson. Rupert Grint - Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter films - remains in fourth place among actors and sixth place overall at $172.83 per share.
George Clooney again gained, moving from $50.57 to $53.61 per share. Halle Berry also gained, going from $91.44 to $97.44 per share.
Inkling Markets
Much has changed in the Presidential race in the past month. Sen. John McCain (R - Arizona) has clinched the Republican nomination. In early December, Sen. McCain's chances were valued by the Republican nomination market at $2.86 per share - a 2.86 percent chance of success. Someone buying 100 shares in early December for $286 cashed out at $10,000 (virtual money, of course).
We're still in a major contest on the Democratic side between Sen. Hillary Clinton (D - New York) and Sen. Barack Obama (D - Illinois). What has become curious in the prediction markets has been the disconnect between different markets regarding the probability that one or the other will gain the nomination. I first noted this disconnect in a piece almost three weeks ago.
The market for the Democratic nomination itself currently shows Sen. Obama at $65.37 per share and Sen. Clinton at $34.62 per share - about 2 to 1 odds in favor of the Illinois Senator. The Presidential Election market, however, is much more bullish on Sen. Obama, showing him at $51.09 per share, or slightly better than 50-50 odds of winning the Presidency. Sen. Clinton is at $12.39 per share. These prices imply that Sen. Obama has an 80 percent chance of winning the Democratic nomination (51.09/(51.09+12.39)) - 4 to 1 odds in favor of Sen. Obama winning the nomination. The real odds cannot both be 2 to 1 and 4 to 1.
In the real world, a difference like this between real markets would be a major arbitrage opportunity - those who guess right would stand to make significant profits while those who didn't would face big losses. We'll see in the coming weeks how this sorts itself out.
Some new markets include whether Florida and Michigan will have new primaries, who will be on the Democratic Presidential ticket (President and Vice President), and will any Democratic Presidential candidate have the needed 2,025 delegate votes needed for nomination by August 1.
Other markets offered by Inkling include which teams will win Major League Baseball's American League East, American League Central, and the World Series, and who will win the United States Senate race in Minnesota this year. In the latter race, comedian Al Franken continues to be favored to win over incumbent Senator Norm Coleman. Franken has risen to $36.69 per share, while Coleman is at $20.45 per share.
Results from today's balloting in Rhode Island, Vermont, Ohio, and Texas have gone as earlier expected as of this writing.
As of 10:30 PM, Eastern Standard Tine, CNN has projected that Sen. Barack Obama has won in Vermont and that Sen. Hillary Clinton has won in Rhode Island. Texas and Ohio are too close to call, although Clinton seems to be pulling ahead in Ohio.
CNN has also projected that with wins in all four states, Sen. John McCain has won enough delegates to clinch the Republican Presidential nomination.
