PAYING ATTENTION!

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Choose your Candidate Wisely
How to Get Through the Doublespeak

As we predicted back in march, Mayor Dowling has announced that she is not running for reelection. While I am tempted to talk about her three-year reign of terror on city workers and her abysmal track record, I would rather look ahead to the future and talk about the opportunities Lawrence has before us.

The past three mayors have followed a disturbing pattern of behavior, which has kept Lawrence from moving forward in the greatest economy this nation has ever seen. The lack of leadership in Lawrence over the last fifteen years is the direct result of how we choose these leaders at the ballot box.

We have consistently chosen leaders, particularly mayors, by a process of elimination and for the most part people vote against the candidate they like the least instead of researching the abilities and experience of each candidate to pick the one they like the most. There has also been a prevailing attitude among voters that it is important to choose people who share the same ethnicity as them.

Just as Lawrencians of Irish and Italian decent faulted when they would vote exclusively for their Irish or Italian candidates, our newest immigrant group, Lawrence’s Hispanics have followed that pattern of voting as well. The view among politically active Hispanics in this city is that we need to have Hispanics in elected office in order for the Hispanic population to be adequately served by city government. We must learn from the mistakes of history or we are doomed to repeat them. And as I have said before, if we always do what we’ve always done we’ll always get what we’ve always gotten.

I disagree strongly that we need to have someone of a particular ethnicity to represent a certain group in the city. This kind of thinking only divides us and promotes the belief that only a Hispanic can represent Hispanics well and only Anglos can represent Anglos well. I use Senator Ted Kennedy as a perfect example of why ethnic and categorical representation doesn’t work and is a fallacious argument. (Not to mention that it’s racism)

Allies and foes of Senator Kennedy would agree that he has been the chief advocate in the U.S. Senate for the poor, Blacks and Hispanics, working women, laborers, and the nonworking class. Yet, Kennedy is a rich, white, male of privilege who has never held a union job, been on welfare, or suffered discrimination because of the color of his skin.

Choosing someone based on their ethnicity or the label they wear only serves to put poorly prepared people into office without the leadership abilities we need to make Lawrence an economically thriving community. So, how should we choose our next mayor? In my 16 years of experience in Lawrence elections I can tell you that the biggest obstacle to choosing a leader is the rhetoric and language used by the candidates themselves. If you want to pick better leaders than the ones we have chosen in the past, do one thing and do it well;

pay very close attention!

It is just as important to listen to what a candidate says as it is to listen to what they do not say. When a candidate is asked a question on any topic it is very easy for them to change the question around or change the subject completely without directly answering the question. Don’t let them get away with that. These are people seeking a job and the questions they ask are like the questions you would answer if you were going on a job interview. If you tried that while seeking a job you would never get hired.

While candidates are answering questions about the election stay focused and be sure that they stay focused as well. One of the tricks politicians use to avoid answering a question is to say something like this: "You know that’s an important question but first let me say that public safety (insert issue here) is my number one priority…." Then they never get back to the original question because the candidate knows people want to talk about issues like public safety.

Another trick to listening to a politician is to hear how they try to lead you to believe that their answer is the answer you want to hear without coming right out and taking a stand. This allows them to have full deniability if they get reelected or do the opposite of what they lead you to believe they were going to do. Mayor Dowling did this several times in the last mayoral election. When asked about enforcing residency, Dowling’s answer was "I am a lawyer and I believe in enforcing the law." This lead voters to believe that she was saying she will enforce residency because it is the law. But she never had any intention to enforce residency. Instead she had the council change the law to water down residency as a vague and unenforceable law. Then she set guidelines for exemptions to the law which almost everyone in the city qualifies for.

I don’t bring this up to take shots at Patty Dowling. I raise this issue as a perfect example of the type of answers not to accept from the nine mayoral candidates seeking your vote. You see, these politicians choose their words very, very carefully. They purposely look for language which will lead you to believe they are on your side on any given issue when, in fact, they are engaging in political doublespeak. It’s a lot of work learning how to listen to a politician if you really want the answers to important questions. But nobody said it was going to be easy. Doing things the easy way is what has gotten Lawrence into this mess, it is going to take a lot of work to dig us out.

As of next week, I will be running a special Paying Attention election edition of this column for the sole purpose of analyzing the political rhetoric and explaining exactly what the candidates are and purposely not saying. Some politicians are very good at avoiding taking a stand on anything because their goal is to isolate the least number of voters they can. Every time they take a stand on an issue they lose votes, just ask Barry Finegold the king of wavering.

If you truly care about Lawrence and want to see this city thrive you have an obligation to listen to every candidate carefully and question the language they use when speaking in public. Look for neutral words, phony issues, and answers which are misleading. Pay particular attention to the way they handle direct questions like "Are you in favor of privatizing the water department?" If the candidate has spoken for more than two minutes without giving a direct "yes" or "no" answer they are stalling and looking for the best way to answer the question without actually answering the question.

You also want to listen closely to public statements which are not specific. In the last City Council race Mike Sullivan said the following "I believe we need to increase public safety, get crime down in the city, we need to make sure our children have good schools, and we need to revitalize downtown." Read that quote again because it is a perfect example of a politician who wants to sound good while saying absolutely nothing. He didn’t say HE was going to find ways to revitalize downtown. He didn’t give specifics as to why you should choose him to bring about better schools, and to say he is for public safety is an insult to our intelligence. What candidate in our city’s history has ever said "I’m against public safety?" Neutral and non-specific public statements are designed to make the candidate sound good and say nothing.

If you want another mayor like Kevin Sullivan, Patty Dowling or Mary Claire Kennedy you can continue to vote for someone because he’s a nice guy, or because he shares your ethnicity. But if you want progress in the leadership of the city you must first learn how to choose better leaders and set a different standard as to whom you vote for.

The person who sits in that corner office and the individuals who represent us on the School Committee and City Council will hinge on the way you choose your candidates. Choose wisely, my friends and Pay Attention. We are at a crossroads here and this election could determine the city’s fate for the next ten years. The direction we travel will depend on you!