Milton Valencia, “Michelle Wu says Boston is ready for change. But is Boston ready for Michelle Wu?,” Boston Globe (6/30/20)

“It doesn’t feel to me that people in the traditional power center of the city have noticed the city is changing, not only demographically but ideologically,” said Rachel Poliner, of the Roslindale and West Roxbury chapter of Progressive Massachusetts. (Wu was the only incumbent to get the group’s support.)

In recent candidate forums, Poliner said, members were less focused on neighborhood matters and more driven by big-picture issues: housing, transportation, the environment.

“There are issues that we really need action on,” Poliner said. “And there are processes that we believe we can engage in, in ways the city isn’t.”

New progressive strongholds have sprouted within the city, as well. The city’s highest turnout in 2018, by the percentage of registered voters who cast ballots, was in Wu’s neck of Boston: along the Southwest Corridor that stretches from Jamaica Plain through Roslindale and into West Roxbury, what Larry DiCara, a former councilor and longtime city politics observer, called Boston’s new “lefty strip.”

The Boston Globe’s Milton Valencia reported on the efforts to take over ward committees in Boston with diverse and progressive counter-slates:

“People are ready to embrace that Boston has shifted, and let’s make it shift in more ways,” said Rachel Poliner, of the Roslindale and West Roxbury chapter of Progressive Massachusetts. She said the independent growth of the Fresh Slate campaigns in separate neighborhoods shows a citywide desire for change.

Kenneal Patterson, “Progressives push for takeovers of Boston ward committees,” Bay State Banner (1/29/20)

**

When Massachusetts voters head to the polls on Tuesday, March 3, most will have their minds fixated on their presidential candidate of choice. But as fierce as the 12-way race for the party nomination is, many Boston voters will face even more heated battles at the bottom of the ballot, where dozens of candidates are vying for seats on their local ward committees.

“People need to know that the confusion on the rest of the ballot is worth paying attention to,” said Rachel Poliner, an organizer with Progressive West Roxbury and Roslindale, who is part of an effort to diversify the Ward 18 Democratic Committee.

The Hyde Park-based Ward 18 is one of four in Boston where insurgent progressive slates of candidates are seeking to unseat incumbent members in the once-every-four-years committee elections. The other committees are Ward 1 in East Boston, Ward 3 in downtown Boston and Ward 9 in the South End and Roxbury.

Poliner said that in the last presidential primary, 74% of Ward 18 voters left at least some of the ward votes blank, indicating a lack of interest in the contest. She stressed the importance of ward committees, emphasizing their direct connection to neighborhoods across Massachusetts.

“The ward committee can do a lot,” Poliner said. “They’re supposed to be the grassroots of the party.”

“Joe Kennedy III Is an Insider, Not an Insurgent” — Maia Hibbett, The Nation (1/23/20)

 “I think [Kennedy] realizes that with more people organizing here—and Massachusetts turning more progressive in the next few years—he would probably not have a shot if he waited,” Missouri said. According to Jonathan Cohn, a chair with the grassroots organizing group Progressive Massachusetts (which is waiting to survey its members before endorsing a candidate), “In his launch video a few months ago, [Kennedy] talked about that rhetoric of urgency, seemed to be evoking an Ayanna Pressley ‘change can’t wait’ mantra, although that hasn’t really been his legislative style.” ….

According to Cohn, “the political goodwill of Kennedy’s last name in many ways neutralizes the incumbent advantage.” It’s likely, too, that it helped drum up a slate of endorsements: Last week, 18 House Democrats announced their support for Kennedy. But endorsements, Cohn said, “only have power if they’re actually put to work.

**

“Progressive Leader’s Endorsement Of Kennedy In Senate Primary Rankles Some Activists” — Daniel Marans, HuffPost (1/19/20)

A lot of people in Massachusetts, even if they like primary challenges in general, are irritated with the idea of a very drawn out, expensive primary battle,” said Jonathan Cohn, chair of the elections committee of Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide left-wing group, which has yet to endorse in the Senate race. 

The left’s most specific knock on Kennedy is likely his refusal to join the House’s single-payer health care bill until March 2019. Markey, who is a co-sponsor of Sanders’ Senate bill, has backed single-payer legislation since 2009, when he was in the House.

“I don’t know [Kennedy] as pushing the ball forward on issues and I know on something like single payer there was a lot of organizing that it took to get him to that position,” Cohn said. “The question for Massachusetts voters is: Who is it easier to push?”

Milton Valencia, “Will Michelle Wu run for mayor of Boston? And can she win?,” Boston Globe (11/26/2019)

“I get the sense that there’s some bubbling up of energy,” said Rachel Poliner of the Roslindale and West Roxbury chapter of Progressive Massachusetts, which endorsed Wu. She pointed out efforts to organize new slates of progressive-minded candidates for ward committees in Hyde Park and East Boston, to unseat the traditional Democratic establishment.

“If we’re talking about the challenges the city faces and what needs to be done,” she said, “then we need people who think big.”

The Boston Globe‘s Victoria McGrane and James Pindell analyzed the dynamics of a contested Senate primary between Markey and Kennedy within the Massachusetts Democratic Party. PM issues and elections committee chair Jonathan Cohn weighed in:

“A challenger needs to make the case that there’s some issue that hasn’t been addressed and some urgency that’s lacking,” said Jonathan Cohn, chairman of the issues committee of Progressive Massachusetts, a grass-roots advocacy group. If there’s such a case to be made against Markey, he said, “I haven’t heard it.”

JP Progressives’s Ziba Cranmer was quoted in a new article by Yawu Miller in the Bay State Banner about the year’s Boston City Council elections:

JP Progressives’ Cranmer said interest in this year’s races is already ramping up. Between in-person attendance and online views, 300 people watched the group’s at-large candidates forums.

“It’s about at the same level of interest as the DA’s race was last year,” she said.