> Not long after the preliminary election, a group of almost 18,000 Black Boston voters received a curious campaign mailer. No pictures of glad-handing candidates. No mention of the candidates at all. > > Instead, a mild scolding. > > “Thank you for voting in last year’s presidential election,” it read. “But public records show you missed voting in the important election for mayor last month.”

Wow, talk about racism. "Because you are black and I didn't win didn't vote for me, you must not have voted."

I don’t understand how you came to that conclusion. It’s not about who voted for who. Its that they targeted black people that voted in a national election but not a local election.

Massachusetts as a whole, which is decidedly less liberal than Boston alone, elected a black governor and overwhelmingly voted for a black president… twice.

But let’s worry about what bingo squares we haven’t crossed out yet in every elected office.

Not surprising that in Boston everything is focused on race rather than on real issues around wealth inequality.

Except this wasn't a candidate sending that.

Also, whether or not a person voted in elections isn't exactly secret data. That list they use to check you in when voting doesn't just get thrown out after the polls close.

Plus mayor Wu's the first female mayor of Boston & the first non-white mayor of Boston. Wu already broke stereotypes & shows that Boston's willing to elect someone who's not a white male as mayor.

Agreed. Never had a Jewish mayor, but Mike Ross's loss doesn't suggest to me that we have an antisemitism crisis here.

I'm a white dude who voted for Campbell in the primary and Wu in the general, mostly on the basis that Campbell seems to me more likely to use her political capital to help people who need it, and Michelle... doesn't want to make enemies.

But it's hardly like Campbell failed to land on her feet, and I look forward to her work in her new role.

These are not exclusive, and it's... notable... how highly correlated race and wealth are. It might be that solutions that address one significantly address the other, and I don't think advocating for solutions for one excludes also advocating for solutions to the other. Addressing the cost of housing, the functioning of public transport, and access to affordable childcare and quality public schools address both issues.

What is it with you and your consistent bad takes?

If someone doesn't vote in an election, that is the equivalent of not voting for that person. The idea that membership of a racial group should mean that you vote for a particular candidate is -of itself, a racist concept.

>If someone doesn't vote in an election, that is the equivalent of not voting for that person.

The flyer and followup text weren't put out by a person, much less a candidate. I've found it helps to read an article from start to finish before coming to share it on Reddit with the laziest take possible on 5% of the information presented.

​

>The idea that membership of a racial group should mean that you vote for a particular candidate is -of itself, a racist concept.

Nobody but you seems to be saying it. Weird, huh.

I have to ask......Did you just read the headline and that's it? Cause this definitely isn't about merely trying to check off bingo boxes at all.

It's pretty clearly a piece about increasing voter turnout among underrepresented groups at the polls, primarily african americans and what impact that could have about future elections.

The whole assumption is that “black voters will vote for a black candidate” is comically racist.

Roxbury and Mattapan are overwhelmingly African American, and low turnout or not, overwhelmingly voted for Michelle Wu over Essaibi-George, who’s African American.

To think we somehow haven’t made progress because we haven’t specifically elected an African American mayor would be hilarious if it didn’t have soo much traction.

Hey buddy, remember that question about if you read anything beyond the headline? Thank you for answering it.

I did.

It’s absurd.

> But Campbell did not finish in the top two in the preliminary election in September and advance to the final election in November. She did not get what she needed: strong turnout in Black Dorchester and Roxbury and Mattapan, neighborhoods she was promising to elevate.

Roxbury and Mattapapan are overwhelmingly black and overwhelmingly voted for Wu.

Campbell thinks that those black voters aren’t representative of the whole?

“Is it my campaign? No, the constituents are wrong!”

This is like the red wave FoxNews talked about.

> An analysis for Ideas by Murmuration, a nonprofit that focuses on building data-driven political and advocacy campaigns, found that roughly 30 percent of white Boston voters cast ballots in Boston’s 2021 mayoral preliminary, but only 25 percent of Black voters and 14 percent of Latino voters participated.

White and Latino voters didn’t vote for a white or Latino candidate but black ones are obligated to vote for black candidates, especially when they pander.

Stupid, and offensive.

Also, Edward Brooke was elected by MA as the first black Senator elected since Reconstruction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Brooke

He was a Republican BTW - long before the Republican party went crazy . Also, Edward Brooke was the state AG 60 years ago

> The flyer and followup text weren't put out by a person, much less a candidate.

So AI, then? /s

> Nobody but you seems to be saying it. Weird, huh.

So? If all you have is an ad hominem, then I'll just block you.

I think you're maybe focusing a bit too much on the specific example here? Nobody is suggesting that black voters automatically would vote for the black candidate. That assertion is never even hinted at even a teeny little bit once in that article. It's absurd.

It's also absurd to pretend it doesn't play into voter habits. There's more than enough data to show that black voters are more likely to support a black candidate. Finding a way to capitalize on that increase turnout is probably going to help, even if that advantage with voters of the same race is slight.

Campbell in particular is irrelevant. She wasn't a distant 3rd who never had a shot. I think she just barely finished ahead of Janey.

This isn't about 2021. And it sure as shit isn't about fucking bingo spaces. It's about how improving turnout and reach might impact future races where the the difference between 1st place and 4th place was 14,000. In a city with half a million registered voters.

>So AI, then? /s

No, it's a public policy group who's literally working on increasing voter turnout. You keep falsely asserting that this is about a candidate having sour grapes that people didn't vote for her and citing something that had nothing to do with her.

BTW, if I wanted to insult you, I wouldn't be pulling punches.

> No, it's a public policy group who's literally working on increasing voter turnout.

Have you ever tried to write as a group? No, it's a person.

> You keep falsely asserting that this is about a candidate having sour grapes that people didn't vote for her and citing something that had nothing to do with her.

It's called BIAS.

Candidates are limited by campaign finance laws from spending "too much" money on outreach to their potential voters. Therefore, special interest groups exist to spend soft money on voter outreach. They say that they are interested in "voter turnout", but there is only one political party that this "Priorities for Progress" supports.

For example, their founder Liam Kerr has an exclusive history of fundraising for democrats... I also looked up the history of the other "data driven nonprofit" group: Murmuration and found that their employees financially support only left wing PACs.

But this is an open secret. You would have me and others pretend that there is no bias and that this has no political agenda other than to increase voter turnout, regardless of who is running.

So the PAC that’s really just a front for the lack candidate waited until the election she wasn’t in to do spend thousands of dollars? Not exactly a solid plan.

Just look at that new statue, a literal hollow embrace of the Black community

Are they making this Black mayor in a lab?

Did you even read the article? It was all about Andrea Campbell failing to get enough black voters to win mayor of Boston.

Are we even talking about the same Andrea Campbell?

You know, the Andrea Campbell who became the 45th Attorney General of Massachusetts just a year later?

Looks like she realized she fucked up the Boston election, got her shit together & put in a much better campaign for state AG.

That whole article was about the most stupid piece of reporting I've ever seen. That white male reporter obviously had his own agenda to write about & even then, he, like you, seems to not pay attention to the fact that Campbell used lessons from her defeat to win the race for state AG.

>It was all about Andrea Campbell failing to get enough black voters to win mayor of Boston.

No, it really wasn't. She was the hook used to set up a much larger point. Her failed mayoral campaign was setup.

Campbell was never better than a distant 3rd longshot mayor candidate in terms of profile and prospects. You can't fuck up an election you had virtually no chance of winning.

I agree that scolding people for not voting for your candidate is a stupid idea. See, we agree.

For the fifteenth fucking time, it wasn’t “their candidate”.

For fuck’s sake, Campbell wasn’t even on the ballot then.

Says you, but you aren't exactly representing a "neutral point of view."

We’ve never elected a 5’3 35 and 1/2 year old fucking guy named kevin either. Better get on it.

The left handed are underrepresented. There are two hands, correct? Why aren't left handed mayors represented 50% of the time?

Andrea Campbell faced off against Michelle Wu, literally the worst matchup.

Wu worked for Warren's 2012 senate race, heading up Warren's outreach group to get votes from the black, LGBT & women communities, particularly in Boston.

Thus, Wu had a strong black outreach a full 3 years before Campbell even ran for city council.

If you wonder why the Boston black community voted overwhelmingly for Wu over Campbell & Janey, it's because Wu has done a lot more outreach with the black community than either Campbell or Janey, for a longer period of time, as Wu started her black outreach campaigning a full 3 years before Campbell ran for city council, a full 5 years before Janey ran for city council & Wu started her outreach under Warren's hugely funded first senate race.

So when Wu ran for mayor, she already had 9 years of black outreach, a larger ground team & had the support of Senator Warren's team too.

You're complaining that there was a mere 14,761 vote difference between Wu & Campbell, but fail to state that Wu had 36,060 votes vs Campbell's 21,299 votes, meaning that Wu had a 69% lead over Campbell. Campbell needed to almost double her votes in order to match Wu. A 14,761 vote lead wasn't a small lead - in the Boston mayor race, it was an enormous lead.

Lol who are you talking to? Nobody is “complaining”