You don’t have to be a Massachusetts political junkie to appreciate the historic nature of next week’s Democratic primary to fill three vacant seats for state representative. The likely winners in all three races are proponents of same-sex marriage, and opponents of the proposed constitutional amendment that would ban same sex marriage, but recognize civil unions. And they will be the likely next state representatives in these overwhelmingly Democratic districts. Their predecessors were all conservative Democrats who epitomized the era of former House Speaker Tom Finneran — who infamously rose to the speakership by cutting a deal for Republican votes.

Its the home stretch, and all three races promise to be exciting — and possibly be photo finishes.

Meanwhile, the far-right is flailing and is concerned that they will lose all three races. However, adding drama to the final week, it is also possible that in the multicandidate fields in the two Suffolk County (Boston area) races, a conservative in each field may yet be able to pull ahead, as progressives divide the moderate and liberal votes.

Interestingly, in these two races most progressive groups, notably the statewide Commonwealth Coalition have lined up behind the leading candidates, while the State AFL-CIO, and some member locals have endorsed others. In the race in the 3rd Berkshire district, the Commonwealth Coalition has joined the AFL-CIO in endorsing one candidate, while some leading progressive groups are backing another. Whew! Its not really as complicated as it sounds. Read on.

The race that has receive the most attention to date, is in the 18th Suffolk district, that comprises Allston, Brighton and part of Brookline in greater Boston. The leading contender has been Tim Schofield, who has convincingly presented himself as the clear progressive in the field. But old time liberal, Michael Moran has the support of the AFL-CIO and is a strong contender. Oddly, Moran posted a slick web site which has almost nothing in it. Suffice to say that Moran is running an old-fashioned campaign and has no use for the netroots. In contrast, Schofield has by far the best, and most frequenlty updated web site of any candidate in the three special elections. Schofield, who also has significant support from organized labor, keeps racking up significant endorsements from pols, progressive organizations, and editorial writers, including The Brookline Tab and Bay Windows.

Some observers have felt that the election would significantly turn on the Brighton section of the district. If that’s so, then the endorsement of Schofield by the Ward 21 Democratic Committee in Brighton, may prove to be one of the pivotal endorsements in the race. On the other hand The Boston Globe as well as The Allston TAB and The Boston Phoenix endorsed Michael Moran on Wednesday. Like all the special elections, the race will probably be close, and in the end pivot on orgnanization and getting out the vote, than endorsements.

The Brookline chapter of Progressive Democrats of Massachusetts, (PDM) has been active in Schofield campaign from early on, aided by the PDM group in nearby Newton.

In the 12th District, where there are five candidates in the primary, issues of race and marriage equality are dominating news coverage, although it remains to be seen whether those matters will really be the driving concerns of the voters. The district, which comprises parts of Mattapan, Dorchester, and Milton, figured into a federal civil rights redistricting lawsuit after the last census, that resulted in a district with an almost 70% minority population. But, the closing weeks of the campaign have seen African-American leaders expressing public concern that efforts to ensure minority representation may be undermined because there are three minority candidates in the field, creating the distinct possibility that one of the two white candidates could prevail.

State Senator Diane Wilkerson has called on Emmanuel Bellegarde and Kerby Roberson to withdraw in favor of apparent front-runner Linda Dorcena Forry, who has received the support of progressive and marriage equality groups, as well as The Boston Globe, while liberal Stacy Monahan, who has been chief of staff to U.S. Rep. Steven Lynch is backed by the AFL-CIO. The division of liberal and labor voters, as well as the division of minority voters, seems to provide an opening for Eric Donovan, who is a more of an old school conservative Irish Catholic style Democrat.

In the 3rd Berkshire race in Pittsfield, city attorney Christopher Speranzo received a last-minute endorsement from the Commonwealth Coalition, the only race in which it has coalesced with the AFL-CIO behind a single candidate. The endorsement comes so late, it is hard to say what, if any effect the endorsement will have. Progressive activists and organizations that have taken a position in the race, have generally lined-up behind the candidacy of Rhonda Serre, an economic development aide to U.S. Rep. John Olver.

Blogger Nohomissives has a report on the final candidate debate in which he underscores some odd phrasing (positioning?) by candidate Pam Malumphy. Was her declaration that people have a “right-to-work,” a general statement of the need for jobs? Or was it a not-so-coded opposition to organized labor? It could be a costly gaffe in this tight race.

Now you may have been wondering what is the far right thinking about these races. No? Well I was. So I checked back at the web site of the Article 8 Alliance — which has posted a handy detailed round-up of the three races. The Article 8 Alliance, the virulently anti-marriage equality group that was so active in the 2004 legislative races (and distinguishes itself with persistent antigay bigotry) doesn’t seem to have the juice to do much this time. But, that doesn’t mean they aren’t doing what they can.

They note that in the 12th Suffolk District to replace former House Speaker Tom Finneran, “Kerby Roberson is fighting the good fight against the homosexual lobby’s favorite, Linda Forry… pro-gay Senator Dianne Wilkerson (D-Roxbury) called for Roberson and the other black candidates to withdraw from the race so Forry could win! What an outrage!”

“This district is largely a working-class, pro-traditional marriage area,” The Alliance continues, “and it would be terrible for the homosexual lobby to win there and represent those people by taking advantage of this situation. Anyone who can help out, or donate money, please call him!”

Roberson is a perennial candidate who seems to have little chance of winning this one. Based on statewide polling data and news accounts, it is unlikely that very many people outside the Article 8 Alliance are voting primarily on the issue of marriage inequality. From this distance, it appears more likely that Roberson staying in the race, will as Wilkerson and other black leaders say, divide the minority vote, and possibly boost the chances of attorney Eric Donovan, the white conservative with long roots in the district. Donovan supports putting the antigay marriage amendment to the state constitution on the ballot, which is what promarriage equality forces are trying to thwart.

Meanwhile in the 3rd Berkshire race, The Alliance likes Rinaldo del Gallo, a gad-fly write-in candidate, best known as a father’s rights activist. They think he has a chance, tho. And report that the other candidates are “completely gonzo on this issue.”

In the 18th Suffolk race, The Alliance complains that Schofield is supported by “homo PACs.” But they like Greg Glennon, who was until two years ago, a Republican. “Glennon is first-rate!,” they report. “It’ll be tough, tho. Shofield (sic) is a gay activist, and is getting big financial and organizational help from the homosexual lobby.”

The Alliance, (a project of the rightist Parents’ Rights Coalition) first came to public attention via a nasty statewide campaign to oust the majority of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court that legalized same sex marriage in the Goodridge decision. The Alliance derives its name from article eight of the Massachusetts state constitution, which it cites in its effort to remove the Goodridge judges.

The Alliance was widely condemned last year when it waged a vicious smear campaign against Carl Sciortino, who was running against then-State Representative Vincent Ciampa (D-Somerville) in the Democratic primary. One of the group’s main tactics was the publication of a bizarre tract which was dropped off at every home in the district. The screed was titled: “A Special Report on the Homosexual Lobby’s Secret Campaign to Install a Homosexual Anti-Catholic Extremist in the State Legislature.” The voters sent Ciampa packing.

Should any decent, self-respecting Democrat be involved with or accept support from this outfit? It is not too late for Glennon, Del Gallo, and Roberson to take a stand.

There you have it. There will probably be exciting developments every day from here to next Tuesday, March 15th, primary day.

Late Breaking News: The Massachusetts affiliate of Democracy for America, an outgrowth of the presidential campaign of Howard Dean, has announced a statewide email effort to recruit volunteers for Get Out The Vote (GOTV)activities for Rhonda Serre, Tim Schofield and Linda Dorcena Forry. Check their web site for details.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the biggest theocrat of all? There sure are a lot of candidates for top theocrat these days. Two major contenders emerged this past week.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, in anticipation of two cases about public displays of the Ten Commandments in public spaces, declared, “I hope the Supreme Court will finally read the Constitution and see there’s no such thing, or no mention, of separation of church and state in the Constitution.”

It certainly true that those words do not appear in the Constitution or any of the amendments. But the idea of church state separation is present in the clear intentions of the framers. As I noted in December, the Framers did their damndest to disestablish what were then called “established churches” in the states — which had had mini-theocracies to varying degrees for some 150 years. One had to have been a member of the correct sect to vote and hold public office. Here, as in Europe, there was often state funding of the church in power. The Framers not only wanted to put a stop to that, but they wanted to enshrine the notion of religious equality, which meant the right of individual citizens to believe as they will, or not. This idea is present in Article Six, Clause Three of the Constitution, which states:

“The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

There is no question that the framers meant separation of church and state as part of the notion of religious equality extended to citizens in Article Six, and the disestablishment of churches as specified in the First Amendment. The phrase “separation of church and state” was not only in common use at the time, but it was central to the thinking of James Madison in 1786 when he pushed the crucial Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom through the legislature — just prior to the writing and ratification of the U.S. Constitution. Madison is credited with being the principal author of the Constitution and of the First Amendment. (The Virgina Statute was written by Thomas Jefferson.)

Dr. Bruce Prescott, (whose Mainstream Baptist blog is must read for those following matters of church state separation} notes that prior to the ratification of the Constitution, Madison “wrote a letter to James Monroe discussing opinions about Patrick Henry’s bill to provide government funding for religion in Virginia. Here’s what he said:

“The Episcopal clergy are generally for it. . . . The Presbyterians seem as ready to set up an establishment which would take them in as they were to pull one down which shut them out. The Baptists, however, standing firm by their avowed principle of the complete separation of church and state, declared it to be ‘repugnant to the spirit of the Gospel for the Legislature thus to proceed in matters of religion, that no human laws ought to be established for the purpose.’”

“Henry’s bill failed,” Prescott continuted, “after Madison circulated his Memorial and Remonstrance as a petition throughout the state. Then Madison successfully won passage of Thomas Jefferson’s Act for Religious Freedom. Virginia Baptists were instrumental both in defeating Henry’s bill and in promoting Jefferson’s Act.”

DeLay gets major points in the contest for top theocrat for his insistent use of crackpot Constitutional literalism in the service of the historical revisionism — an intergral part of the theocratic game plan.

Not be to upstaged by the likes of Tom DeLay, Supreme Court Justice Anton Scalia engaged in one of the ugliest displays of religious majoritarianism ever seen in the high court. Scalia made his move during oral arguments in a case in which the justices will decided whether display of the Ten Commandments in the Texas state legislature is unconstitutional. According to The Washington Post’s account, “The Commandments” [Scalia told Duke University Law professor Erwin Chemerinsky] are “a symbol that government authority comes from God, and that’s appropriate.” When Chemerinsky objected that “it is a profoundly religious message,” Scalia responded: “It is a profoundly religious message, but it’s shared by the vast majority of the people. . . . It seems to me the minority has to be tolerant of the majority’s view.”

“I’ve heard Scalia say some pretty callous things about separation of church and state over the years,” Rev. Barry Lynn, wrote on The Wall of Separation blog, “but today he hit a new low. According to Scalia, government-sponsored Ten Commandments displays are only intended to reinforce the idea that our government flows from God. He had an easy remedy for those who might be offended: “Look away if you don’t like it.”

Scalia clearly made such effective use of this high profile case, and his aggressive display from the bench, that he remains in the first teir of contenders for top theocrat.

Well, those are this week’s top contenders for biggest theocrat. Based on this week’s extraordinary performances, it is fair to expect the competition to heat up.

Two of the three special elections for state representative are in Boston, and have been getting most of the attention. Most of the groups who customarily endorse candidates have stayed out of the third race in Pittsfield, because the three democratic primary contestants have similar views on key issues. The interest groups are therefore concentrating thier efforts on the two Boston races, where there are sharper differences between the candidates. But there is still going to be an election in the 3rd Berkshire district, and the race just heated up.

In the race — you might say gallop — to the finish in the March 15th Democratic primary to replace state Rep. Peter Larkin in the 3rd Berkshire District — progressives are lining up behind candidate Rhonda Serre

Serre, an economic development aide to U.S. Rep. John Olver, has picked up the endorsement of Western Mass for Progressive Change, a large network of activists formed in the wake of Howard Dean’s run for president. The Berkshire Eagle, the largest newspaper in the district reports that Serre “has staked positions that are closely aligned with progressives: She is in favor of single-payer health care, opposed to charter schools and supports gay marriage, to cite a few. But her competitors for the Democratic nomination — Christopher Speranzo and Pam Malumphy — both have similar stances on the issues. Lori Bonatakis, a self-described committed political activist with Western Mass for Progressive Change, said the group chose Serre based on her experience, which it expects will translate into accomplishment on Beacon Hill.”

The Eagle went on to cite the endorsement of Serre by Peter Vickery.

“Vickery, who won the Governor’s Council seat with more than 60 percent of the vote, has personally endorsed Serre. He credited Western Mass for Progressive Change and the Progressive Democrats of Massachusetts with helping get voters to pay attention in November to the oft-ignored race for the panel that approves state judges; he thinks its influence could be equally strong in this special election.”

‘It’s not about e-mail,’ he said of the group. “It’s about personal contacts. People say all politics is local; I think all politics is personal. What they have done is take their e-mail correspondence and built personal relationships out of it, so they don’t just know each other as e-mail addresses, they know each other as individuals.”

When Vickery speaks of personal relationships in this context, he is articulating the notion of relational organizing as taught by Marshall Ganz, who was the top organizer for the United Farm Workers in the heyday of Cesar Chavez. It is the underlying organizing philosophy of Progressive Democrats of Massachusetts (PDM), of which Vickery is a leader in the Amherst PDM organizing committee. There are currently four active PDM groups in Western Mass.

Whoever wins the primary will probably go on to win the general election in overwhelmingly Democratic Pittsfield. And the new representative will be considerably more progressive than Larkin, who was closely aligned with the conservative regime of former House Speaker Tom Finneran.

The new rep will also be entering a House very different than the one Larkin knew. The new Speaker Sal DiMasi, is far more progressive than Finneran. He even supports same sex marriage. House members are also optimistic that an authentically Democratic — and democratic — era has begun on Beacon Hill. The Valley Advocate this week has a feature article discussing the remarkable changes afoot in the post-Finneran era. It is an exciting time to be progressive and Democratic in Massachusetts.

The New Republic recently published an article (2/21/05) by John B. Judis that makes an important point for progressive democrats who want to do politics differently — like planning to win elections. Philocrites, who apparently subscribes to The New Republic, (TNR does not post their back articles online) has pulled an interesting quote (below) — that makes me want to go to the library and look up the whole article.

The quoted man, Ernie Cortes is an organizer affiliated with the Industrial Areas Foundation, which teaches the organizing philosophy of Saul Alinksy. Judis writes that Cortes “is a legendary community organizer. In 1974, he set up the Communities Organized for Public Service in San Antonio, which helped get the city’s Mexican-Americans involved in politics and was partly responsible for making San Antonio one of the most progressive cities in the Southwest. Since then, under the auspices of the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) … he has built a network of community organizations in Louisiana, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California….”

“When I had seen him in Washington [last September],” Judis continued, “Ernie had insisted that George W. Bush was going to win because Karl Rove and Ralph Reed knew how to organize and the Democrats did not. He feels vindicated by, although unhappy with, the outcome. ‘The Republican strategy was developing organic infrastructure,’ he tells me. The GOP, he explains, worked through churches and urged parishioners to get their fellow parishioners or their neighbors to the polls. By contrast, he says, Americans Coming Together (ACT) and MoveOn ‘parachuted’ volunteers into places where they had little in common with the people they were trying to organize. Afterward, they vanished. ‘They left nothing behind,’ he says scornfully. He thinks that, if Democrats want to win elections, they have to rebuild the ‘institutional infrastructure’ that used to exist around churches, union halls, and precincts, but he doesn’t think ACT or MoveOn have any interest in this kind of patient, person-to-person organizing.”

Earnie Cortes is right. If progressive democrats want to build for power — to make our values real in public policy — we need to build our own electoral organizations, in our own communities, based on long term personal political relationships. Email, web sites and blogs are fantastic communications tools that can help facilitate this work — but they are not substitutes for it. Here in Massachusetts, Progressive Democrats of Massachusetts has a vision of person-to-person organizing and has established local organizing committees in a dozen communities in the past 18 months, with more on the way. Neighbor-to-Neighbor has a different style, and focuses its efforts in low income urban areas of the state. But the basic principles of person-to-person organizing are the same.

As useful as groups like ACT can be, what they do is not to be confused with actual grassroots organizing, as Cortes points out. They function just like traditional, top-down campaign organizations. People are generally told where to go, and what to do; they follow a script, write down info which is put into a central data base, and then they go home.

Cortes is also right about how the Christian Right has operated. Last fall I briefly summarized The Secret of the Christian Right — about how they have built political strength and won elections.

Actual grassroots organizing takes patience and time, as personal political relationships are built; as people learn how to work together and gain the knowledge and skills necessary for sustaining local, and statewide electoral organizations. Six months or a year out from an election — it is too late to start building the kinds of relationships it takes to have an effective organization when the campaign starts. That’s why we need to build permanent organizations that function all across the election cycle — working to increase electoral capacity — which to my mind, means taking back the power of citizenship from big money, political consultants, and delusional TV pundits. This was the genius of Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition. We need analogous organizations, appropriate for our communities and our values.

A small network of progressive, democratic political bloggers has popped up in Massachusetts in the past year. They, or I should say “we,” operate independently of one another, but we are finding our voices and, I believe an audience. We are a new phenomenon, but our presence is already being felt and its my sense that we are destined to play a growing and significant role in state political life.

That may sound a bit grand, but read on.

Here is a sampling of recent material from this network. All of the bloggers, (except me), but especially .08 Acres (and a Donkey) have written about Governor Mitt Romney’s apparent presidential ambitions, and speaking tour of early primary states.

Blue Mass Group has a very interesting recent post Thinking Strategically on Gay Marriage . Blue Mass Group’s recent post linking to a debate about the pros and cons of Deval Patrick and Tom Reilly as prospective candidates for governor, points to the beginnings of what will be a spirited, statewide discussion. Nohomissives has been a must-read for news about the race for the 3rd Berkshire race to replace former State Representative Peter Larkin (D-Pittsfield).

We have all covered the three special elections for state representative, adding breadth, depth, links and additional perspectives to coverage by the news media. One of the very useful functions of these blogs is finding links to most, if not all of the important print coverage of the special elections in one place.

One portent of the future importance of the political bloggers is that Tim Schofield, who is leading the pack in the crowded field in the democratic primary for the 18th Suffolk district (Allston, Brighton and Brookline), links to blog coverage of his campaign alongside mainstream press clips on his web site. This is, to my knowledge, a first in Massachusetts politics.

Meanwhile, The Fray, a political blog at MassLive.com is an interesting hybrid, sponsored by The Springfield Republican newspaper, and yet functioning in the eclectic manner of other individual and group blogs. The Fray often notes what MA bloggers of all political stripes are writing about — right alongside items culled from the state and national media. By the same token, The Fray is a must read for us unaffiliated bloggers, and we often link to and comment on items highlighted by The Fray’s staff bloggers.

Nohomissives is the elder statesman of the progressive democratic bloggers in Massachusetts — having gone live in July of 2002. The rest of us are new within the past year. I have no idea the size of our audience — but what I think I am seeing is a nascent alternative media. We comment and link to items in the news across the state. We often distill and link to information from a variety of sources that you won’t get from reading daily and weekly newspapers alone. We add another high quality source of information and analysis to the media mix.

We bloggers have played an important role, I think, in the run up to the March 15th Democratic primaries in the three special elections for state representative. If what’s past is prologue, the progressive democratic bloggers of Massachusetts, have an interesting future.