MA-1: Morse accused of inappropriate sexual relations with college students

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Markey and Lynch are now the only two potentially vulnerable incumbents in MA's Congressional delegation, IMO.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Lynch doesn't have a serious challenger. Neal was already favored to win.

I'd assumed Lynch's challenger wasn't serious, but they've tripled his fundraising. I had both seats down as likely Lynch/Neal anyway, but I think Neal is now a lock.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Lynch doesn't have a serious challenger. Neal was already favored to win.

I was fully expecting Neal to lose given how primaries had gone so far actually.

Neal had been taking his seriously since well before Engel's defeat. He fielded at least one private poll which we only know of because he leaked the district's results for Kennedy vs. Markey.

We have already exceeded the average number of Congressional primary defeats per cycle and at this point the only one I actively expect (in any state) is Markey's.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

https://twitter.com/AlxThomp/status/1292967159002361856

That would neither be surprising nor exculpatory evidence w.r.t. any given allegation. Neal would be a crap incumbent if he couldn’t even commission opposition research on a serious challenger.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

The thing about this that really bothers me is that they clearly played into homophobic stereotypes to try and get this story to spread. Just an unbelievable scumbag move.

Does Neal still win the primary?

I'd be really interested to see how this is reported on. People forget that Keith Ellison's allegations were also pretty much thrown out yet he's still a tarnished figure.

Honestly, I don't see how Morse comes out of this with positives.

Neal will win, but I’ll bet that internship isn’t happening.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Politico gets their Dems in Disarray story. The MA Democrats’ chair is apparently planning to pull together a team to investigate the College Democrats who put out the accusations, but only after the primary, ostensibly to avoid weighing in on the race.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

New ad running attempting to drum up someone — anyone! — with dirt on Morse.

If you were contacted by Holyoke Mayor/Professor Alex Morse "in a manner widely understood by our generation to indicate intimacy” 😠 please contact us right away. You can message us here m.me/acaseforwomen or contact us via the link in the comments 👇

The ad's listed as inactive.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

This story is so salient because it perfectly showcases the careerism, opportunism and lack of virtue that is endemic to the entire Democratic Party apparatus and those who seek to climb its ladder.

Between this guy and Matt Nowling, College Dems prove once again that they deserve to be disbanded lol

I don't think aspiring hacks doing awful things to climb the political greasy pole in university is unique to the Democratic Party or the American political system.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Has a political hit ever backfired this badly? Neal might actually lose because of that stupid intern.

I’m not that optimistic. Morse may have turned the tables on the Mass Democrats who set him up, but the result is still that the noise is all “Morse is a gay homosexual who has gay homosexual sex with gay college gay kids”, and that’s just not good for someone trying to run on issues.

I agree, but the poll suggested it might have backfired directly. Among those who'd said they'd heard or read "anything in the past week about an issue involving Alex Morse and a group of College Democrats at Mass Amherst," 18% said what they heard made them more inclined to vote for Neal and 21% said it made them more inclined to vote for Morse. This is in addition to the general boost in fundraising Morse has gotten out of the incident so far.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Hakeem Jeffries has been promoting a story about inaction on police brutality in Holyoke that seems to have a bit more meat to it than the College Democrats' letter. The president of Springfield City Council (who supports Morse) has hit back highlighting a record of police reforms that seems relatively impressive compared to what most mayors have done.

Neal has almost certainly been worse on this particular issue but, depending on how and if more details about this emerge, I can't imagine it will help Morse turn out his would-be supporters.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

https://twitter.com/DRBoguslaw/status/1300563955253948416

I'm honestly surprised there hasn't been more oppo on Neal coming out during this campaign. There's no chance his time as Mayor of Springfield was perfect.

One shouldn't need to dig up ancient history when he's outflanking the Trump administration to protect big pharma.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Unfortunate for Morse, but there's no guarantee he would've won even without the homophobic hit-job.

I agree, I don't think Neal was a good target, not in this district.

If a challenge persuades him not to wreck modest attempts at progressive healthcare/taxation reform, then the effort wasn't completely wasted.

Morse is winning several townships, but not his own, which runs counter to my expectations. Could there be a more credible challenger in this district?

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Wasserman calls it for Neal.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Wasserman calls it for Neal.

Glorious news

Why? Lloyd Doggett would have been a better Ways and Means chair. Neal is far worse than even the average moderate Democrat when it comes to being compromised by corporate influence.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Wasserman calls it for Neal.

Glorious news

Why? Lloyd Doggett would have been a far better Ways and Means chair. Neal is far worse than even the average moderate Democrat when it comes to being compromised by corporate influence.

He's a guilty until proven innocent type.

Even if one considers Morse abusive of power, Neal's removal would still be a net positive. It's not as if Morse has the seniority to immediately take up a leadership role within the House.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

It’s amazing. It truly is.

Ed Markey:

— Voted for NAFTA
— Voted for the 1994 crime bill
— Voted for the Iraq War
— Didn’t support busing back in the day
— Is an old career politician in office for about 50 years

Alex Morse:

— Has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior

Joe Biden did all these things or similar, and was crucified by self-styled “progressives” for them. Yet they give a free pass for the same things or worse to these two and twist their brains into knots trying to pretend it isn’t the blatant hypocrisy and double standard that it is. We all know damn well that if these two were considered the “establishment” pick, progressives would be screaming bloody murder about these horrible, evil, corrupt, corporate Democrats. Instead they are actively rooting for them. Celebrating the victory of Markey and lamenting the loss of Morse.

Breaking news: political types alleged to 'minimise the flaws of the better candidate in one race while maximising the flaws of the worse candidate in another race'. Never before has this been seen outside of this dangerous faction.

Markey was the more progressive candidate (though not by that much) in MA-SEN and Neal was the less progressive candidate in MA-01. Fans of more progressive candidates therefore rallied around Markey's and Morse's candidacies while the likes of you started cheering for Kennedy despite decrying the most prominent backers of the ideas he claimed to believe in. Biden would probably have caught less flack to begin with if the only other candidate in the presidential primary was someone to the right of him, like Manchin.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The “progressive” label is fake. The word has had its original definition stripped and been rebranded to mean “whoever Bernie and/or AOC and/or TYT endorses, or whoever isn’t who I think is ‘the establishment’ candidate.” It is all style, no substance. No ideological consistency. No integrity. It is literally just about sticking it to “the man” and absolutely nothing else. At least nothing else with any consistency or conviction whatsoever.

There's certainly some performative outrage/dishonesty in online political rhetoric, but not much more than in the biases prevalent in traditional forms of media. The support for the more progressive candidate in a given race seems fairly consistent.

So with that in mind, the so-called “progressive” wing of the Democratic Party would be more accurately called the “contrarian” tribe. Because that is exactly what it is. It’s a bunch of people who never grew out of their high school phase of being non-conformists who hate authority, or are still in it. Except ironically they are the ultimate conformists, because they just go along with whatever the Twitter mob tells them to without thinking for themselves.

At what point would a free-thinking incrementalist start cheering for a Ways & Means Chair with little interest in any sort of incremental progress?

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Biden would probably have caught less flack to begin with if the only other candidate in the presidential primary was someone to the right of him, like Manchin.

I'd argue that the presence of Bloomberg and Buttigieg helped Biden. Sure, Buttigieg was to Biden's left, but he symbolized everything progressives hate about the Democratic Party. He seemed like a moderate hero straight out of central casting - not to mention him being much worse on police reform than Biden was much more recently.

Overall, you summed up a lot of my thoughts. I don't think Alben would be above the hypocrisy - it's rather human that you'd give people you agree with a chance.

Bloomberg especially. Biden was always going to be better on smaller debate stages as we saw with his 1v1 against Sanders, but I thought he looked much more comfortable than in the previous debate when Bloomberg was on stage (not just because the man was a terrible debater, but because he could tout his relative progressivism).