Voting chief should be regular voter
If you’re running for an office that oversees voting, it might be helpful to have occasionally voted yourself, if only to get the hang of it. If there is a chink in Josh Zakim’s political armor, it is his voting record, or lack thereof. The man just has not bothered to vote very often. But he has criticized his opponent for not doing enough as secretary of state and the keeper of elections to get more people to vote. Odd.
Zakim, 34, is a Boston City Councilor, endorsed by the Democratic Party convention, who is running against veteran Secretary of State Bill Galvin. Galvin, 67, has held the office for 24 years, first elected when Zakim was 10 years old.
The pair of Democrats, battling for the party nomination in the Sept. 4 primary, met again in a nasty confrontation on WGBH-TV last Thursday night. It may not be the most visible of the contests being waged in Massachusetts in 2018, but it is certainly the meanest.
Despite that the program was a rerun of a previously held debate, bossed by Jim Braude, it did not lose any of its fire. The two men, separated by a generation, do not like each other. Zakim, a progressive, who started out his campaign as Mr. Nice Guy, turned into Mr. Nasty when his criticism of how Galvin runs the office failed to catch fire.
He attacked Galvin for a lack of “progressive values” — whatever they are — and for voting against abortion 35 years ago when he was a member of the Massachusetts Legislature.
Galvin since then has supported a woman’s right to choose.
Even though the secretary of state has nothing to do with abortion, Zakim tried to make it an issue, as he did with the death penalty and gay rights. Galvin is against the death penalty and for gay rights.
What the secretary of state does do is oversee voting and elections, corporations and securities, lobbyists, the state archives, the Statehouse Library, the bookstore and Statehouse tours.
Some secretaries in the past have tried to use the office as a political stepping stone; Galvin has not, but has done a good job running the place.
While both men fell into the weeds over how Galvin has run the office, the contest took a dramatic turn during the first debate (replayed last Thursday) when Zakim attacked Galvin about the “low turnout in our elections.”
Low turnout?
“You didn’t vote,” Galvin shot back, pointing out that Zakim failed to vote when then U.S. Sen. John Kerry ran for president in 2004, or when Deval Patrick ran for governor in 2006.
Zakim mumbled that he was at college in Pennsylvania at the time. Being a progressive, it is a wonder he did not blame Galvin for not mailing him an absentee ballot.
Galvin pounced. In between the first and second debates, Galvin came up with a “No-Show Zakim” television ad with a voiceover that says, “He doesn’t bother to vote, let’s not vote for him.”
Galvin again went after Zakim on failing to vote Sunday on Channel 5’s “On the Record.”
And another Galvin television ad stated that Zakim had not voted in 15 elections. This was later amended to 16 by the Galvin campaign, all unchallenged by Zakim.
Galvin, if nothing else, is an expert on elections. He went back and researched every election Zakim was eligible to vote in — local elections in Newton, where he grew up, as well as state primaries, and state and federal elections.
The Galvin campaign pointed out Zakim missed voting in nine elections, from 2003 to 2006.
Also, when Zakim was a student at Northeastern School of Law and living in Newton in 2006, he missed voting in the state 2008 primary, although he did vote for Barack Obama the same year.
Zakim changed his voter registration to Boston in 2011 and has not missed a vote since. Normally this would be much ado about nothing. Millions of people don’t vote.
But it does make a difference when running for an office that oversees elections and voting, especially when you accuse your opponent of failing to get more people to vote.
Zakim had to be naive, or ill prepared, to think that Galvin would not scrutinize his voting record and make an issue out of it. In fact, it is now a major issue.
Somebody should have warned Zakim that he was not running against an inexperienced young progressive, but taking on a seasoned old pro.