Creating mountains out of molehills
Joan Vennochi devoted today’s column to one of the major subtexts of the Senate race – gender. I agree with her general sentiment: that we need more female politicians in Massachusetts. However, the column tries a little to hard to make political disagreements into major gender divides.
Fascinating it all is, and familiar, too. In the Massachusetts presidential primary in 2008, nearly all the leading male politicians backed Barack Obama, upsetting a circle of prominent women who backed Clinton. In the end, Clinton overwhelmingly won Massachusetts, but the gender divide left a bitter taste.
I am pretty sure that Tom Menino and Sal DiMasi were major Clinton endorsers, along with a big chunk of the state legislature. In fact, I am pretty sure the dominant storyline coming out the primaries was “Governor Patrick vs. DiMasi/Murray/Menino.” Let’s see… yup, I am right. Vennochi is making a good point, she just doesn’t have to make martyrs out of all female politicians in the Commonwealth.