Massachusetts Democratic primary voters signaled on Tuesday that it’s time to start updating their office holders with younger (but not inexperienced) professional politicians. The Democratic establishment isn’t under attack in Massachusetts. It is being fortified for changing times as the next generation of skilled political practitioners begins to take its place in high office.
The upset victory of Ayanna Pressley over 10-term incumbent Mike Capuano has been shoehorned into the “progressive insurgency” narrative. Some astute observers have also acknowledged the “generational change” component of Pressley’s victory, but failed to clearly distinguish between the two. Comparisons between Ayanna Pressley and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are ubiquitous, but Pressley’s victory was almost entirely about generational change not progressive purity or anti-establishment zeal. Unlike Representative Crowley in New York, Mike Capuano’s progressive bone fides were never in question. Ayanna Pressley is an ambitious career politician, not an anti-establishment insurgent. In my view, her election is an important marker of the relatively good health of Massachusetts politics where, unlike in much of the rest of the country, voters remain comfortable with skilled political practitioners who understand both the design and operation of the policy making process while also recognizing that what political scientists call “descriptive representation” is both important and necessary for effective governance.
The contrast between Pressley and Richie Neal challenger, Tahirah Amatul-Wadud, is quite instructive here. Amatul-Wadud’s candidacy is part of the Bernie Sanders inspired ideological “insurgency” in the Democratic Party. While Pressley’s candidacy exploited this insurgency, it was not of the insurgency. For Pressley, the energy created by ideological insurgency provided an opportunity for her to petition for early promotion in the Bay State’s establishment friendly political system. In order to beat Mike Capuano as decisively as she did, Pressley had to earn the support of establishment friendly voters, which she did by signaling that rather than being an ideological thorn in the side of the state’s congressional delegation, she would be a powerful voice capable of commanding wider support for both the party’s policy agenda and institutional power on Capitol Hill.
The fate of Amatul-Wadud’s campaign is a much better gauge of the health of the Sanders-inspired ideological insurgency in the Massachusetts Democratic Party. The dean of the state’s Capitol Hill delegation easily dispatched the Springfield attorney and progressive activist, whose outsider, anti-establishment campaign was able to rely ONLY on the progressive energy of the ideological insurgency in the party.
Primary Election Day in Massachusetts made clear that the “change” that “can’t wait” isn’t about ideology. It’s about effective representation, which increasingly requires accepting the power and influence of identity politics without surrendering the belief that effective representatives need knowledge of and experience in hard ball politics and policy making. In 2018, bringing up the next generation of skilled professional politicians to protect and advance the state’s interests means insuring that our public officials include qualified women and minority politicians whose experiences and perspectives will be an asset to the state in both elections and governance in the years to come.
Massachusetts voters effectively understand the importance of political professionalism in the inescapably transactional enterprise of public policy making. Bob Massie, Josh Zakim, and Mike Capuano are plenty progressive enough, but the political marketplace is changing in ways that require the recruitment of talented and committed progressive representatives who not only look like the future, but also have the high-level political experience and skills of the men they are pushing into retirement. As the Globe’s Shirley Leung put it, “[w]e’ve seen the future of Massachusetts politics, and it’s female.” The women rising to the top in Massachusetts politics are not outsiders or insurgents. They are very talented politicians willing and able to fight for more progressive public policies without indiscriminately attacking and discrediting the institutional and political norms of American politics.