I don’t read Politico any more (retired!) but a friend sent me the piece. I’m blocking that friend just as soon as my kids explain to me how to do that.
To summarize: Palfrey is suggesting that since Jim Walton of Arkansas gave $45,000 to the Better Boston Independent Political Action Committee to support Andrea Campbell’s losing bid for Boston mayor in July 2021, that the Walton-dependent Education Reform Now Advocacy (aka Democrats for Education Reform Massachusetts) should not be paying for a MASSInc poll that, lo and behold, showed Campbell with a lead in the attorney general’s race in January.
I stopped reading polls too (retired!) but since I’m all atwitter about almost seeing my name in Politico I looked at this one. Again, I blame my former friend and I’m now shooing that person off my lawn. For reasons I explained a few years ago (look up my old posts) early polls are largely for entertainment value and serve no helpful function in informing the public about candidates or issues.
While a January poll is of no use to the public it might affect the dynamics of the race. Take the poll here, sponsored by Education Reform Now Advocacy (DFER). It shows Campbell with a solid lead. That might discourage donors and volunteers from getting involved with one of the other candidates, either Palfrey or attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan. And indeed, Politico triumphantly reports today that Palfrey and Liss-Riordan had “a lackluster fundraising month.”
Remember, ERNA/DFER is an interest group. Actually not a group, a checking account plumped with money from the Waltons and their wealthy allies. DFER, using ERNA’s money, has contributed $2,000 to Campbell’s past campaigns.
The poll here also has the subtle effect of wounding the campaign of public schools champion and gubernatorial candidate Sonia Chang-Diaz.
Jim Walton’s $45,000 was part of over $2,000,000 raised by Better Boston IEPAC to support Campbell in 2021. As I showed in A Better Boston for Oligarchs, the Better Boston IEPAC was simply a pass-through for wealthy individuals who aim to privatize Boston public schools to spend whatever it takes (which apparently wasn’t enough) to elect Campbell as mayor, with control over Boston public schools.
And who else would like to privatize public education? Why, Education Reform Now! But Education Reform Now/DFER isn’t really an education organization (it’s most recent director is an MBA, its current leader a failed city council candidate). So what is DFER? As I wrote in my book Dark Money and the Politics of School Privatization (not a blog post!) DFER’s former national head once explained it: “We’re essentially bundlers.”
And as it turns out not only bundlers of money from Democratic oligarchs but also from Republican billionaires, even Rupert Murdoch. Read the book.
So Education Reform Now Advocacy pays for a poll by MassInc with the predictable result that the most well know candidate, whom ERNA favors, polls best. Then Politico reports:
Steve Koczela, president of the MassINC Polling Group, said in a statement: “As a matter of policy, The MassINC Polling Group identifies the funder of each poll on every document showing poll results.”
Also, Politico stated “Full disclosure: Your Playbook scribe hosts a podcast with Koczela.” I applaud that. We should have more disclosure.
Mr. Koczela’s statement is accurate and also unhelpful. Accurate because Education Reform Now Advocacy did pay for the poll. Unhelpful because Education Reform Now is a legal money laundering operation for oligarchs who want to influence politics and policy without having their finger prints all over it. Was the ERNA poll paid for by the Waltons or someone else? We don’t know, no one in the media including Politico is asking, and no one is telling us.
Does this seem confusing? It’s intended to be—not by me, a simple retiree, but by everyone involved in this mess, from the funders of the poll on down. Secrecy is good. Obfuscation is good. Hello darkness, my old friend.
And screw the voters, the ultimate victims of all this chicanery.
In the darkness of secrecy, sinister interest and evil in every shape, have full swing. . . . Publicity is the very soul of justice.”—Jeremy Bentham
[Full disclosure: as a (now retired) educator in the UMass system, I am a union member. I write about dark money, democracy, and oligarchy. My book, Dark Money and the Politics of School Privatization, is now in print.]