BOSTON PHOENIX: Will race enter the race?

By David Bernstein | August 1, 2008

Two years ago, when Dianne Wilkerson inexplicably failed to submit the necessary signatures to get her name on the Democratic primary ballot for re-election as state senator, a 28-year-old upstart seized the opportunity. With both candidates running as write-ins, Sonia Chang-Díaz ultimately came within 700 votes of ousting Wilkerson from the Boston district she has represented since 1993.

Chang-Díaz is trying again this year, and your view of her chances depends largely on which candidate’s 2006 post-election spin you believe.

Some observers say that contest was close only because Wilkerson was then at her lowest ebb of popularity: the ballot-access flub seemed to punctuate a substantial history of allegations, oversights, and improprieties. But if voters re-elected her then, this pro-Wilkerson thinking goes, they will surely do so by a wider margin two scandal-free years later, against the same opponent.

Others argue that, despite the result, a substantial majority of voters rejected Wilkerson at the voting booth in 2006 — that she survived only because Chang-Díaz, an unknown, last-minute write-in challenger, was unable to get her name and stickers to enough of the electorate on Election Day. Chang-Díaz would have won easily, according to this interpretation, had she been able to reach just a small percentage of the 12,000-plus people who showed up at the polls to vote in the gubernatorial primary yet cast no vote for State Senate. If so, then in 2008, with both candidates’ names on the ballot, the anti-Wilkerson majority should carry the day.

A spokesperson for the Wilkerson campaign tells the Phoenix that its data supports the first assumption, and a Wilkerson re-election. A source with the Chang-Díaz campaign, however, says its polling conforms with the latter theory, and is corroborated by plenty of anecdotal evidence.

Voters are entering election season ready to replace Wilkerson, says Chang-Díaz’s camp. That could easily change once Wilkerson starts publicly making the case about what she has done with the two years they granted her last time around.

Perhaps more important, the careful, by-the-numbers analyses obscure an obvious racial dynamic: in ’06, black voters in the district went overwhelmingly for Wilkerson (who is herself black), while white voters resoundingly rejected her.

So, strategically, this time around Wilkerson will try to win over white voters, and Chang-Díaz will attempt to make inroads among blacks. Unless the dynamic has shifted dramatically in two years, though — and there is little reason to think it has — this election could still ultimately fall along color lines.

Transgressions
Following Chang-Díaz as she canvasses in Jamaica Plain and the Fort Hill neighborhood of Roxbury, it’s easy to start believing that Wilkerson is winding down her final days in office. “Anyone running against Dianne Wilkerson is all right by me,” one school teacher told Chang-Díaz. Then a city worker: “I just can’t pull a lever for [Wilkerson].” A black mother: “I’m not a big fan of your opponent — some people get into office and lose sight of why they are there.” A middle-aged woman: “You’ve got my vote . . . I just want some change, something other than publicity all the time that’s negative.”

These are, of course, references to Wilkerson’s colorful history. In 1997, she pleaded guilty to failure to file federal income taxes; she was later caught violating terms of her house arrest, and was placed in a halfway house. In 2000, she briefly faced foreclosure proceedings after failing to pay her mortgage. In 2005, the state’s attorney general filed charges of campaign-finance illegalities stemming from 2000 and 2001, a case that is still pending. (Through all these troubles, she held onto her seat.)

Platforms appear almost irrelevant. Both candidates are solid liberals, matching each other on almost every issue. There are a few points where they differ. Chang-Díaz is critical of state assistance to Columbus Center developers; Wilkerson says the promise of jobs justifies the expenditures. Wilkerson supports the Boston University Biolab project, again citing anticipated jobs; Chang-Díaz believes the state should require more study of the safety issues. Chang-Díaz favors publicly funded elections; Wilkerson has not supported such measures.

But these and other slight disagreements hardly seem to matter. The race is clearly a referendum on Wilkerson’s personal foibles. “The main issue is putting someone in office who will represent the district with integrity,” says Michael Lake, a Chang-Díaz volunteer.

The ballot-signature screw-up in 2006 seemed proof to some that Wilkerson, after years of promising to clean up her act, was simply incapable of doing so. It brought something that Wilkerson never previously faced, even when those earlier troubles befell her: a serious re-election challenger.

During the campaign, allegations continued to unfold: that she had committed perjury in testimony regarding a nephew’s criminal proceedings; and that she improperly used campaign funds for personal use in 2004. Wilkerson and her supporters have argued that these more recent charges were politically motivated and baseless allegations planted in the press in an attempt to finish her off. She may have a point. Two years later, no action has been taken on either charge by the Suffolk County district attorney, or the state attorney general, both of whom were investigating.

And thus far, she’s avoided any new fiascos. “It’s a different race,” says one Democratic activist in Jamaica Plain. “Dianne’s transgressions are much less immediate in people’s minds.”

“It will never be gone,” admits Wilkerson, “but it will never be swirling in the volume that it was in 2006.”

Powerful friends
Chang-Díaz has been on the hustings full-time since leaving her job at the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center earlier this year. Now, with the end of July bringing the Senate session to a close this week, Wilkerson is about to get off the sidelines — and she’s bringing some powerful friends with her.

Since Wilkerson defeated Chang-Díaz, and went on to easily defeat a Republican challenger for re-election, there have been two huge alterations to the political landscape: the inauguration of Deval Patrick as governor and the election of Therese Murray as Senate president. Both are strong allies of Wilkerson, and with them in power, she has become one of the most influential people in state government.

This is clearly the heart of Wilkerson’s strategy, to argue that she alone has the power to accomplish things — both for the district, and for the progressive ideals of the voters.

At her campaign kickoff, on July 10, Wilkerson trotted out a host of endorsers to speak for her, including state legislators, city councilors, and civic leaders. They were of all colors and represented all parts of the district, which ranges through Chinatown, Beacon Hill, Jamaica Plain, Roslindale, Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan.

Wilkerson’s campaign has become a particular cause of Murray’s, who entered the State Senate with Wilkerson 15 years ago (as part of a powerhouse group of five female freshmen that also included Cheryl Jacques, Shannon O’Brien, and Maureen Walsh).

Murray, who became Senate president in 2007, is helping Wilkerson not only on the stump, but in passing legislation to tout on the trail. “Terry Murray’s ascension has given me more opportunity to do some of the things I came to do,” says Wilkerson. “It has created new opportunities for me, and therefore for the district.”

For example, the Senate just passed a version of an oral-health bill, intended to address the estimated 400,000 children in the state — many in urban areas like her district — who are eligible for dental coverage under MassHealth yet don’t have an available dentist who takes MassHealth patients. An economic bond bill currently in the House will, if passed, provide funding for a new Kelly Skating Rink to break ground in Jamaica Plain this fall.

And, perhaps key to the election, Wilkerson has been central to an impressive string of gay-rights victories. Not only did the legislature defeat the constitutional-amendment initiative against same-sex marriage, Wilkerson also led the recent passage of a repeal of the so-called 1913 Law that restricts the state from marrying most out-of-state gay couples. (The repeal now awaits Patrick’s signature.) During the budget debate, Wilkerson also added $300,000 to a fund for LGBT youth — more than doubling the line item.

“Our community cannot afford to lose Dianne Wilkerson,” says Marc Solomon, MassEquality’s campaign director. Solomon has already held a fundraiser for Wilkerson, and put out a statement of support along with other gay-rights leaders — even though Chang-Díaz backs the same issues. “There’s a big difference between voting the right way,” says Solomon, “and speaking out and having people listen.”

Still, in 2006, MassEquality’s efforts — and all the other endorsements — were not enough to help Wilkerson in Jamaica Plain, Back Bay, Beacon Hill, and the South End. Those areas of the district, home to large numbers of the city’s gays and lesbians, voted solidly — in some cases overwhelmingly — for Chang-Díaz.

The bottom line in 2006 was that black voters thwarted the attempt of white voters, both gay and straight, to vote Wilkerson out of office, and she may need them to do it again.

Enemy territory
In 2006 Wilkerson was helped dramatically by African-American voters turning out in huge numbers to vote for Patrick in the gubernatorial primary. Roxbury’s Ward 12, for example — where votes went 16-to-one for Wilkerson over Chang-Díaz — had 40-percent turnout. Black voters are certainly aware of Wilkerson’s foibles, yet even at her lowest points most have proven willing to forgive her.

Wilkerson won by more than 1500 votes in Ward 12, countering Chang-Díaz’s 1100-vote margin in Ward 19, which includes Jamaica Plain and Roslindale. Several political observers say that, this year, without Patrick on the ballot, Roxbury’s numbers will probably fall off more sharply than JP’s, meaning it will cost Wilkerson more votes than Chang-Díaz.

So, conventional wisdom suggests that Wilkerson needs to make up those losses in JP and other areas that Chang-Díaz carried in 2006. Wilkerson, who “avoided Jamaica Plain like the plague” two years ago, in the words of one Democratic activist there, has been showing up at the Centre Street Dunkin’ Donuts on recent Friday mornings, shaking hands alongside criminal clerk and former city councilor Maura Hennigan. “She’s getting some very positive feedback,” says Hennigan.

“Senator Wilkerson has to come at us in our base,” says Chang-Díaz campaign manager Deborah Shaw. “Maybe not [to] win, but chip away.”

Several close observers of JP politics, however, doubt that Wilkerson can overcome a perception that she spends little time in the district, and pays little attention to those constituents — gay-rights issues notwithstanding. “You never, ever see her in Ward 19,” says one pol who lives there and has not taken sides in the race. “People don’t know who she is.”

If Wilkerson cannot whittle away at Chang-Díaz’s advantage in JP, observers suggest, she will need to boost turnout in black neighborhoods — and that may mean rallying them around one of their own, against the outsider. Chang-Díaz could be vulnerable to the label, given the paucity of African-Americans involved in her campaign: at a recent “young professionals” fundraiser in the South End, only two of the roughly 75 people in attendance, including staff, volunteers, and supporters, were black.

However, Chang-Díaz also has solid minority credentials: though her mother is white, her father is of mixed Hispanic and Asian ancestry. In fact, while Chang-Díaz may be trying to oust the state’s only black senator, she would in turn become the first Latina ever to serve in the State Senate.

http://thephoenix.com/Boston/News/65571-Will-race-enter-the-race/

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