Calling the 2012 elections a crucial point in deciding the direction the country will take, Massachusetts Democratic Party Chair John Walsh rallied some of the party's key leaders Sunday morning in Longmeadow. Watch video
LONGMEADOW - Calling the 2012 elections a crucial point in deciding the direction the country will take, Massachusetts Democratic Party Chair John Walsh rallied some of the party's key leaders Sunday morning in Longmeadow.
Walsh, who delivered the keynote address at the Longmeadow Democratic Town Committee's annual awards breakfast at Twin Hills Country Club, said that Democrats must work harder than ever to get out the vote as President Barack Obama takes on former Republican Gov. Mitt Romney, and Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown faces opposition from his chief rival, Harvard Law School professor Elizabeth Warren.
"It is important for us as Democrats, as we plan our efforts in this campaign, (to remember) that there's only one question voters need to answer when they go into the polling places," Walsh said. "That is 'what kind of country do you want to live in?'"
Walsh cited reports concluding that approximately 300,000 registered Democrats in the Bay State haven't voted in any of the past three elections, and he encouraged the local Democrats to work on getting out the vote.
"I'm not asking you to be responsible for 300,000 people. But I am asking you to be responsible for the ones in your precinct," Walsh said. "If we can get 25 or 30, that will translate to 75,000 Democratic votes."
Walsh said that in order to avoid the same pitfalls that contributed to Attorney General Martha Coakley's loss against Brown in the 2010 special election following the death of Sen. Edward Kennedy, Democrats need to take action now.
"Scott Brown won an election with 1.1 million votes. And lets be honest, we blew that election- every one of us," Walsh said. "We took it for granted, we didn't get started early enough, we didn't take responsibility until it was time."
As Warren took the podium, she did so with the confidence and poise that made her a YouTube sensation with her videos on economic inequality. And her speech was a familiar one, as she talked about her childhood in Oklahoma.
Warren recounted her story about her father suffering a heart attack as she began babysitting for 35 cents an hour at the age of 9, to help out the family, only to ascend the socio-economic ladder to become a law professor at Harvard and a candidate for the U.S. Senate.
"I tell this story all around the commonwealth and I tell it for two reasons. I am deeply grateful for the opportunities that were given to me and has let me do so many things," Warren said. "The second reason I tell this story is I worry it is a story embedded in time. I grew up in an America that was still investing in kids. An American that was still investing in opportunity, and that we have increasingly turned away from them. The Republicans have a different version of America and that is what the election is all about."
Warren talked about the financial growth the country experienced following the Great Depression and attributed it to an increase in the median household income, a number which has taken a reverse trend in recent years. She said that now she sees a country that is at risk of limiting the opportunities of the next generation rather than promoting them.
"It didn't matter about how you were born, it mattered what you could do. And the job of all of us was to create those opportunities so everyone had a shot," Warren said. "And then, starting about 30 years ago the Republicans had a different vision for this country. They told us that it was the job of government to protect those who've made it and that we shouldn't be making the investments together in our future, in our children. A kid today who goes to a state university the cheapest way possible, lives at home and borrows the books, will pay 350 percent of what her dad would have paid 30 years ago. That doesn't build a future. It's not an investment in our kids and our tomorrow. That's what I see this election is all about."
Following Warren's speech, she crossed back east to Gloucester while the Longmeadow Democratic Town Committee led by Chair Candy Glazer, honored Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno, who accepted the Democrat of the Year award in part for his work following the tornadoes that destroyed parts of the city in 2011.
"It has been a tumultuous year, but I think people have realized how Springfield goes, so goes the surrounding area," Sarno said. "We have our urban challenges here but is important for each of you to act as ambassadors in your travels. When someone knocks Springfield, you tell them two good things we have going here."
Hampden County Sheriff Michael J. Ashe Jr. was also honored as he received the committee's Member Achievement Award. Also present was U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, D-Springfield, and Andrea Nuciforo Jr., one of the longtime congressman's challengers to represent the newly drawn 1st Congressional District.
In his speech to the group, Neal recounted several of the big legislative leaps forward the U.S. experienced over the 20th century, such as civil rights, as he exclaimed "That's what the presidency is for."