Tom Keane

The rise of the progressives

A few predictions for this November. Charlie Baker loses in his second effort to be governor. Incumbent John Tierney bests Richard Tisei. Republican challengers largely fail in their efforts to capture seats in the Massachusetts state Senate and House of Representatives. And for good measure, New Hampshire. Senator Jeanne Shaheen edges out transplant Scott Brown. There’s a theme here: Democrats win, and Republicans lose.

I could be wrong about any or all of these, of course. Each race has its own dynamics, and individual factors ranging from personality to campaign trail gaffes can influence outcomes. But there is a broad trend at play that deserves notice. Call it the rise of the progressives.

Scott Brown won a US Senate seat in January 2010, a moment that coincided with mounting voter anger over the economy, fears about proposed health care reform, and the growth of the Tea Party. Brown’s win was remarkable precisely because it occurred in Massachusetts, a state seen as the nation’s liberal bastion. It seemed like an inflection point, a moment that presaged a wholesale change in the nation’s politics.

Rather than inflection, however, that election now looks like a conservative high. It’s not that progressives have bounced back with brighter and bolder ideas. But the right is looking out of touch while it’s Democrats who speak to concerns — both in the social and economic sphere — about which voters increasingly care. They have one other bragging point too: They’ve done well.

Thus, less than three years after his stunning win, Brown lost to Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat who held herself out as a true progressive. Last year, Stan Rosenberg, liberal stalwart from Amherst, sewed up the Senate presidency well over a year in advance of its anticipated vacancy. Meanwhile, political observers have noted a striking fact about this year’s Democratic gubernatorial field: No one is a moderate.

Why? In part because on one set of questions, lumped together in the clumsy acronym of LGBT rights (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender), there is no moderate position. That’s the nature of civil rights — either you’re for them or against them — and here opponents are fighting a rear-guard action, battling against a tidal wave of changing attitudes.

Then there is the intensifying worry over income inequality. Republicans react to the subject as if it’s an attack on the rich, arguing that wealth per se is not the problem. But that misses the point. The American middle class is in deep trouble. Even as the economy has expanded, its incomes have remained flat. Meanwhile, the middle classes of other countries are catching up to or even — in the case of Canada — surpassing the United States, according to a recent New York Times analysis. It’s an issue with the potential to move votes. Democrats don’t necessarily know the solution, but they are more willing to talk about it and offer up proposals (such as a raise in the minimum wage, easier unionization, and paid parental leave) that seem to address it.

Finally, there is the simple fact that results matter, and (income equality notwithstanding) the results in Massachusetts have been quite good. The Bay State once elected GOP governors believing it was necessary to have someone with fiscal rectitude riding herd over free-spending Democrats. If that were true, than the last eight years under Governor Deval Patrick should have been disastrous. Instead, the state performed better in the Great Recession than the rest of the nation and bounced back more quickly. From a 2009 high of 8.7 percent, the unemployment rate is now 6.3 percent. The state budget is in decent shape. And one merely needs to drive around and observe the cranes that dot the landscape or the lines outside of restaurants to realize that there is an economic boom afoot. When times seem good, any impetus for change is undermined.

All of these combine to the benefit of Massachusetts progressives: They’ve proven they can manage an economy while at the same time offer up positions on civil rights and the middle class that resonate with voters. That’s why this election season Massachusetts shifts even more leftward. Does that make it an anomaly or — for the rest of the nation — a harbinger of things to come?

This column originally appeared in The Boston Globe on April 15, 2014.

Just add water: Booze in a packet uncorks spirited scenarios

‘TAKE A POWDER” may shortly be a literal way to accomplish the metaphorical. Coming soon to the shelves of your local packie: Palcohol — powdered alcohol. Depending on your perspective — and very likely, the number of years away from your 21st birthday — it’s either the coolest thing ever or the seventh sign of the apocalypse.

The basic idea is this: A powdered substance is added to plain water and, all of the sudden, the liquid you have in your hand is what some might call an “adult beverage.” In an e-mail, a spokesperson for Lipsmark, its owner, swears it’s no hoax, saying (correctly) the product has “been tested and approved” by the federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. Still, it sounds like the equivalent of lead-to-gold alchemy, the fruitless quest of all those medieval scientists. Is this really even possible? Yes, indeed. Popular Science, for example, describes a simple do-it-at-home process. Take some absorbent and readily available form of maltodextrin, add some spirits, and you’ve got a powder that, when dissolved, releases the alcohol.

Imagine the neat party tricks. Let’s say you go to wedding. Everyone’s having a good time until suddenly the liquor runs out. You take out some Palcohol and — presto — water into wine. You’re the savior! (And perhaps, a few might think, the Savior!)

Actually, wine’s not yet on the menu. But Palcohol does come in many varieties, including Lemondrop, Cosmopolitan, and conventional vodka and rum. And the possibility that it may soon be commercially available has created a spate of handwringing. The stuff just seems ripe for abuse.

Much of this is the fault of the company. In its filings with the feds, Lipsmark had a variety of over-the top ideas for using Palcohol, ideas it now disavows, saying, “We were experimenting with some humorous and edgy verbiage.” Rather than exorbitant prices for drinks at a nightclub, one of those suggestions urged, “Take Palcohol into the venue and enjoy a mixed drink for a fraction of the cost.” Moreover, it recommended, “Sprinkle Palcohol on almost any dish and give it an extra kick” — kind of like grown-up hot sauce. Imagine! The ham will get you hammered, the eggs fried, the mashed smashed, and the pie high.

And then there is the pièce de résistance: snorting Palcohol, a la cocaine. “Don’t do it!” the company excitedly warns, which to a few, of course, means: Do it right away! And why not? “You’ll get drunk almost instantly because the alcohol will be absorbed so quickly in your nose,” the company said in one of its now recanted statements.

On top of that, Palcohol can be used surreptitiously. Think of high school proms and the perennial cat-and-mouse game of students trying to sneak in alcohol and school monitors doing their best to stop them. Palcohol gives the kids a new edge. Absent strip searches, it’ll be pretty hard to find hidden packets of the product. From there, it’s only one water bottle away from schnockerdom.

It’s scenarios like these that have people worried. Indeed, after news of its approval hit the media, regulators took the unusual step of retracting their OK. Lipsmark says the reversal was largely due to some errors in the mock-ups for its labels. But some industry observers speculate otherwise, thinking political blowback may have caused the bureaucrats to reconsider.

So if Palcohol is ultimately approved, is the end of the world nigh? Probably not. My guess is that after all of the hype has died down, Palcohol will be a rarely used niche product. And the fact that it can be abused seems worrisome, but in truth, all alcohol can be abused. Snorting sounds bad, but so is a beer bong. If teens have a leg up at proms, so be it, but even now they can just drink outside before walking into the dance. What some school administrators have figured out is that rather than ever more intrusive searches, it’s better to deal with consequences: Kick out those who smell of alcohol or who seem inebriated. That should be the rule for the rest of us as well. It’s what you do with alcohol that matters, not how it got into your body in the first place.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Sunday Globe on April 27, 2014.

Boston’s pot pushback

A funny thing happened along the way to what had seemed the inevitable roll-out of medical marijuana around the Bay State. Boston Mayor Marty Walsh got involved.

Massachusetts voters approved the medical use of pot in 2012. But 15 months after the law took effect, you still can’t buy the stuff legally. The state duly — and it looks, pretty reluctantly — wrote up regulations and set about securing applications from those who wanted to run dispensaries. A few scandals ensued (no one is surprised, right?) but the upshot appeared to be that Boston would be getting at least two dispensaries.

But Walsh isn’t about to let that happen. Last week, a letter from the mayor to the state raised concerns about inaccuracies in the dispensaries’ applications. But that was just a ruse, as Walsh made clear at a community meeting at Dorchester’s Pleasant Hill Baptist Church. He’s “dead set against the marijuana dispensaries,” he reportedly told those in attendance, vowing to “fight them as mayor of the City of Boston.”

Can Walsh really do that? In his oath of office, he swore to discharge his duties “agreeably to the rules and regulations of the . . . laws of the Commonwealth,” and you’d think that would mean all the laws, not just those of which he approves. Moreover the attorney general has said that cities and towns can’t just ban the dispensaries altogether. But there are loopholes aplenty. Boston could put the dispensaries on hold while it studies them further. It can use its nearly unbridled control over permitting and zoning to make sure that a proposed dispensary somehow just never passes muster. Delaying things long enough is really just as good as banning them outright.

So, yes, he really can do that.

What’s Walsh’s motivation here? Could it be that he really doesn’t believe all of the medical marijuana hype? Personally, I’ve noticed over the last few years — coinciding, interestingly enough, with decriminalization in 2008 — that pot smoking has become more pervasive and public. Perhaps naively, I just thought the kinds of conditions treated by marijuana were somehow on the rise, in the same way that suddenly everyone is now allergic to gluten. Indeed, every time I would come across a small group of folks gathered together, the distinctly sweet scent of pot in the air, my heart would instantly go out to them. What dread disease plagued them, I’d wonder? AIDS, hepatitis C, ALS, Parkinson’s?

Walsh, I suspect, is less credulous than me, instead regarding medical marijuana dispensaries as a sham, an end-run around prohibition and a step towards outright legalization.

He’s probably right. Marijuana has been on a roll (so to speak). Two states — Colorado and Washington — now allow it for recreational use, and another 18 and the District of Columbia have various rules (some quite loose) permitting it for medical purposes. In a recent interview with The New Yorker, President Obama said of pot, “I don’t think it is more dangerous than alcohol.” (Thinking like that makes it hard to justify harsh federal criminal penalties for mere consumption.) Meanwhile, a January poll by CNN found 55 percent of Americans in favor of eliminating bans on pot. Massachusetts residents feel the same way. A survey last month by WBUR found a plurality in favor of making pot legal.

Still, that leaves a lot who disagree and some of them, including the mayor, quite strongly. What we’re seeing from Walsh may be the beginnings of a pushback against what had once appeared a juggernaut towards legalization. At a minimum, Boston plans to be late to the party.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Globe on April 15, 2014.

World economy no longer hangs on the US

When the United States sneezes, the world catches a cold. And when America recovers, the planet has a spring in its step. Or so it used to be.

For decades, that metaphor had seemed an accurate description of the global economy. The old USSR may have once shared superpower status with the United States, but that was a function of nuclear weapons, a well-armed military, and a bombastic attitude. When it came to economic matters, however, there had been — at least since World War II’s end — only one true superpower. If that superpower was doing well, its success lifted the rest of the world. If it hit a recession, the world would suffer. That shouldn’t surprise. The United States had by far the biggest slice of the global pie. If Americans weren’t buying, then no one else was selling.

In 2008, the United States did more than sneeze. As the Great Recession unfolded and financial markets threatened collapse, it appeared to some that a near-fatal illness had struck the country. And sure enough, the rest of the world had it tough, too. Global economic growth fell. Some countries — notably China — continued to perform well, but most everyone else was hit hard.

Now, however, it appears that America is getting back on its feet, its economy about to surge. Granted, we’ve heard this story before. The recession officially ended in June 2009, according the National Bureau of Economic Research. But growth since then has been anemic, with stubbornly high unemployment, tepid job creation, and largely flat incomes. But — really! — 2014 promises to be different. The March jobs report, for example, showed 192,000 new positions created. The US economy seems to be emerging from its winter doldrums, shaking off government shutdowns, sequestration, and tax hikes. Economists from all over the spectrum increasingly agree that this year should be a good year.

So now that the United States appears poised to bounce back, does the world bounce back as well?

The International Monetary Fund says yes — it expects the US revival to translate to global revival. The fund’s World Economic Outlook, just released this month, figures worldwide economic activity will grow in 2014 by 3.6 percent (up from 2013’s 3.0 percent) and in 2015 by 3.9 percent. “Much of the impetus” for that, the IMF says, is “coming from advanced economies” — namely, the United States.

So the metaphor still holds. We matter. We really do matter. But perhaps not as much as we once did.

The US economy is big, but relatively speaking, not as big as it once was. Thirty years ago, America accounted for one-quarter of world output. Today it’s down to one-fifth. That’s a meaningful change. Back then we were rich, and everyone else was much less so. Now those countries — especially China — have gotten better off. (In fact, China, with a 15 percent share of global output, is now the second biggest economy in the world.)

Some might see this as a sign of failure, of other nations getting the best of America, of the United States in decline. In truth, it’s a tale of success, a story of nations and people coming out of poverty, being able to live better, longer, and more productive lives. And much of that can be credited to US efforts to encourage free trade and local economic development through institutions such as the World Bank, the IMF, and the World Trade Organization.

Still, that success has downsides. As other nations get richer and the world gets more interconnected, the United States no longer goes it alone. Indeed, that’s already happening — and sometimes in a negative way. The IMF’s otherwise sunny outlook, for instance, worries about a host of issues that could upend growth, including Russia’s incursion into Ukraine, global climate change, North Korean war-mongering, and political troubles in Turkey and the Middle East. For the United States, once seemingly in control of its own and the world’s destiny, that’s a novel proposition. The future is no longer solely in our hands.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Sunday Globe on April 13, 2014.

Our yearning for mystery and surprise

Ours is a time of science and surveillance, stripped of mystery by the ongoing march of human progress. And then there is Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, a curiously welcome comeuppance to all of our certainties, one that suggests some things remain beyond our reckoning, that the earth still has room to surprise and astonish. We long for the extraordinary even as it becomes ever harder to find.

The fate of the aircraft has dominated the news, television especially, almost from the moment the plane disappeared on March 8. At times the coverage has been near laughable, with talking head after talking head saying what amounts to almost nothing, really, except, “We don’t know.” A month into it, the available information is scant: a possible trajectory, multiple reports of debris in ocean waters, perhaps a ping from the aircraft’s black box. We still don’t know where the plane is and, more importantly, we have no idea of what happened or why.

Several generations ago, the lost flight of Amelia Earhart gripped the nation. The aviator was perhaps the best-known woman of her day, the first to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, and, significantly, an early and remarkable example of what would later be called a feminist. Along with navigator Fred Noonan, she took off on June 1, 1937, for an around-the-world journey. A month into her trip, she was on a dangerous leg crossing the Pacific, going from New Guinea to deserted Howland Island. From radio transmissions, it seemed she was close to her destination, and yet she never arrived. Despite extraordinary efforts over the years, her plane was never found. Wild theories abounded: She faked her disappearance, she became a spy for the Japanese, she was a secret agent for the United States, she was abducted by extraterrestrials.

When you don’t know the answer, the imagination can run rife. Anything can seem possible.

The Bermuda Triangle, loosely bounded by Miami, Puerto Rico, and Bermuda, is a supernatural killer of those who cross its waters. “Nessie,” perhaps a descendent of the dinosaurs, lives in Scotland’s vast and deep Loch Ness. The human-like Big Foot or Sasquatch roams the Pacific Northwest. The US government hides the remains of aliens recovered in Roswell, N.M.

There are many other such unknowns: America’s lost tribe, the Shroud of Turin, the Overtoun Bridge, the “Wow!” signal, Stonehenge, the Voynich Manuscript. All intrigue us because they provide glimpses of a something beyond the quotidian, a sense that there are ineffable forces at work.

Our lives were once full of riddles. Vast stretches of the planet were unexplored. Illness and health appeared to be punishments and rewards from a watchful deity. Things happened seemingly without cause or reason.

Not anymore though. Human knowledge — science — has elevated logic, stripping away superstition and fantasy. We understand the makeup of reality from the Big Bang down to the smallest particle. Our planet has been explored, satellites scour the earth, and information about even the most insignificant of things is instantly available.

Indeed, even the few puzzles that remain are hardly unfathomable. Amelia Earhart’s flight likely was just a victim of poor navigation and spent fuel. There have been losses in the Bermuda Triangle, but many of the incidents have been exaggerated and those that occurred are better ascribed to meteorological phenomena. The famous photo of the Loch Ness monster was a fraud. Big Foot is an untenable myth, also bolstered by fakery. And the only thing that crashed in Roswell was a US Air Force surveillance balloon.

That’s not to say we know everything. There are still great mysteries: dark matter and dark energy, action at a distance by quantumly intertwined particles, multiverses, string theory. But this is esoteric stuff that seems to have very little to do with our daily lives.

Eventually, I expect, technology will help us discover the fate of Flight 370. Tracking systems will be improved so future flights aren’t lost. We’ll figure out why the aircraft went down and take steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again. All of this will be to the good, of course. Yet it will come also with a tinge of regret: Another mystery solved, our world ever more rational, explicable, and mundane.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Globe on April 9, 2014.

Challenging the boundaries, and definition, of ‘host community’

Casinos seemed an attractive amusement when they were more theoretical than fact. They also once appeared the state’s economic salvation back when the Great Recession was in full swing. But as reality gets closer and the recession fades away, casinos are starting to look far uglier and much less necessary. Gambling fans thought the battle had been won with the gaming law’s passage in 2011. Hardly. The road to those riches is paved with speed bumps and perhaps even a solid brick wall. Those obstacles include Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, former attorney general Scott Harshbarger, and some smart legal talent surrounding both.

In Boston’s case, the obstacles sound like legal pin-dancing. The city is debating the definition of a “host” instead of a “surrounding” community. Under state law, host communit    ies have nearly complete say-so over casinos in their midst. Surrounding communities, conversely, have little leverage. A casino supposedly has to come to agreement with its neighbors, but if it can’t, the gaming commission can just dictate a deal. From a negotiating standpoint, it’s plainly better to be a host.

So what, exactly, is a host community? One would think the answer obvious — it means a casino is within a city or town’s borders. But how about when it lies on the edge? When casino proponents were proposing to build on Suffolk Downs, which straddles East Boston and Revere, both communities were regarded as hosts and, last November, both got to vote. Eastie said no while Revere said yes. So, after some rejiggering, the casino was moved a bit until it was no longer was in Eastie.

The problem, as this example illustrates, is that such line drawing is a dumb way to think about casino impacts. The slight relocation to Revere won’t change the impact on Boston. You will, as Sarah Palin might say, still be able to see the casino from Boston. Patrons will travel through Boston streets to get to the casino. Some of their hotels likely will be in Boston. And the stuff that comes with casinos — the sex trade, crime, family and social dislocation, and, most unnerving of all, frequent sightings of large men in open-collar black shirts with too many gold chains — will still be in and around Boston. Meanwhile, there’s a worry that while casinos bring jobs, they also crowd out other, more lucrative economic development.

Thus Walsh contends that, boundaries notwithstanding, Boston really is a host community. Even further, his lawyers say, the gaming commission doesn’t have the authority to decide who’s a host or not, meaning that the matter eventually gets decided in court. At a minimum, simply making the argument has given Boston more clout, forcing the Gaming Commission Thursday to put off its decisionmaking. And if Walsh ultimately wins the point, new votes would need to be held. Both the Revere casino as well as one proposed for nearby Everett could be doomed if adjacent Eastie or Charlestown were to say no.

The logic of Walsh’s position goes further. Why should just two neighborhoods have a say? How about the entire city or even the region? After all, what happens in one place has a ripple effect that touches us all.

That logic brings us to a referendum being pushed by Harshbarger and a group he’s advising, Repeal the Casino Deal. They hope to overturn the casino law altogether. It’s a good card for Walsh to have in his back pocket.

Signatures have already been collected, but current attorney general (and gubernatorial hopeful) Martha Coakley has refused to certify the petition. She says repeal in effect amounts to an impermissible taking of property — in this case, the expectation of a license. The anti-casino group appealed her decision to the Supreme Judicial Court; the case should be heard in early May. Repeal the Casino Deal points to 2008’s successful referendum abolishing greyhound racing, which wiped out some long-established businesses. If that referendum question was OK, they figure, so too is theirs.

If the SJC agrees, get ready for a fierce campaign. Casino interests have money to burn and they’ll easily outspend those pushing the referendum. But a recent WBUR poll shows the mood in Massachusetts is shifting. Money can’t necessarily buy love and voters are growing wary of the gambling dens in their midst. In Boston and statewide, money may eventually be shown the door.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Sunday Globe on April 6, 2014.

A new pie rides into town

In the beginning, God created New Haven. He then saw what he had done and, in an effort to make amends, created Frank Pepe Pizzeria.

It really is that good, aficionados say: a piece of divinity in the midst of drab humanity. And now, heaven be praised, Pepe’s supposedly is coming to Boston. Finally someone will show us how it’s supposed to be done!

We’ve heard this tale before: FAO Schwarz, Krispy Kreme, Wegmans, Yuengling beer. The hype for each has been over-the-top, the reality less so.

The much-anticipated FAO Schwarz outlet in Back Bay was a marvel, anchored by a giant teddy bear sculpture that greeted shoppers into a “world of toys.” But the glitz was not enough to make up for the too-high prices, and in 2003 it shuttered. The Boston bear now graces the Floating Hospital for Children.

Meanwhile, Southern institution Krispy Kreme vowed to show us how a real doughnut tastes. Even as FAO was closing, it began its great march into New England. Transplants from the land of the Confederacy waxed rhapsodic about the near-mystical goodness to come when the neon sign said “Hot Now” and so we queued up, sometimes for hours. While waiting, we were handed a sample, and it seemed extraordinary. We tried a second, and we cringed as sugar overload hit hard in the upper palate, like a too-sweet birthday cake. Dunkin’ Donuts, supposedly locked in mortal struggle, emerged an easy victor. Three years later, Krispy Kreme had retreated, unable to bridge the cultural gulf between north and south.

There’s a pattern here. Wegmans, the much-talked-about family grocer concentrated in upstate New York, is moving into New England. No question, it’s well done, and Shaw’s and Stop & Shop could learn a thing or two about friendlier service. But at the end of the day, it’s just another grocery store.

And then there’s Yuengling, billed as America’s oldest brewery and now making a major foray into Massachusetts after a two-decade-long absence. Suddenly, the signature lager graces taps in watering holes around the city. And the beer itself? Caramel in color, it’s got a promising look, but light and thin in taste it quickly fades to anonymity. Better than a Bud, to be sure, but Harpoon and Sam Adams needn’t worry.

But back to Frank Pepe. This, I’m assured, is the real deal. A ranking by The Daily Meal of the 101 best pizzas in America agrees, putting Pepe’s at the top of its list. I’m skeptical, though. Boston has its share of pizza stalwarts: Regina and Santarpio’s, of course, as well as a number of more recent offerings, such as Picco and the Salty Pig. Can a pie originally from New Haven really best all of them?

I make the trek to Connecticut to see what the hype is all about, order a regular cheese and a white clam pie, and bite into each.

Very good.

But hardly a revelation. Angels don’t appear with trumpets; I don’t fall into a dead swoon. Covered with fresh clams, grated cheese, garlic, and oil, the flavor of the white pizza is intense. The first slice is delicious but the next few — kind of like Krispy Kreme — seem less so. Perhaps it’s best experienced in smaller doses. The cheese pizza is a good rendition but seems underflavored. I bring some home and compare it to Regina’s. The two are similar. Regina’s is a little tastier, though, the crust lighter and not as chewy.

So welcome to the neighborhood, Frank. We’ve already got great pizza — six local pizzerias also made The Daily Meal’s top 101 — but there’s always room for more. Still there’s a kind of coals-to-Newcastle problem with your expansion. If I were looking to grow, I’d head south and west. In towns where Pizza Hut and Domino’s are the best things around, you’d really get noticed. Here, you’ll be just another face in the crowd.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Globe on April 1, 2014.