There are two impressive candidates running for state treasurer in Tuesday’s Democratic primary: Boston City Councilor Stephen Murphy, an elected official with a strong head for finance, and Steve Grossman, an accomplished businessman and substantial philanthropist long active in public life. We urge voters to choose STEVE GROSSMAN.
Grossman is a strong leader who worked mightily to transform his family’s already established company into an even bigger success. He has fresh eyes and new ideas for managing the commonwealth’s money. Witness his plan to put the state’s checkbook online and his ideas about leveraging state deposits to help spur local lending and investment.
Grossman is a savvy and straight inside player who can be trusted to maintain ethical standards and promote transparency. Grossman’s reputation for integrity led Bill Clinton to install him as Democratic National Committee chair, to clean up that organization following a series of fundraising scandals in the mid ’90s.
Grossman has the standing and skill to navigate Beacon Hill’s slippery corridors of power. And he has the smarts to tangle with the stone-cold operators who run the banks and investment houses on Wall and State streets.
But above all, Grossman is energetic. He is the candidate of exciting and new ideas and of rich and proven experience, and his activist view of the treasurer’s office is what we need now. If he were to win in November, Grossman might just help transform how Massachusetts practices politics.
The commonwealth’s auditor often toils unnoticed. But this year’s candidates rightly argue that, in the right hands, the office can play a powerful oversight role, ensuring that tax money is spent properly and efficiently.
SUZANNE BUMP, former state representative and secretary of labor and workforce development, is a superb candidate to take the auditor’s office in that direction.
Bump’s experience in and around state government have given her impressive insight into how it all works -- and how it should work better.
She has also demonstrated the independence voters should rightfully demand from their auditor. She stood firm against powerful interests as a state legislator, spearheading landmark workers-compensation reform, and she fought the bureaucracy to streamline and professionalize her cabinet department. Many of her proposals continue that trend.
Political newcomer Mike Lake shows terrific potential, but lacks the experience of running such a high-level office.
Bump, however, has the skills and attitude to quickly turn the state auditor into a major factor for reform on Beacon Hill.
In local primaries, the Phoenix makes the following endorsements:
* For the state’s ninth congressional district, first-time candidate MAC D’ALESSANDRO has demonstrated an impressive understanding of the issues, to go along with stalwart progressive instincts. While staunchly pro-life, incumbent Stephen Lynch is not the rabid conservative some make him out to be. Lynch has been a steady supporter of gay rights, and a true fighter for economic justice and corporate oversight. But Lynch is pro-war and anti-health care and voted against the economic stimulus. D’Alessandro, a political organizer for the Service Employees International Union, would continue the best of Lynch’s battles, while better representing Boston-area voters.
