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Massachusetts politics is wicked strange, I know. Ours was one of the last states to let you buy beer on a Sunday but one of the first to let you buy weed. The man who once governed us as America's bluest state is now a U.S. senator for one of America's reddest. Meanwhile our current Republican governor plays Hatfield to Trump's McCoy.
It's nothing new; here politics has always been a contact sport. Our minutemen launched a democratic republic that has endured for 247 years and counting. A man named Bulger ran our state senate, his brother ran the Winter Hill Gang. Not too long ago the feds practically indicted the mayor's office. Now Marty Walsh is Biden's labor secretary.
Welcome to Massachusetts, home of the July Fourth fireworks. If you want finesse watch a Bruins game, if you want blood watch a city council race.
This year we had bruising gubernatorial primaries. They left us with the Democrat Maura Healey and the Republican Geoff Diehl (pronounced deal). Too bad for us they both suck.
Healey is Massachusetts' latest lackluster attorney general. On her watch our state pays private-extradition companies to mistreat persons whom our courts presume to be innocent. That gives us a bad rap across America. Meanwhile Healey's civil-rights division allows our prisons to exceed nearly all others in suicides.
Diehl is no better. His former campaign manager Holly Robichaud pocketed Saudi-government money to lobby against 9/11 victims and their families.
We need a third option. Meet the Libertarian candidate Kevin Reed. He's a working-class guy with a real job outside of politics.
And who am I, exactly? I'm Martin MartyG Gottesfeld. I grew up in Andover and moved to Davis Square, Somerville. Nice to meet you.
In 2014 I helped save a young girl from DCF. That's the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families, a four-letter word here in the Bay State, for those of you lucky enough not to know. The girl's parents had committed the cardinal sin of disagreeing with Harvard doctors. The Harvard doctors went to their associates at DCF. DCF took the girl.
At Harvard they call that a parentectomy.
But it turned out the Harvard doctors were wrong. Sixteen months into their care the girl was crippled for life. Her parents went bankrupt battling the State. It was a parent's worst nightmare. And it could happen to anyone.
That's when I—according to the feds—launched "one of the largest [digital sit-ins] ever conducted" in order to get the girl back. Liberals call me an imprisoned human-rights activist. Conservatives know me as the Guardian Hacktivist. Folks on both sides consider me a political prisoner.
Next to Healey and Diehl I might as well be Batman. You may read more of my story at Rolling Stone by clicking here.
But suffice to say I know something about standing up for the little guy. I endorse Kevin Reed because he does too. He's spent months canvassing the state, hearing from everyday folks. The fact Reed is a political outsider enables him to take commonsense positions Healey and Diehl can't touch lest they upset their handlers. You may read his campaign platform here.
Reed is just in time because this is not just any election. Were this the 2000 presidential race in Florida or the 2020 races in Arizona or Georgia I could not endorse a third-party candidate. But this time, in Massachusetts, a vote for the Democratic or Republican gubernatorial nominee is counterproductive. But this time, in Massachusetts, a vote for the Democratic or Republican gubernatorial nominee is counterproductive, as you may read about here.
Reed's candidacy, in contrast, stands to improve Massachusetts greatly. His Libertarian Party stands to gain "major party" status this election. For too long Massachusetts has been a one-party state while the token opposition has done little to hold Beacon Hill accountable. I know loyal Democrats, for example, whose affiliation did no good against unjust state agencies and bureaucrats when push came to shove. I bet you know such folks too.
And that girl I helped save? Her parents had no advocate at the statehouse willing and able to deliver real results. Reed would end that.
So instead of voting-in more of the same, vote for Kevin Reed and pray you never need him the way that one very brave young girl and her family needed me.
