Cambridge Civic Journal Forum

September 30, 2021

The PACs are choosing up sides

Filed under: 2021 election,Cambridge,elections — Tags: , , — Robert Winters @ 7:19 pm

The PACs are choosing up sides

Sept 29 – Cambridge has a growing presence of Political Action Committees each trying to influence how you vote. What each of them stands for is a bit muddy in spite of their various pronouncements and what will surely soon be slick mailings to Cambridge voters. At least two of these entities have migrated to the “Independent Expenditure Political Action Committee” mode in order to be able to accept (and spend) more money under the debatable theory that they are operating independently of any of the campaigns of specific candidates.Vote!

Interestingly, all but one have so far ignored the School Committee unlike in years past when an actual civic organization like the Cambridge Civic Association (CCA) put at least as much effort into its School Committee endorsements as it did into its City Council endorsements.

Anyway, the current scorecard is below. Note the crossover of candidates who appear on multiple slates and, perhaps just as significantly, the exclusion of some candidates from particular slates that actually align with in terms of policy positions. Make no mistake about it – the primary role of most candidate slates is incumbency protection and the last thing a PAC want is to have one of their challengers bump off one of their incumbents. The remaining candidates are a mix of candidates who might add to the PAC’s elected ranks as well as some “feeders” whose role is to draw in votes to the slate that will be transferred to other slate candidates upon defeat. Needless to say, nobody will ever openly tell a candidate that they are primarily a “feeder”. RW

PAC A Better Cambridge
(ABC)
Cambridge Citizens
Coalition (CCC)
Cambridge Residents
Alliance (CResA)
Our Revolution
Cambridge (ORC)
Endorsed
Candidates
Burhan Azeem
Tonia Hicks
Alanna Mallon
Marc McGovern
Joe McGuirk
Sumbul Siddiqui
Denise Simmons
Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler
Paul Toner
Dana Bullister
Dennis Carlone
Patricia Nolan
Nicola Williams
Dennis Carlone
Tonia Hicks
Patricia Nolan
Theodora Skeadas
Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler
Nicola Williams
Quinton Zondervan
Dennis Carlone
Tonia Hicks
Theodora Skeadas
Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler
Nicola Williams
Quinton Zondervan
 
School Committee:
Daria Johnson
José Luis Rojas Villarreal
David Weinstein
Rachel Weinstein
Ayesha Wilson

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