Brown Seeks Police Union Support - Key to Campaign
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Warren’s campaign has yet to reach out to Worcester’s two police unions or the Massachusetts Police Association, which represents thousands of police officers in Central Mass and across the state.
By contrast, Sen. Scott Brown is wooing both unions, sitting down with the leaders of the patrolmen’s union when he kicked off his campaign in Worcester. His campaign is also aggressively courting the MPA as well.
And Brown’s personal touch seems to be working, with Worcester’s 323-member patrolman’s union now gearing up for an event in Worcester to endorse the senator’s reelection bid.
For Republican candidates, seeking endorsements from police unions is a time-honored tactic, allowing them to make inroads among blue collar, union voters, a traditional Democratic bastion, Glodis said.
However, for Warren, failing to compete for the endorsements of police unions could prove to be a costly mistake.
Central Mass could prove decisive in what is shaping up to be a hotly contested, nationally-watched senate race, a battleground area chock full of independent voters, political consultants say.
Endorsements by police unions have political currency in Central Massachusetts, with public safety a top concern of local voters, Glodis said.
State Rep. John Binienda, (D-Worcester), said he is also troubled by Warren’s failure to compete for the nod of the city’s police unions.
He contends Warren must “get grassroots” and compete for all the labor endorsements she can get, not just from the police unions.
“It bothers me,” Binienda said. “You have to show you are the party for the working men and women.”
A spokeswoman for Warren’s campaign declined to comment on the pending Worcester police union endorsements.
But the Warren campaign has reached out to other police unions, including one that covers locals in Springfield and the Cape.
“We will get our fair share of police union endorsements,” said one campaign official, adding “obviously we will fight for all of them.”
A Coakley repeat?
Still, the pending endorsement of Brown by Worcester’s patrolman’s union is shaping up to be a repeat of 2010, when Brown won the backing of Worcester’s two police unions.
An embarrassing rebuff for Coakley, the state’s top law enforcement officer, it came after Brown sat down with leaders of the city’s two police unions.
Now Warren’s campaign appears on track to repeat the error.
The act of asking for a vote or an endorsement by a candidate can go a long way, especially if the opponent is a no show, noted Sgt. Donald Cummings, president of I.B.P.O. Local 504, which represents Worcester’s police captains, lieutenants and sergeants.
Coakley never asked for his union’s vote in the last election and he has yet to hear from Warren’s campaign. In comparison, Brown made a personal appeal back in 2010 and has already contacted the union about an endorsement in the current race.
“People like to be asked for their vote,” Cummings said. “He came and presented himself like a regular person,” he said, recalling the 2010 meeting. “His military background played very well with our members.”
Still, there are other reasons as well for the decision to side with Brown, said Brian Halloran, president of Worcester Police Patrolmen's Union, NEPBA Local 911.
Halloran, head of the patrolman’s union, said his organization takes pride in not towing anyone’s party line.
The union likes Brown’s law and order stance and appreciates his role on a key Congressional committee that oversees homeland security funding.
“We are much more open minded than in the old days, when labor just rubber stamped a candidate with D at the end of the name,” Halloran said, “We are not looking for R’s ad D’s – we are looking for someone we can connect with.”
The Massachusetts Police Association has yet to make a decision on who to endorse, but acknowledged that Brown’s campaign has made overtures.
While the MPA, which endorsed Attorney General Martha Coakley, is a tougher sell, so far the pitches have all been from Brown.
“I have gone to events for Scott,” said James Machado, the MPA’s executive director. “There is certainly dialogue.
Warren might have faced a disadvantage competing for the support of police unions, which have leaned Republican in recent years.
Yet she might have done well to heed the example of Arthur Chase, a long-time Republican state senator from Worcester who made it a point to go to Labor Day festivities to seek out votes among union members, said David Schaefer, a political science professor at Holy Cross.
“It’s never in any candidate’s interest to write off any groups unless they have said we won’t support so and so,” he said.
Meanwhile, police union endorsements could also create a larger, stylistic problem for Warren.
Brown’s success in winning over police unions could also help the senator cast himself as a law and order while portraying Warren as a radical professor who consorts with unruly Occupy Wall Street types, Schaefer indicated.
An ad on the Massachusetts Republican Party website is already playing up the theme, labeling Warren the “Matriarch of Mayhem” against a backdrop of Occupy protestors.
It’s a game that Democrats can’t afford to cede in what is shaping up to be a close race, some warn.
“The Republicans have done a great job seeking endorsements from public safety unions for the past several decades,” Glodis said. “The Democrats need to start asking.”
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