ALL POLITICS IS LOCAL, ALL POLITICS IS NATIONAL

Former House Speaker Tip O’Neill once said that “all politics is local.” In 2015, however, a New York Times pundit said that had changed to “all politics is national.” In a recent blog I agreed with the latter observation by pointing out the vote-getting, racial dog whistles used by members of the Worcester City Council and School Committee in their attacks on Mosaic, a Black-run social service agency, and Black School Superintendent Melinda Boone, a consummate outsider. The main perpetrators of these witch hunts were Councilor Michael Gaffney and school board member Dianna Biancheria. They were the local equivalents of the national newsmaker, Donald Trump, who attacked Mexicans as “rapists” and demanded that all Muslims (Arabs) be banned from entering the United States.

The sudden death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has given us another local-national comparison.

We can’t forget how some members of the Worcester school committee, after last fall’s announcement that Superintendent Boone was offered a $30,000 raise to become the superintendent of the Norfolk, Virginia, school system and took the offer, wanted to wait until after the November election for a new school committee to appoint an interim successor. That proposal was ignored, and Mayor Joe Petty had three other votes to appoint Marco Rodrigues as temporary superintendent.

Ms. Biancheria and a couple of others wanted to give the temporary job to South High principal Maureen Binenda. That would make it easier for them to give her the full-time job, which they no doubt will do now that the makeup of the committee has changed and they have the necessary four votes. The only problem is that this will be seen as blatantly political, but what else is new in Worcester?

Republicans in the Senate and 100% of the GOP presidential candidates declared they want President Obama to refrain from naming a successor to Scalia and to wait until after the election so the “voters can decide.” Their claim is that the country will vote for the party that will name a justice just like Scalia or give the Democrats a chance to select a more liberal justice.

But the voters have already decided. In 2012 they rejected Willard Romney and re-elected Barack Obama as president. The president gets to fill vacant Supreme Court seats. That’s the way it works, and these ridiculous Republicans are grasping at straws trying to convince us that a president with ELEVEN MONTHS left in his term can’t make this decision.

If Scalia had died in the last year of a Bush presidency, it’s unimaginable that Republicans would not support his naming a successor. They’d impeach him if he didn’t.

Justice Scalia, god rest his soul, was very inconsiderate because he died before the inauguration of a new president. For all the praise given to him by conservatives, Scalia was absolutely useless on the court and could be replaced by a bobble-head doll shaking its head either up and down or side to side.

We always knew how Scalia would vote on cases brought before the Court. If they had to do with progressive social issues—affirmative action, voting rights, women’s right to choose, equal pay, gay marriage and gay rights, union rights, access to health care, etc., he’d always vote NO. If a case benefited big business, tax relief for the wealthy, environmental deregulation, deregulation in general, and gun rights, he’d vote YES. Death, taxes, and Scalia’s vote were three things that were sure in life.

Here’s a simple analogy even urban hicks should be able to understand. Bill Belichick announces his retirement at the beginning of the season. With 11 games left to play, Tom Brady suffers a career-ending injury. Would the management tell Belichick he can’t pick a new franchise quarterback and that the team has to wait until the new coach takes the reins?

Not bloody likely.

For the past month I’ve been railing against the candidacy of Bernie Sanders, not because I disagree with his policies but simply because he’s a long-shot in the general election. My mantra has been, paraphrasing James Carville, “It’s the Supreme Court, stupid.” Even if Obama is able to get a new justice confirmed (which at this point seems unlikely), a Republican president, given the advanced age of several current Court members, could appoint two or three more conservative justices, sending America back to the Dark Ages.

Scalia’s death and the GOP reaction places emphasis on my concern. This is an election Democrats absolutely cannot afford to lose, and picking the right presidential candidate is of paramount importance. As Vince Lombardi said, “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.”

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