William Weld -- what's the story?

[Jim Lane]

William Weld has announced his candidacy for Governor of New York. (He was born here and has lived here for the last several years.)

Our Massachusetts friends must have a lot of useful information about him. What do you know about Weld that we New York DUers would want to know?

Perhaps this thread can become the basis for a thread in the Research Forum. That way, any responses will be more readily available throughout the campaign.

[Caution]

1. Simple. Vote for a Democrat instead

He wasn't as bad as Romney but he's still a Republican. John Kerry made Weld look like a complete and total fool in the debates when Weld ran for Senate.

[Jim Lane]

2. I meant -- to be blunt about it -- ammunition

Yes, I expect to vote Democratic. But it's not too early to begin doing our research and preparing our talking points for LTTE's, private conversations, etc. I want to go beyond preaching to the choir. It's more useful to be able to persuade people who are on the fence. For example, in those debates, did Weld say anything foolish and quotable that we can throw in his face now?

[merbex]

4. Unless he's in a 12 step program he's a drunk

He had a get together at his house in Cambridge and a prominent guest- Repug insider- Andrew Card's brother- in- law I believe, got arrested for DUI. He was served the drinks at Weld's house

Try to get a tape of Weld at his own inuagural party - completely sh**faced

Reporters around here definitely covered up this aspect of his character/personality

I always had the impression that he didn't like "hard work"; he really should have been made Ambassador to somewhere except the danger always existed he would embarrass this country with his drinking

[AllieB]

10. He spilled a glass of wine on my sister at a restaurant once

He was sloshed. We used to see him around town growing up and he was definitely the party boy...

[Hippo_Tron]

5. Out of curiosity what does LTTE mean

And don't bother with finding ammunition on Weld, Spitzer is 20 points ahead of everybody. It's a forgone conclusion.

[Jim Lane]

6. LTTE = Letter to the editor, and here's why I want ammo:...

Yes, Spitzer is well ahead in the polls right now. Unfortunately, though, Suozzi seems to be leaning toward challenging him for the nomination, raising the possibility of a divisive primary. Even if the post-primary polls still show the Democrat 20 points ahead, people have blown bigger leads. If we sit around on our tails while the other side actually works, we could get a nasty surprise. Finally, piling on in the headline races might help candidates further down the ticket. Last year, one of the senior Republicans in the State Senate kept his seat by only 18 votes. If an attack on Weld motivates some Democrats to make the effort to show up and vote against him, and they otherwise would have stayed home, they might swing another race while they're there.

[freethought]

14. I don't agree with that.

I remember those debates between Kerry and Weld, granted it has been a while, but I thought both men were pretty close in terms of performance. I do think Kerry had a definite edge over Weld but it wasn't a big one. I remember a number of commentaries that the bar for debates was raised with the Kerry vs. Weld debates. Personally I think both men did themselves proud.
Just my 2 cents.

[Kat45]

3. Unless he's changed, he's one of the good repubs you don't see anymore

IIRC, he was pro-choice, and I think he may have been for medical marijuana. He was going to be appointed ambassador to Mexico, 'til some of the legislative wingnuts put the kibosh on it. He was a popular governor, at least in his first term, and looked to have a promising career in politics, perhaps nationally, but in the Republican party, having been hijacked by the religious right, he became a persona non grata. (By his second term, he had seemed bored by the job and looking for better things.)

[TaleWgnDg]

7. Bill Weld? A good guy. Very intelligent. He's so damn

.
Bill Weld? A good guy. Very intelligent. He's so damn intelligent that he gets bored rather quickly. Great sense of humor. Weld comes from an old yankee family, Brahmin Bostonians. And, he jokes about it.

Early on as governor, Weld reached out to gays in Massachusetts. During his first few weeks in office as governor he pushed through a first-in-the country gay youth in public schools (executive branch) committee. That committee put into place a great anti-discriminatory program w/i Massachusetts public schools including anti-suicide outreach for gay youth. However, it pissed-off a small group of uber-neo-cons who still rant about it to today.

Overall, Weld as governor was fiscally conservative and for less government. He condensed the Code of Massachusetts Regulations, but got a tad bit hung up when trying to push the legislature for authority to lessen state government in areas that Weld felt necessary. Weld was also socially moderate-liberal. Bill Weld was pro-choice as were the majority of the old-time northeast traditional Protestant Republicans of which Weld is one. Weld appealed to both the Republican gay community as well as the Democrat gay community. He was pro same-sex marriage but the state Democratic legislative leadership at that time was in the hands of conservative Roman Catholics who refused to do squat about civil unions or assist the City of Boston in partnership healthcare benefits.

Bill Clinton when president nominated Bill Weld to be ambassador of Mexico during Weld's second term in office as governor. Weld was smitten. He took cram Spanish language and culture lessons. And resigned as governor, went to Washington D.C. where he felt that he could win over the uber-conservative nutcases in the Senate who had to confirm his appointment as Mexican ambassador. Weld could charm anyone, and he promised us in Massachusetts that he'd wait and wait and wait -- for as long as it took -- for Senator Jesse Helms, Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee to meet w/ him and approve him. And wait he did. Helms refused to meet individually with Weld. Helms, also, ranted on about Weld sucking up to gays, abortionists, feminists, as well as Weld's positive stance regarding medical marijuana. Lights, camera, action from Helms. Helms loved it. But Weld never got a hearing before Helms' senate committee after waiting for several months, thus never an "up or down vote" as the neo-cons now call it.

Bill Weld has authored a few books. Novels, mostly. I thought his first book, Mackerel by Moonlight was a good read. It's light, a funny mystery (political satire) novel about a young lawyer arriving in Boston who encounters staid old Brahmin Bostonians . . . it's been said that Weld is poking fun at himself in this satirical novel. I've yet to read his second novel or his third, although I hear Stillwater is a very insightful novel about central Massachusetts. Weld, typically, writes satire which is so like him in real life. He doesn't take himself seriously which is part of the charm of the guy.

In any event, Bill moved back to New York after his stint in Massachusetts. However, since he wants to dabble in New York politics, he's changed his tune. I understand he is anti-same sex marriage. Now that's a shock. And that's not sarcasm but a sincere disbelieve on my behalf. I'm unaware of where he is politically now other than his decisive change of tune about marriage.

____________________________

Edited to add: here's what wikipedia says about William F. Weld
.

[TaleWgnDg]

8. And here's what dKosopedia says about Weld . . .

http://www.dkosopedia.com/index.php/William_Weld

.

[rox63]

9. As Rethugs go, he's not bad

He's pro-choice and pro-gay-rights. And he wasn't lying about it, like Mittens did. But you've already got an excellent Democratic candidate in Elliot Spitzer. So why not vote for him instead? I voted for Weld the first time he ran for MA Governor, because the Democratic nominee that year was really bad. But he's the only Rethug I've ever voted for. And I didn't support him when he ran for his second term.

[Breeze54]

11. He's just another repig JERK!

Snip-->
The pattern of recent years has as much to do with
attention span and strategy as it does with the political climate.

Weld "got bored with being governor," said Jeffrey Berry,
professor of political science at Tufts University.
"He seemed to be a governor with political attention deficit disorder." <--snip

Quote from: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/12/15/leaders_in_a_state_of_wanderlust/">Leaders in a state of wanderlust Romney the latest of many who eyed greener pastures

See also:

http://www.naco.org/cnews/1996/96-02-19/16weld.htm">Massachusetts governor proposes eliminating counties
If Massachusetts Governor William Weld (R) has his way,
county government will close shop by 1997 in pursuit of his goal to
“support only that level of government which is necessary for the public good.”

Gov. Weld introduced “An Act Abolishing County Government,” Jan. 23,
as part of an overall legislative package designed to reorganize state government.
Weld’s proposal would retain county-elected sheriffs,
but abolish all other county offices and absorb them into a state structure.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Isn't this every repuke's goal?
To abolish government?
but...er....ah...I just saw this!
OMG!! LMAO!
But if Jesse Helms hates Weld?
http://www.rnclife.org/faxnotes/1997/aug97/97-08-11.shtml

:rofl: :rofl: maybe he isn't so bad!! :rofl: :rofl:

[Kat45]

12. You quoted Jeff Berry; I took a couple of his classes at Tufts,

many moons ago. He's a good guy.

[freethought]

13. Bill Weld not a bad guy!

Very smart, no doubt about that. One of those 'old-school' republicans that you don't see too much of these days. Problem is that he tends to get bored quickly and this characteristic appeared when he was gov. of Massachusetts.
For a republican he was fairly strong on the environment and gay rights. He did tend to dig in his heals when it came to taxes. Not entirely a bad thing when you have to deal with some of the hijinks of the Mass. legislature.

It is his attention span that may be a problem. Some years ago Mass. had an unusual event. A tornado touched down in the western part of the state. Some serious damage, maybe even some deaths. "Wayward Bill", as the some in the press called him, was nowhere to be found. The Lt.Gov. Paul Cellucci was handed the torch to survey the damage and deal with the political fallout. As I remember correctly Bill Weld was in upstate New York at some sort of high society retreat. This really hurt his standing in Mass. Just before this incident there was some talk of him running for president. He did run against John Kerry for U.S. Senate. During the campaign Kerry and Weld ran virtually neck and neck up until the last days of the campaign where Kerry pulled out in front and won. I do not agree that Kerry "steamrolled" Weld in the debates that were held. I recall that there were three or so. These were awesome debates, and were great to watch, both candidates did extremely well. I will say that Kerry seemed to hold a bit of an edge over weld but it wasn't a big one.

One could have pictured him as a conservative democrat. IMHO, he was a repug that I could deal with. My main worry is that for a moderate repug he will have to pander to the hard/conservative/religious right to get his campaign cash. And that may compromise his stance as a moderate to holding hard right party line.

[sniffa]

15. not a bad guy? he's a great guy

regardLess of party. he's the reason i thought i was repubLican during my formative years.

after he Left, i started to reaLize that repubLicans aren't Like him. in fact, i can't name a singLe one that compares.