For those who may not have heard, Alex Morse is the current mayor of Holyoke, MA, and is running against incumbent Congressman Richard Neal in the Democratic primary for MA's second district.
Earlier this month, the UMass Amherst student newspaper reported that the school's chapter of the College Democrats had sent Morse a letter asking him not to attend an upcoming event because he had, in the past, used their events to make sexual advances to students. However, Morse had only ever attended one such event in October 2019, and no students have come forward with any specific allegations. Morse acknowledged having had sexual relationships with students at Amherst, but denied that any were his students (he taught a single class as an adjunct in the past).
It now turns out that the College Democrats were assisted in making this statement by the state Democratic party. This includes a lawyer, Jim Roosevelt, who's been accused in the past of helping the Democratic Party stack the deck against more left-leaning candidates. The College Democrats at this school, meanwhile, had been discussing ways to torpedo Morse's campaign since at least April.
The issue is both the flimsiness of the allegations (who could've foreseen that treating all accusations as automatically true could backfire?) and the state party's involvement. Their bylaws are clear that they are to remain neutral in any primary fight, but that's clearly not what happened here.
The fucking audacity of these people. My lord.According to three sources with knowledge of the timeline, party leadership talked to the college group three weeks ago and then referred them to Roosevelt for assistance. The exact nature of that help, however, is a matter of some contention — details that could be illuminated by the forthcoming investigation. Bickford, according to Politico, said that the investigation would not begin until after the September 1 primary, so as not to influence the result.
One of the primary (heh) consequences of a monopoly is a complete lack of consequences.
I bet this is fascinating if you have a better grasp of the actors in play. It's exactly the kind of story I'd follow to the end if it were local. As an outsider it was a little hard to keep track of how it all went down. It seems to be a dirty enough political fight that I'll reread it. If you are following the story and any big new developments come up, post it.