Who do candidates call when they want opposition research on their opponents? While you’re at it, you better do research on yourself as a candidate and face up to your own skeletons! Matt Barron has been lit up by politics ever since he canvassed for anti-Vietnam War congressional candidate Father Robert Drinan in 1970. Drinan won and made his mark on Capitol Hill and across the country, meanwhile, Barron has made his impact behind the scenes, working for countless candidates and causes over the past four decades. We unpack opposition research and how transparency typically benefits candidates, and how, most often, stubbornness does not benefit them. We take a look at the (to this point) extraordinarily quiet race for governor in Massachusetts, Maura Healey’s frontrunner status, and how she may break the electoral curse of the attorney general position in Massachusetts (the list of losses for higher office is long: Martha Coakley, Tom Reilly, Scott Harshbarger, etc.) We also cover the severe lack of transparency on Beacon Hill, a trend toward secret deliberations, and the authoritarian nature of the house speaker. In addition our conversation includes: the dwindling number of reporters covering politics and the negative impact to transparency and increase in puff pieces, the contrast between former Congressman John Oliver and current Congressman Richard Neal, Super PACs, an increasing number of Republican registrations in Massachusetts, National Democrats’ inability to connect with rural voters, the massive impact that inflation will have on the 2022 election cycle, the Fair Share effort in Massachusetts, how a lot of the joy has been taken out of campaigns because of the cutthroat nature of politics today on the national level, and we cover Matt’s exhibit of photographs of Northeast U.S. Post Offices taken from 1965 to 2021 now on display at the Spellman Museum in Weston, Massachusetts, and much more!
I hope you’ll enjoy my conversation with Matt Barron.