GUESS WHO IS RUNNING FOR GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS!

9/2/2021

She is classically trained with important publications on ancient democracy; she has seen clearly how it links to the problems democracy confronts today; she left a cushy post at the Institute for Advanced Study to direct Harvard’s Edmond Safra Center for Ethics and helped launch the Educating for American Democracy project of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Now she has decided to put all this academic experience to the test in the “real world.”
Here’s the link to the Boston Globe’s coverage of Danielle Allen’s announcement of her candidacy for the Democratic nomination for governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. And, if you share my enthusiasm for her candidacy, here’s the link for contributing to her campaign. Or, if you’re like me and prefer to write a check, send it to:
Committee to Elect Danielle Allen
124 Washington Street, Suite 101
Foxborough, MA 02035

2 Comments

Kevin O'Connor

10/7/2021 01:45:18 am

This is fantastic news. Massachusetts would be lucky to have her.

10/7/2021 02:28:27 pm

Even though she would not necessarily be the prohibitive favorite (which of course many ultimate victors are not!) going in, I think all Democrats should be excited for her potential to enrich the debate in the primary: she seems sufficiently viable to impact the conversation and the last notable Democratic primary in the state (Markey vs Kennedy) was largely devoid of material policy distinctions and more of a conversation about personalities and political aesthetics (which is fun to cover when it involves the Kennedys, I guess).

Allen reminds me of Liz Warren in her deep egalitarianism: like Warren, it's obvious from Danielle's writing (not just her scholarship but also her more personal pieces also) that despite her establishment bona fides, her political perspective is not fundamentally aristocratic. It's hard to imagine a better forum for this intellectually adventurous candidacy, considering that Massachusetts has from its founding been a laboratory for political experiment. In a way, the juxtaposition of biography and egalitarian commitments kind of befits Massachusetts' historical Yankee sensibility. Of course, the Massachusetts of today is a relatively educated, wealthy state where Democrats have in recent decades shown an affinity for credentialed, technocratic administrators: Charlie Baker, Romney, Deval Patrick among them.

It will also be interesting because we don't seem to have an abundance of examples of intellectuals serving in executive roles in this country (as distinct from intellectually capable or curious), especially outside of the federal branch: it's not hard to speculate why when they pop up, it tends to be in legislatures (occasionally in judicial roles, although appellate courts probably have multitudes more who imagine themselves to be intellectuals). Do intellectuals make for better administrators on average than, say, the average business executive or lower-level politician? I also wonder if the answer to that question has changed as public administration has become more complex and more specialized (if indeed it has)?

I'm also bypassing the question of what makes someone an intellectual: there are clearcut cases like Havel and Vargas Llosa but past that where does one draw the line? Is it based on temperament, capacity, style, occupational history? Does it make sense to class an economist or law professor like Cass Sunstein with a more conventional humanist?

GUESS WHO IS RUNNING FOR GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS!

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