If you’ve been on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, and you’re a Worcester voter, you’ve likely seen ads for a group called the Worcester Working Families IEP. Sadly, despite the moniker, this group is hardly representative of Worcester’s working families. Instead, it’s a vehicle that uses dishonest smear tactics to endorse at least one extremist candidate and a few others whose morality lies somewhere in a grey area. To do that, the group funnels tens of thousands of dollars from wealthy out-of-town donors to influence Worcester politics.
A personal note
This section is a personal reflection on the conflicting feelings I felt about writing this, as well as why I felt the need to do it. If you’re interested only in the points I’m making about the group itself, just scroll down to the next sub-heading.
Before delving into the facts, I want to say that I hate to write this article. As I look through the list of those who’ve donated to the Worcester Working Families Independent Expenditure PAC and its officers, I count mostly people I don’t know or don’t know well, but there are a few people who I know to be decent, some of whom I even count as friends. I won’t use their names because of that, and also because I do not want to tar anyone who doesn’t deserve it. While OCPF lists two officers, I have no way of knowing how much control those officers have over the candidate selection and communications process. Indeed, according to an ad on Facebook, the group seems to have hired someone for communications.
I also don’t know how much of what the group does the donors actually know about; when you give money to an organization, you hope they will perform good deeds with it, but in reality, once the money is out of your hands, you have no control over what the group uses it for. It is possible that some of the donors thought they were donating to the Working Families Party, a well-known organization that I once worked with to help elect Tish James to the New York City Council. (WWF is not the WFP.)
This article is aimed at the organization political entity, not any individual or group of donors or staff.
While it would be easier for me to just look away, pretend I hadn’t noticed the group, I would then myself be a hypocrite. In this very blog I’ve criticized candidates and elected officials, almost entirely those on the right, for working with out-of-town entities to funnel money to local elections. Even if I agreed with everything WWF IEP said, how could I justify saying nothing about “the other side” doing the same exact thing?
A few years ago, I used this blog to combat former City Council Member Michael Gaffney and the blog that served, at least then, as his mouthpiece, Turtleboy Sports (TBS). While there were several things that appalled me about Turlteboy, I argued then that what upset me most about the Gaffney/TBS alliance was the complete lack of civility that was introduced into the discourse, including the demonization of anyone who disagreed with them.
I wasn’t lying. Later on, in 2020-2021, I watched along with the rest of America as people on both sides of the aisle lobbed invectives at each other, condemning the violence and anti-democratic tendencies of their opponents while excusing it on their side. I vowed then to call out bad behavior on both or all sides.
Sadly, WWF IEP, bolstered by big money from outside the city, is using tactics that are eerily reminiscent of TBS in order to support several candidates, one of whom is a left-wing incarnation of Mike Gaffney.
Just like TBS did, Worcester Working Families is destroying civility in Worcester’s elections and, more generally, Worcester itself. The only difference is the team they are batting for.
The Money
Where the money comes from isn’t a secret; anyone can find that date on the state’s campaign finance website. However, the average person who sees an ad on Facebook isn’t going to look there; thus it’s necessary to write about it here, names excluded, as mentioned above.
Over the course of its existence, which dates back one election cycle to the end of 2020, the organization has has raised a total of $36,211.59. In national politics, this would be a paltry sum, but in a local election, even half of that would be a huge amount. Of that amount, this organization, supposedly based in Worcester working families, has raised a whopping $22,774.00 from just two millionaire couples living in wealthy suburbs. That’s 62.89 percent of the total budget. The rest of the IEPAC’s money comes from less than 20 people in Worcester and a few more in the suburbs. Of that, nearly $12,000 comes from big donors and another candidate’s political committee.
I’m sure the out-of-town donors are lovely people. But it’s simply dishonest to call an organization “Worcester Working Families” when the overwhelming majority of its lucre comes from very rich people who do not live in Worcester. And why should people who live outside of the city have a much louder and more effective voice in Worcester’s elections than, say, me or you, simply because they have tens of thousands of dollars to dispose of?
It’s not fair. Progressives always argue that we shouldn’t allow people to “buy elections,” so why are progressives trying to buy elections? Just days ago, WWF blasted a new PAC called Progress Worcester, backed by the Worcester Area Chamber of Commerce, founded just recently, for pouring money into ads for candidates WFP opposes. But what’s the difference? If we’re to agree that anyone who has money can pour it into Worcester’s elections, then what’s the criticism?
Smear Tactics
As egregious as the financial hypocrisy is, the group’s smear tactics against its opponents are just as bad. I was filled with rage when Turtleboy Sports operated as a vehicle to smear some candidates, and now I feel the same when less vulgar, but just as ridiculous, tactics are used against other candidates by another group.
The most recent example is around so-called “Crisis Pregnancy Centers,” which are really just shady fronts for anti-abortion groups. A resolution was put before the city council to craft regulations aimed specifically at the two CPCs in Worcester. As it turns out, doing so is very likely not legal. The city solicitor advised against it, pointing to other cities’ actions: those that had passed such ordinances had no CPCs, while a similar resolution was vetoed by a liberal Democratic mayor in a city that has a CPC for fear of a lawsuit. Some councilors did shop around to find a lawyer who would say that the regulations were legal, but seeking out attorneys who tell you what you want to hear is obviously a bad recipe for avoiding lawsuits. And the ultra-conservative Massachusetts Family Institute already vowed to sue the city.
Petty and two of the other candidates Worcester Working Families smeared as anti-choice fanatics…were previously endorsed by Planned Parenthood!
A long drawn out fight took place in the city council. Some councilors voted to push on with the regulatory process, while the majority chose to effectively kill the regulations due to the potential for costly legal troubles. Both sides are legitimate: the CPCs are a problem, but a lawsuit the city would likely lose would lead to the same outcome – unfettered CPCs – but with the city’s budget significantly impacted and the CPCs public standing enhanced by their victory.
There’s nothing wrong with disagreeing with one or both sides. What is wrong is to make inflammatory accusations against those who voted against, throwing truth into the trash in a dishonest pursuit of votes.
Example: slandering the mayor
WWF put forward ads like the above for everyone who voted against the order on CPCs, even if they had supported it before the legal opinions were given. The group knows that Joe Petty isn’t anti-choice, but this “anyone but Joe” ad implies strongly that he sides with “extremists.” Who are the extremists? It doesn’t say, but a whole bunch of people who ran across these ads on Facebook, and don’t have the time to follow the CPC saga, now probably think that Mayor Petty, as well as all the others who worried about lawsuits, is in line with southern lawmakers who want to ban abortion.
This, despite the fact that Petty voted for the regulations on CPCs before the city solicitor and, apparently, the attorney general’s office warned of a costly lawsuit!
This, despite the fact that that Petty said, “Abortion is healthcare. Period,” well before he voted for the CPC regulations in 2022.
The WWF ad is dishonest, but no one there seems to care about that. Recent elections show that candidates who are for abortion rights tend to win when their opponent is opposed. So why not pretend the opponent of the candidate you endorsed is anti-choice? Honesty just gets in the way.
If you were to believe “Worcester Working Families,” you would think that Petty is a candidate of the extreme right. But this is the same guy who became the first mayor to lead and help organize a huge, progressive rally at City Hall in defense of immigrant rights. Then, he was smeared by the right-wing out-of-town Turtleboy Sports and unhinged Mike Gaffney; now he’s being smeared by the left-wing out-of-town backed WWF.
Also: Petty and two of the other candidates Worcester Working Families smeared as anti-choice fanatics, Candy Carlson of District 2 and at-large council member Moe Bergman, were previously been endorsed by Planned Parenthood!
Endorsing a terrorist sympathizer
One of the candidates WWF has endorsed is incumbent council member Thu Nguyen. Nguyen (they/them) is a fairly bland candidate, except for a single fact:
Sure, that sounds like a terrible exaggeration, as if I’m doing exactly what I said I didn’t want to do, i.e., to smear candidates I don’t like. But click the link above: In addition to spreading misinformation about the Israel-Hamas war, Nguyen literally posted a propaganda video defending Hamas.
I asked WWF via social media repeatedly what they were going to do about one of their endorsees endorsing Hamas and they simply didn’t reply. WWF obviously knows about this, and most organizations usually don’t keep silent when one of their candidates supports a U.S.-government-designated foreign terrorist organization. But from WWF there was no response forthcoming: not to me, not to the voters of Worcester.
Lack of moral clarity on antisemitism
While I wouldn’t classify WWF as antisemitic, there is a huge lack of moral clarity in their ranks on this kind of issue. While most of the people on their list have argued that representation matters, they are trying to push the only Jew on the city council, Moe Bergman, off of it at exactly the time that antisemitism in America has reached historic proportions. Further, every single one of the people they smear is someone who has attended a rally in support of Worcester’s Jewish community and/or the hostages, including Americans, currently held in captivity in Gaza.
Of their endorsees, not a single one – please correct me if I am wrong – has turned up to any of the events in solidarity with the Jewish community. On the other hand, two of those they’ve endorsed spoke at a nominally “pro-Palestine” (and if you’re not condemning Hamas, are you really pro-Palestinian?) rally, and at least one other, one of their school committee candidates, attended.
What does this say about them?
Assuming that they don’t agree with Nguyen that Hamas is just misunderstood, this shows that WWF is so hellbent on winning elections that they are willing to let support for a group listed by the U.S. government as a national enemy just slide. This doesn’t make any sense, because denouncing a candidate for supporting terrorists or – better yet – pushing that candidate to say they made a mistake – would garner sympathy from voters and, very likely, actually help Nguyen garner support. But they are too cowardly to do what is in their own interest!
At the very least, the group’s decisionmakers, whoever they may be, are at best cowardly and morally unclear.
Look twice at WWF endorsed candidates before voting
Really, if WWF’s decisionmakers can overlook support for an organization that beheads babies, what else might they overlook in the candidates they endorse? There might be a good candidate here or there that WWF supports, but one thing is for certain: Worcester voters shouldn’t trust anything that Worcester Working Families IEP says about them.
As for the candidates themselves, those who are touting openly an endorsement from Worcester Working Families should be considered morally suspect. At the very least, when you’re totaling up each candidate’s strengths and weaknesses, the WFP endorsement, while not disqualifying, should be counted as a point against. That is unless they can at the very least make a statement saying that Nguyen was wrong for spreading disinformation and support for terror.
Is a bit of decency and consistency too much to ask for?