Word: slavitt
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Slavitt harps on the fact that his opponent went to Suffolk University instead of an Ivy League school. He neglects, of course, to mention that one of the Commonwealth’s most talented congressmen, Marty Meehan, also attended Suffolk. A candidate who stakes his intelligence on his bachelor’s degree might want to know this...
This might be tolerable if Slavitt were at least consistent in his pretension. But just pages before declaring that the purpose of attending an elite university is to escape personal interaction, Slavitt points to State Sen. Jarrett T. Barrios ’91 as someone who has mastered the niceties of campaigning. (He does, to his "credit," fail to mention that many other Harvard alumni have found success as politicians in Cambridge; Mayor Kenneth E. Reeves ’72 and City Councilor Brian P. Murphy ’86 are just two examples...
...this leads up to the other key problem with “Blue State Blues”—Slavitt doesn’t even come close to earning the right to say he “challenges the status quo” of his new profession...
...Slavitt seems to think that if he pays lip service to his contempt for the political system—even as he succumbs to its vices—he’ll seem witty or clever. He declares, with no shortage of chutzpah, that people treat politics “as if it were some kind of game.” Well, politics is a game—one that Slavitt sneers at, one he tries to play, and one that, satisfyingly, plays...
...Should he be elected, Slavitt sees his role on Beacon Hill primarily as that of a gadfly and an obstructionist,” reads his campaign announcement. “If the legislature cannot serve the will of the people, he believes, it ought at least to be more amusing and entertaining...