We thought the hard-fought, narrowly won elections were behind us. Then The Milton Times arrived on our doorstep last Thursday with a profile of Selectman Bob Sweeney. It is  a good profile of a good man who has a history of service to the town. A couple of comments, however, gave us pause to reflect.

In the course of his conversation with the reporter Mr. Sweeney discusses his feelings about a statement he made being circulated during the election. He says, “That certainly hurt because it was totally false. I consider myself a champion of equality and I’m a follower of Dr. King.” The article, however, does not mention the statement itself which Sweeney says was taken out of context. The statement in question was made during the Milton Speaks candidate’s debate. For the record here is the full text of the statement and the question that prompted it from David Johnson of The Milton Record-Treanscript.

David Johnson, The Milton Record-Transcript:  How do you answer the criticism that Milton is very much an insider’s game and that there is not a lot of diversity of opinion in Milton government?

Bob Sweeney:  I fully understand your question and I do believe that there’s a minority population out there that feels a bit isolated. In my case after like the second night of town meeting I deliberately made an attempt to meet with some African-American people who shared the same view as I did on the Temple issue and I talked to them in the back and I was really trying to meet them to get them involved and to let them know that there was certainly at least one TTM member that welcomed their input.

I recently met with an African-American gentleman from Precinct 1 who is upset about the issue and he is a candidate for town meeting so I think in terms of the issue of minorities we need to reach our hand out a little bit better they are part of the community and they are welcome so long as they do what the rest of us do; work hard, contribute etc. and I think we could improve our relations in that area.

The emphasis is ours and highlights the portion that raised some eyebrows with its “us / they” dichotomy and was believed to be at the root of a whisper campaign against Sweeney. The Times states, “During the race, what some have called a ‘whisper campaign’ was mounted against him, with allegations of perceived racial tensions in town landing in an article in The Boston Globe.”

Wikipedia defines a whisper campaign as “a method of persuasion in which damaging rumors or innuendo are spread about the target, while the source of the rumors seeks to avoid being detected while spreading them (for example, a political campaign might distribute anonymous flyers attacking the other candidate). It is generally considered unethical in open societies, particularly in matters of public policy.” (You can learn more here.)

Mr. Sweeney says that “I stayed positive in the whole campaign. My opponent’s supporters went negative and took words out of context and sent e-mails about me that were totally false.” Mr. Sweeney did stay positive as did Ms.Fagan. But as anyone who followed the campaigns closely knows, there were also allegations that Sweeney supporters went negative in stating that Fagan supported high density housing on the Stoughton land. Fagan was adamant that was not her position. There was also a flyer that was distributed by a Sweeney supporter during the debate at the Council on Aging regarding a bylaw that was drafted by Fagan. The issue is that it is not a bylaw but gvae impression that it was. (You can read more about that here).

As John Quincy Adams said, “Facts are stubborn things.” Those are the facts. Both sides allegedly went negative. The full text of Mr. Sweeney’s comments are what they are. (You can find the full Milton Times article  here). Whether or not the efforts made by supporters of either campaign truly qualify as “whisper campaigns” or is simply politics as usual is difficult to know.

Regardless, the election is over. Mr. Sweeney won. Ms. Fagan was gracious in defeat and tomorrow’s a new day. As for Mr. Johnson’s question about “diversity of opinion in Milton government”, only time will tell.

Lastly, here is an interesting talk about the need to improve the quality of political debate from Michael Sandel, Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University: