LGs and Rail

During a commercial break in the Sox game, I click over to NECN and who do I see but Andrea Silbert and she says that she's announcing her Jobs Plan tomorrow. It should be interesting to see what she comes up with, given that it's what she's been hammering away on in her campaign appearances. When I saw her a couple months ago, she was also talking about investing in rail with more Federal dollars that she'd lobby for. She mentioned that again today on NECN.

Interestingly, Tim Murray put out his rail proposal today. You can get there by clicking here.

There are two competing proposals emerging here on the rail front, both valid, both require faith by the voters that their chosen candidate can pull it off.

On the one hand, you have Silbert arguing for her ability to lobby for more federal dollars. On the other hand, you have Murray advocating for a new post in the transportation department to coordinate rail efforts.

I have NO idea which is more realistic, but I'll say this, one of them seems more ripe for Republican attack and that's Murray's. Here's Hillman's argument: more Democratic bureaucracy, more government waste, yet another "government-as-solution" plan.

Silbert's has its weaknesses too: how can we expect a Democrat from MA to win more Federal transportation dollars? (By convincing Mike Capuano who sits on the transport committee, that's how. But that's another story...)

Interestingly, reading through Murray's White Paper, it contains a heckuva lot of job creation wording, which is interesting. He must have heard something about the jobs message if he's moving towards it.

Good on both of them for these ideas, and let's see who comes out ahead.

Side note: it's very apparent that Silbert and Murray are pulling farther and farther ahead on the substantive policy end of things in this LG race. Nary a peep from Goldberg recently on anything, and Kelley's a one-man band on health care these days as usual...