In the News

So you want to become a United States citizen and you come from a foreign land?

One of the prices you have to pay is you have to pass a citizenship test.

So you want to be a graduate of a Massachusetts high school?

One of the prices you should have to pay is to pass the same citizenship test.

Why, you ask?

Because you can't truly be ready to participate in the political process if you can't pass a basic exam on the history of our government and how it operates.

Naturalized citizens are required to do it. So should citizens lucky enough to have been born here.

A recent random test of 15 junior and seniors at a state university, which I've chosen not to name, reveals all. All 15 are US citizens. All graduated from public high schools in the Bay State. All are students in good standing with the university on the way to graduation.

In a city where politics is a blood sport, shaping a candidate’s public persona can be big business. Candidates spent hundreds of thousands of dollars last year on the guys — and they’re almost always guys — who worked behind the scenes as strategists, juggling media calls and developing advertisements and campaign themes.

The ground has shifted yet again for Boston’s public affairs firms, with a wave of newcomers on Beacon Hill and in Washington. The time between election cycles is when strategists build their roster of private-sector clients. Political races can pay off months after an election: A surprising, come-from-behind win creates positive exposure and gets people talking. If the victor is a high-profile position such as governor or attorney general, corporate clients come knocking, hoping to buy a direct line to the new bosses or at least an understanding of how they think.

By Michael Goldman
Lowell Sun
January 26, 2015

Back from my first vacation in seven years.

Of course, in honor of my friend and client Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh, I took my four-day, three-night sojourn on the French side of St. Martin island in the Caribbean.

My major takeaway?

Some French men think it's cool to wear thong bathing suits, which allows them the joy of exposing their derrieres (a French word) to the rest of us.

My second major takeaway?

These men are very, very wrong.

Cool isn't the word.

Yucky (not a French word) is.

My third takeaway?

The French hate Fox News as much as I do and strongly support the mayor of Paris in her attempt to sue that news organization, claiming their coverage of the Paris bombings was "wildly inaccurate" and "wildly insulting."

By Michael Goldman
Lowell Sun
January 4, 2015

I've reached the point in my life where I check the death notices almost every day, in large part to make sure I myself didn't make the list.

As I approach my 50th high-school reunion, however, I always assume it is possible to occasionally see the name of a former classmate or two, or maybe the name of some old colleague from the past, listed.

This is how I found the name of Mike Ralph a couple of months ago. Ralph, a former aide to House Speaker Tip O'Neill, for whom I also once worked, was later a longtime senior administrator at the Massachusetts Water Resource Authority.

I hadn't seen or heard from Mike in decades, but seeing his name gave me pause anyway, both because he was a very good man with whom I had shared some pretty good times, and because he was yet one more person I once knew who was no more.