1/20 Does this story about Lt. Gov Polito matter? No and yes. This thread will be about both sides, and an untold personal story about me in a similar leadership situation where I did something else. https://commonwealthmagazine.org/health/polito-said-she-attended-brothers-graduation-party/ #mapoli

2/20 First, I doubt this event affected public health. But still seems like there were people who came who did not live on what is essentially a huge two-house family compound. (I’ve never been there, but saw the pics) If everyone was doing this, we’d all be in trouble.

3/20 And some rich people *are* doing this - I’ve jogged by the huge houses of the wealthy on off-the-main-road, never-busy streets, and seen groups of cars parked at a house once in a while. Not many. But a few. All through the lockdown.

4/20 Yes, they are educated about the rules and can be distant in these big places (Karyn’s house is 6,000 feet (!!), I think.) Enormous windows, huge lawns, waterfront breezes. It’s almost certainly fine, health-wise. But.

5/20 We’ve all put off such events for weeks. I won’t even let my son visit his best friend across town. We’re not there yet. Regardless of how safe the party was, it just shouldn’t have happened.

6/20 Perhaps she should have told her brother something like, “I know you’d be safe about it, but we just can’t do this yet. Even if it might be OK at this start of re-opening, we aren’t going to be first.”

7/20 There’s something to be said for solidarity. Even while she is doing a lot of absolutely critical work on re-opening to help everyone, which makes this incident not even a footnote by comparison. (I will be writing the footnotes one day )

8/20 But I’m not doing this thread for her. I want her to keep doing her job to help re-open and prevent a second wave. I’m doing this thread for all the young people I know in politics.

9/20 A prelude to my personal story: two weeks ago my little kids said it was sad we couldn’t visit my mother, as old-age facilities are locked down like prisons. My son said, “I bet Charlie Baker can visit his dad. He can do anything, right?”

10/20 I said, “Ha! you’re right. But he wouldn’t. And not just because he could infect his father. Others can’t do it, so he won’t either.” And then I told them a story about me and an air conditioner.

11/20 I was once president of the board of a condo association in Brookline, 10 years ago. The board and I had procrastinated on ordering a replacement chiller for the building’s broken air conditioning system that everyone depended on.