The Phoenix urges you cast your ballot for John Bonifaz in the Democratic primary for secretary of state, a key constitutional office that supervises elections and helps regulate the local securities industry. If ever there were a natural-born reformer, it is Bonifaz. He is perhaps the only person ever to seek office in Massachusetts who is also the winner of a MacArthur "genius" fellowship for his pioneering legal work in voting-rights and campaign-finance reform. Where others see process, Bonifaz sees policy. He has the rare political ability to see life not as it is, but as it should be. He has the idealism and the energy to try to make our government better by making politics accessible to all, not just to the well connected and the well financed.

If you think politics is plagued by cynicism and corrupted by cronyism, then a vote for Bonifaz is a vote for hope that the system, and society, can be made better.