Saturday, September 29, 2007
What do you know? Seems Gingrich has decided not to do it after all.
Good news for Romney, better news for Thompson and perhaps Huckabee, the only two Southerners in the mix.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
The state's Republican Party, under chairman Peter Torkildsen and executive director Robert Willington, is way into this Internet thing, and has just re-launched its web site (which desperately needed the overhaul). It's still pretty template/boilerplate to me, but maybe I just look at way too many candidate web sites. Anyway, it looks pretty nice, and it's got a blog, a place to send in opinions, an online petition, "GOP mobile," etc. etc. -- and coming soon, videos! Wisely, Torkildsen is keeping the party's stated agenda focussed solely on pocketbook issues; you won't find anything on the site about gays and abortion and immigrants and such, as far as I can see.
The GOP side of the CNN/WMUR New Hampshire poll is out, and -- Yipes! -- Romney's once-formidable lead is gone. Mitt stands at 25%, Giuliani 24%, McCain 18%, Thompson 13%. Romney led by 14 points the last time CNN/WMUR did this poll, in July. Back then, Romney led Giuliani 34 to 20, with Thompson at 13 and McCain at 12.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Assuming the early unofficial returns hold up....
1. Maureen stands alone. Neither Rosie Hanlon nor Althea Garrison seem to have made it past the prelims, leaving exactly zero women on the final ballot for the 13 Boston City Council seats, other than council President Maureen Feeney.
2. Eastie: right on the map, right on the ideological spectrum! Or at least, they're grumpy toward liberals -- and that means you too, Mayor Menino. Eastie's old Italian Catholics (aka voters) rejected Menino's boy for state rep, choosing instead a conservative who -- the Democratic leadership has made clear -- will have absolutely no power in the State House.
3. The BMG kiss of death. Blue Mass Group endorsed Gloribell Mota in the state rep race. Slaughtered! They endorsed Tim Schofield in the Allston-Brighton council race. Crushed! Earlier this month they endorsed Tim Flaherty for state senate -- pummeled! And Jamie Eldridge for US Rep -- Demolished!
4. Russian roulette? I haven't seen precinct numbers, but I've got to think that Wallingford Road went with Greg Glennon, providing him the margin to beat Schofield and reach the final 2 showdown with Ciommo. Interesting race brewing between them now.
5. Felix needs friends. Looking forward to the November citywide election, today's results are bad signs for Felix Arroyo. First, Mota absolutely failed to pull East Boston Latinos into the voting booth, a development that would have helped Arroyo. Second, Eastie and A-B voted very conservative, suggesting very little warmth for progressive, New Boston candidates out in the neighborhoods. Third, Carlos Henriquez's poor showing against Chuck Turner -- slipping through to the final ballot with barely 15% of the vote -- means that it's a non-race (unlike, say, Ego Ezedi's challenge to Charles Yancey a few years back), and will generate no interest and thus very little turnout in November in the Arroyo-friendly Roxbury district.
The Democrats running for President have a debate at Dartmouth tomorrow night, so while they're in the area they'll be swooping around and about. Obama will be in Peterborough tomorrow morning; Dodd will be in West Lebanon tomorrow afternoon; and Edwards will hit Conway, Berlin, Littleton and Claremont, and do a MTV/MySpace forum at UNH, on Thursday/Friday. Richardson, Obama, and Clinton all have ads up in the state. It's candidate mania in New Hampshire! Meanwhile, a new CNN/UNH poll of likely Primary voters in the state says fuggedaboutit. Clinton leads with 43% over Obama at 20%, Edwards at 12%, Richardson 6% -- although only 17% say they have definitely decided, 28% say they are "leaning," and a full 55% say they're still trying to decide. Their problem, apparently, is that they have too much love for the candidates: 93% say they are very or fairly satisfied with the field. Check out these eye-popping favorable/unfavorables: Obama 78/11; Clinton 77/15, Edwards 76/10; Richardson 53/14; Biden 45/20; Dodd 40/23. All these numbers are similar to those in other recent polls in the state.
A search of the Boston Globe archives for Carlos Henriquez reveals that the paper is, in fact, aware that there's a preliminary election for City Council in Roxbury -- although poor Carlos hasn't rated a mention since May 1. The Herald has not run a single news story about that race, but Alan Lupo did write about him in his column back in April.
Well, surely they've paid more attention to the extremely competitive council race in Allston-Brighton, right? Er, no. The Globe endorsed Tim Schofield last week, but apparently neither daily has printed Mark Ciommo's name this year. (Speaking of A-B, both papers also seem unaware that a trial is ongoing for the man accused of killing two people, including a visiting 18-year-old woman, in a Brighton apartment in January 2006.)
How about the state representative election in East Boston? The Globe ran a good piece by Michael Jonas in mid-August, and a story about Gloribell Mota a little later. That's a lot more than the Herald has done.
The Metro and Boston Now haven't done much better. Oh well. Happy voting!
Monday, September 24, 2007
The Supreme Judicial Court just issued its ruling on a much-anticipated appeal involving Joseph Cousin, the man alleged to have murdered 10-year-old Trina Persad in 2002. The 2004 trial ended in a mistrial, when prosecutors contended that several jurors had lied about their criminal histories. Cousin and his attorney, Willie Davis, argued that the DA's office had acted improperly, and had deliberately attempted to force a mistrial -- they brought the criminal-history evidence to the judge during deliberations, after the jury had acquitted Cousin's co-defendant. Davis appealed the case, asking that double-jeopardy be attached, preventing the DA from re-trying Cousin. The SJC sided with District Attorney Dan Conley, which means the retrial of Cousin may continue. The legal effect of the decision is to validate prosecutors' use of criminal background checks on jurors, which a lot of folks think is a bad idea on civil liberties grounds. But the political effect is to save Conley's ass. If it had turned out that his actions gave Cousin a free pass for allegedly killing a little girl, that would have been devastating. Conley's office still needs to win at trial, which will be no easy task. But if they lose, Conley can always blame the jury, as usual.
Friday, September 21, 2007
I have believed all year that Newt Gingrich has been, in effect, running for President this whole time, and has merely been plotting out his best timing for entry while subtly sabotaging the other candidates. Over the past several days, he has been suggesting to reporters that he will start taking "pledges" in October, and if he gets $30 million pledged by early November, he'll run.
This was very carefully timed, I would suggest, to stop conservatives from contributing to the other GOP candidates in these final couple of weeks in the 3rd quarter, when Mitt, Fred, and the others are desperately trolling for donations. Hold your money for me, Newt sez.
It also does a couple of other things. It's a huge put-down of Fred Thompson, whom Gingrich had previously touted as perhaps the great conservative candidate that would make his own candidacy unnecessary. He did the same thing to Romney, too: pump him up to tear him down.
Also, it sets a bar for the media to measure those 3rd quarter reports, which will be released just before Newt starts his pledge drive. Newt sez you need $30 mil in the bank to campaign. Fred's not going to be close to that; neither will McCain or Huckabee. Giuliani should be in the ballpark, but probably a little shy of the mark.
Then there's Romney. Through June, Romney had raised roughly $35m in contributions, spent roughly $32m, and loaned his campagn nearly $9m, showing $12 on hand.
Marc Ambinger of the Atlantic says that Romney will raise $10-$12m in the 3rd Q, and loan the campaign another $5m. That sounds about right to me. Problem is, Romney was already spending $7m+ a month in early summer, and his mammoth staff and aggressive advertising have, if anything, grown since then -- plus he dumped a couple mil, easy, on the Ames Straw Poll in August. So I have to believe that Romney will show spending of at least another $20m in the 3rd quarter, if not $25m.
All of which suggests that Romney will show cash on hand at the end of September of maybe $5m, even after dumping $14 million of his own megabucks into the kitty.
Up to now, Romney has been able to take and maintain the lead in Iowa and New Hampshire by a combination of being the only one advertising, and the weakness of the field. Now, he'll be heading into three months of multimillion-dollar ad buys from Fred, Rudy, and Newt, and significant buys from McCain, Huckabee, Tancredo, and Ron Paul. And he can't count on any big influx of contributions for a while.
This is all a long-winded way of saying: Romney now faces the need to spend probably another $20 million from his own pocket just to get to the Iowa caucuses, making a total personal cost of some $35m. I've always believed he's willing to spend that kind of dough on this campaign, but we'll soon find out.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Romney has launched a radio ad in Iowa, where a judge recently gave the go-ahead to same-sex marriage, a ruling now on appeal. In the ad, Romney says: "The court ruling in Iowa is just another example of an activist judge trying to
find things in the Constitution that aren't there. As Republicans, we must
oppose discrimination and defend traditional marriage: one man, one woman." The full text of the ad is here, and the audio is here.
Democratic Presidential candidate, and Tufts alum, Bill Richardson, ended his big labor speech yesterday by thanking AFSCME. Unfortunately, he was addressing the SEIU.
Friday, September 14, 2007
I just received this press release:
Democratic Presidential candidate Governor Bill Richardson, campaigning today in Iowa, issued the following statement regarding the recent "spying" incident involving the National Football League’s New England Patriots:
"The President has been allowed to spy on Americans without a warrant, and our U.S. Senate is letting it continue. You know something is wrong when the New England Patriots face stiffer penalties for spying on innocent Americans than Dick Cheney and George Bush."
Yet another attempt at a GOP Presidential debate is toast, as none of the major candidates have agreed to participate in a September 27 event, hosted by Tavis Smiley, at Morgan State University in Baltimore. A Dartmouth/NECN debate for later this month has aparently been scrapped. A Univision debate originally scheduled for this weekend has been "indefinitely postponed" because only McCain agreed to show. The GOP's CNN/YouTube debate had to be postponed from this month to November -- and Romney has already declined to participate then. [Update: I forgot, Romney is also skipping the 9/17 "Values Voters" forum in Florida.]
Meanwhile, new national polls show Romney at 9 percent (ARG) or 8 percent (Fox News), consistent with other polls released this month. Despite spending an unfathomable amount of money, he remains at or below 10% in the critical early state of South Carolina, verifying my long-held theory that no Republican south of the Mason-Dixon line is going to vote for a slick, wealthy, double-talking Mormon Northerner.
Romney continues to lead in New Hampshire and Iowa, thanks mostly to his nonstop advertising for many months while his competitors have yet to run a single TV ad in those states, but even those leads are stalled and unimpressive.
Personally, I think that Romney's campaign is heading toward a rapid denouement -- particularly if Newt Gingrich's entry next month knocks Mitt out of first place in Iowa polls, as I suspect it will.
So, why won't Romney do these debates?
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
You might not be aware, but Governor Deval Patrick has become a
right-wing punching bag over the past 24 hours or so, for saying in his 9/11 speech that the attacks were the result, in part, of "a failure of human understanding."
As I reconstruct events: yesterday at around 3:30pm, the Boston Globe
put a brief (uncritical) article on Boston.com with the quote and video
of Patrick's brief address (I suspect some radio and TV stations
carried it live or replayed it soon after); Howie Carr quickly picked
up on the quote and went nuts on his radio show; this led local
conservative blogger D.R. Tucker to post a small "Say What" item on it
on one of the Margolis brothers' rabid-right web sites (DevalWatch);
from there it quickly spread to other Margolis-connected sites,
including Radio Equalizer and Hot Air, where much harsher critiques
were issued; eventually the nationally popular Little Green Footballs
site provided a link, generating more than 1000 comments, many of them
vicious; the Boston Herald then lent credence with an editorial
in today's paper condemning Patrick's comment; and that prompted the
ordinarily reasonable Peter Torkildsen, chair of the Massachusetts GOP,
to issue a press release today responding to Patrick's "outrageous
statement."
Whew. I apologize if I got some of that timeline reconstruction wrong, but I think it's pretty close.
The complaints seem to run along two lines. First, the Patrick comment
is said to be weak. "Mealy-mouthed," the Herald put it. "Lesson one of
Psych 101," scoffed one blogger. Torkildsen complained that "the
governor sounds like he's talking about schoolyard bullies, not
cold-hearted terrorists who will murder innocent people on command."
Second, some interpret Patrick as suggesting that we all -- Americans
and the terrorists -- failed to understand one another. Carr (as I
understand it, I did not hear the show) said that the remark implies
that the US, to some extent, brought the attacks upon itself. One of
Hot Air's main bloggers wrote that Patrick's comment "tacitly blames
America as much as it does Osama."
I'm
not so interested in getting into those arguments and interpretations,
but I find the rapid explosion of this whole thing fascinating.
Also, here are two aspects I thought worth addressing.
First, this is far from the first time Patrick has used this phrase in
respect to 9/11. In fact, I am able to quickly find three instances,
including two graduation speeches from back in May, which you can read here and here.
They are quite different and both worth reading. The second one
provides the most elaboration and context; yesterday's highly truncated
version was left more abstract and thus more open to the above attacks,
I think. On the other hand, if you read the two graduation speeches
you'll see that his context has a lot to do with fear driving us toward
destructive anti-Arab paranoia and Guantanomo Bay abuses, sentiments
that would only bring Patrick more derision from the right.
Second, whence "failure of human understanding?"
Although it can be taken more prosaically, my understanding of the
concept (if not the exact wording), is from religious philosophy, and I
suspect that is how it's intended by Patrick. I would define it, very
(very) loosely, as suggesting that we would behave a lot better if we
could see things from God's view -- that the world does not inherently
contain conflict and evil and sin, but that people create those via
their mistaken, human-flawed behaviors and beliefs. Kind of a WWJD
kinda thing, if you like.
Anyway, does anybody know the actual origin and context of the phrase,
or if it's original, any clue as to whether Patrick intends it as I've
taken it?
One of the best blogs in town, Brighton Centered, has pulled off one of the better bits of public-service blogging I've seen -- one that almost makes me think there might be something to this whole Web thing that my wise friend Dan Kennedy is so optimistic about. The site solicited questions to be put to all the candidates; selected 14 from the submissions; cleaned them up a little, and put them to a vote. The top seven were sent to all six candidates. The candidates were given a strict but reasonable deadline; no word limit, but a suggestion to keep answers to 2-4 paragraphs; and a promise that all responses would be posted simultaneously (no peeking at each other's answers!). All six candidates responded, which is a tribute to the respect the blog had previously earned, as well as the neighborhood scope of the blog, which makes it more important to the candidates than bigger but less targeted media outlets. The result: good questions, substantive and readable responses, and to my eye an actually useful resource for voters of the district. One potential problem: the blog did not attempt to perform any fact-checking function. That is understandable, but problematic. What happens if a dispute arises? Will the blog correct errors or misstatements brought to its attention? etc. Nevertheless, an impressive effort. See for yourself.
Anthony Galluccio breezed to victory in the election to replace state senator Jarrett Barrios -- although you might not know it from some of the local coverage, but more on that another time. According to unofficial results I got from the seven individual cities and towns, the tally was Galluccio 42%, Nowicki 27%, Flaherty 21%, and Ross 10%. Galluccio not only won a plurality in Cambridge -- where, I wrote in the Phoenix, he had to deal with significant antipathy from many liberals -- but he managed a majority of the vote there, with 51%, according to my figures. In fact, he finished first everywhere except Nowicki's hometown of Chelsea, and topped 50%, narrowly, in the key area (in my opinion) of Everett. In all, by my count, a little over 10,000 people voted. The key to Galluccio's victory, in addition to holding Cambridge, was the turnout he drove in Everett. With no Everett candidate, and a big city election there next week, some people were expecting particularly low turnout there. But in fact (again, according to my unofficial figures), Everett accounted for 27% of the total vote. It was Cambridge (lazy armchair liberals!) that stayed home, despite three of its own in the race: it contributed 20% of the vote. In 2002's primary that first put Barrios in the senate, each of the two counted for 26%. (The overall turnout was much higher then, as it was a regular primary that included a gubernatorial choice.) As to the coverage, I will only quote for now this phrase from the Allston-Brighton Tab: "In Cambridge, which makes up the better part of the Senate district..."
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
WBZ's new poll of the 5th Congressional District shows Niki Tsongas leading Jim Ogonowski 51%-41% -- a surprisingly narrow margin, given her high name-recognition and the paucity of Republicans in the district. The poll has Ogonowski leading among unenrolled (ie, Independent) voters, 46%-39%. By suggesting a close race, the poll should increase the desire for national Republican and Democrat leaders to pump money into this race. There are only five weeks until election day, and they figure to be action-packed.
A week ago, I joked that Eileen Donoghue did everything she needed to do except make it rain across the southern part of the 5th District. Well, it's raining today, so how does that affect the special election for state senate today, in parts of Boston, Cambridge, Chelsea, Everett, Saugus, Revere, and Somerville? My guess is that Anthony Galluccio prevails today; my guess has been that whoever wins Everett wins the race, and I expect Galluccio to win there. Galluccio also picked up some late endorsements, including Clean Water Action, El Mundo Boston, and two Everett newspapers. But with few people voting, who knows what will happen today?
A new Rasmussen poll of Massachusetts likely voters finds that in a Presidential match-up, Hillary Clinton would beat Mitt Romney 60%-34%. Ouch! (To be fair, she clobbers Giuliani and Fred Thompson by similar margins.) Romney's favorable/unfavorable is 43/55. Other responses: Deval Patrick job approval 10% excellent, 32% good, 37% fair, 19% poor, for an unimpressive 42%/56% breakdown. A solid 58% approve of casino gambling in the state, 31% say no, 11% not sure.
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
I thought tonight's GOP Presidential debate was a good one, a lively affair with plenty of hashing out of genuine differences among the candidates. Interesting crowd, too, up at UNH in Durham. The biggest applause line, by my ears, was for the suggestion that the Virginia Tech massacre would have been less deadly had the students on campus been armed. Yet the suggestion, from a "regular voter," that the government should stay out of the way of gay couples marrying received considerable applause, while a strenuous defense of banning same-sex marriage (from Sam Brownback) met with considerable boos along with the expected applause. That's libertarian New Hampshire for you. Libertarian Ron Paul got his best showing of the debates I've seen, in large part because a good chunk of the audience was with him when he spoke of getting out of Iraq rather than keep spending lives "to save face."
I daresay we might also have seen the start of a McCain resurgence tonight. He was right there on the key Republican points, particularly lowering spending; he was the only one who spoke about Iraq with any intelligence; he pretty much said that the candidates without military experience -- all the other frontrunners -- can't be trusted with the job; and to my mind he regained his footing on immigration and taxes.
Meanwhile, Giuliani started to really show the cracks in his appeal to conservatives, and answered almost everything by saying that he cleaned up the crime in NYC. He pretty much conceded on gun issues, his messy personal life (not much different than most? Hardly), and particularly immigration. He also sounded vague and almost willfully uninformed about Iraq, particularly when he conceded that he still had yet to go there, and hoped to do so if it could be arranged without too much bother.
But it was Romney, I thought, who fared the worst. He took direct hits on a series of issues, and had to ignore them and try to slide into more comfortable territory again and again. On immigration, he got hit by a question about the illegals working on his lawn. On Iraq, he got hit by an emotional soldier's father chastising him for equating his sons' work on his campaign with military service. On abortion, he got hit with a question about his desire to allow states to decide, which would allow abortions to continue in much of the country. On taxes, he got hit with a question about the massive fee increases he imposed on everything from the blind to gun licenses(!). On Iraq again, he got hit with a question suggesting that moving troops to support positions in neighboring countries is further than even Hillary Clinton would go. And on and on. And in each case, he seemed to only dig himself deeper.
John Connolly's attempt to win an at-large Boston City Council seat threatens to oust one incumbent -- but which one is at risk? Well, when it looks like somebody might get thrown off the bus, it's time to start pushing other people toward the door. I delve into that and other City Council buzz in this week's issue of the Phoenix, out tomorrow but online now. The Rumor Mill
So far, the race for Boston City Council is all talk and no action.
Jim Ogonowski very pointedly wanted to contrast his morning-after -- a regular guy thanking his volunteers -- with Niki Tsongas's -- an establishment insider toasting with her fellow Washington elites. I couldn't be at either event, but here are some excerpts from Jim's remarks, provided to me by his staff. Niki is a nice person, I like her and I know she means well, but let's face it; she represents more of the same tired Washington that continues to fail us.... [W]e should not send someone to Washington who thinks a broken system works. If we keep sending politicians to Washington, then we will get the same results....
This afternoon, you will see my opponent standing with other politicians.... Funny how politicians flock together, endorse each other, kiss each other on the cheek and go about the job of politics.... I want the endorsement of regular people because that is who I want to represent in Congress....
I've heard Niki Tsongas say that it is the Republicans in Congress that have failed.... Yes, the President and Republicans in Congress have failed us, but so have the Democrats in Congress. In fact, our government has let us down.... We have to end partisan bickering and attacks. The American people are tired of it and they are demanding change....
You will hear the other side talk a lot about George Bush. They are going to try and make this election about the President... but this election is not about George Bush -- it's not about one individual. This is about the future of the 5th District and the future of America. This election is about a broken congress that has continued to fail us....
It's time we return the government to the people. Patriotism before partisanship. People before politics. This is government the way it's supposed to be.
With national polls showing Congressional approval ratings hovering in the low 20s -- lower even than Bush's -- Ogo's Congress-bashing could at least blunt the effect of Tsongas's Bush Bogeyman. From there, the race might have to be decided on -- Gasp! No! -- the issues.
A Weekly
Dig blogger -- and then in turn Jon
Keller, Dan
Kennedy, and Charley at Blue Mass group -- have jumped all over a Boston Globe
reference to the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe's estimate that its casino "could
generate up to $100 million a year in additional state revenue." $100
million? Chump change, these bloggers say. Barely worth collecting. Wouldn't bend over to
pick it up off the sidewalk.
Hold up a sec. Sure, the Mashpee tribe's casino COULD generate $100m a year -- if
the tribe swings an incredibly savory deal with the state. Or, it COULD
generate $200 million a year for the state, as the Aquinnah Wampanoag estimated
its planned casino would, back in 2002. Or, the Mashpee COULD pay the state an annual
$200m licensing fee, plus taxes worth some $15m a year, as UMass-Dartmouth's
Clyde Barrow has proposed. Or it COULD provide between $250m and $500m a year, as one
state lawmaker has said.
And that's one casino. Together, casinos COULD generate between $135m and
$450m, as a 2002 study prepared for Jane Swift projected. Or, state
revenues from three casinos COULD run between a half-billion to a billion dollars a year, as
Treasurer Tim Cahill has estimated.
Who the hell knows? My point here is that folks should be wary of
making too much of one offhand, loosely-sourced figure on the lowest end -- and might want to think twice about engaging in a debate over how much state revenue makes it "worth" allowing casinos.
After all, if the data looks closer to the high-end estimate of $1 billion a
year…. well, that starts to look like real money, doesn’t it? If you
want to play the "it could pay for..." game, a billion dollars could
just about double the entire Department of Public Health AND Department of Mental
Health budgets. Or, more relevantly, it could add a billion dollars to municipal budgets every year. That's roughly $39 million for Worcester. $21m for Brockton. $27m for Fall River. It's $10m for Fitchburg, a city that spent much of this year debating whether to decertify its library to help close a $730,000 budget deficit. Stoneham -- which was forced this summer to eliminate its entire $750,000 high school athletics program, and subsequently revived it by adopting a massive trash fee -- would get $2.5 million every year.
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Congratulations to Niki Tsongas, who ran a very effective, well-organized, mistake-free campaign -- and she worked hard for it; she didn't just sit back, attend some fundraisers, shoot some ads, and wait for the votes to come in. Kudos also to Eileen Donoghue, who gave it a darn good ride. Jamie Eldridge and Barry Finegold ran good races too, but they were up against it in this one from the beginning, in addition to the obstacle of expanding from a state rep district to a congressional one. (And again I ask: why did none of the state senators run?)
Tsongas now has to quickly turn around and wage a tough campaign. Jim Ogonowski is going to have plenty of money from the national GOP (as will Tsongas), and will come after Niki much harder than her Democratic opponents did.
Although I've seen a number of media outlets recently suggest off-handedly that the general election will be a gimme for the Democratic nominee, it ain't that simple. The district has gone pretty regularly for Republicans in gubernatorial elections, and Ogo is not going to be easily pinned to George W.'s mistakes.
On the plus side, I believe that Tsongas's popularity among Democrats in the district is far greater than her unimpressive 36% primary tally might suggest. My impression has been that even those eagerly supporting her opponents like her, and will support her enthusiastically in the general election.
Boston.com's listing of early vote returns has Eileen Donoghue's name misspelled "Donohue."
Here's what I was looking for, to point to a victory by Donoghue over Tsongas today: Relatively high turnout in Lowell, coupled with overall very low turnout. Why? Donoghue figured to beat Tsongas handily in Lowell, so the more voting there, the merrier for Eileen. Tsongas would need to make up that difference elsewhere. In those other towns, a certain number would come out for their favorites -- ie, for Finegold in the Andover area, for Eldridge in the southern 'burbs -- and Tsongas would do well only with the additional voters over and above those baselines. Fewer casual voters in those towns = fewer Tsongas voters. Everything I am being told so far suggests that this is precisely how it played out today. Lowell received a solid 12,000 votes, trending very heavily to Donoghue, I am told. Turnout elsewhere was low, with Finegold drawing well in the north, significantly limiting Tsongas's opportunities to gain votes on Donoghue. More soon....
I'm not drawing any conclusions, but all the tidbits I've been hearing about turnout points to a good result for Eileen Donoghue today. More shortly.
"I had not heard that phrase before." --John McCain, after needing to be told what a question about LGBT issues meant. From Washington Post's The Trail blog.
Chelsea city councilor Paul Nowicki is the first of the state senate candidates for Jarret Barrios's seat to file his pre-primary report, which is due today and reports activity through August 24. Nowicki reports raising $42,067, on top of $2368 already in the account. Both Anthony Galluccio and Tim Flaherty recently told me they would be at or above $100,000, and Nowicki had said he would not be close to that level; ditto Jeff Ross. However, Nowicki has been frugal, and had close to $34,000 still on hand as of 8/24. I suspect that Galluccio and Flaherty have been spending more heavily, so their advantage in the closing days might not be as huge as I might have expected. We'll see when their reports come later today. Update: Galluccio reports raising $82,641, plus $13k from before, with expenditures of $61,440 -- leaving him $34,373 on hand as of 8/24, virtually the same as Nowicki. Of course, Galluccio has the advantages of all the mailings and other outreach his $61k has already paid for. Update II: Flaherty reports raising $103,535, topping the field, with expenditures of $55,525, for remaining cash of just over $48k. Jeff Ross raised only about $8000, and added about $51,000 of his own money. He spent close to $55,000, and had less than $5000 on hand as of 8/24.
AARP's big annual "Life @50+" convention hits Boston this weekend, with some 25,000 people expected. Hillary Clinton announced today that she'll be making an appearance on Friday afternoon. I believe she's the first Presidential candidate, of either party, to say she's coming. Update: I stand corrected. Mike Huckabee, Republican former governor of Arkansas, is scheduled to speak at 1:30pm Friday. A convention spokesperson confirms that all the candidates have been invited. I'll let you know who is and isn't coming to town.
The Globe's endorsement today of Tim Flaherty for state senate, to replace Jarret Barrios, is a big boost for Flaherty. Should make things increasingly interesting in that four-way race, with the election a week from today. It's a bit frustrating, though, that the Globe's editors have established this practice of not mentioning the other candidates in their endorsements. Dan Kennedy has written about this previously on his blog. I don't get the rationale for it. An election is all about comparative choices, so why pretend that the selection of one candidate is made in a vacuum? It's particularly frustrating in this case, because the endorsement of Flaherty begs the question: why not Anthony Galluccio? Is it because of his policy stands? Is there something they don't like about his work on the Cambridge City Council? Or do they have some reticence stemming from the allegations of drunk-driving? It would help the readers greatly if the Globe editors would explain. I don't mean to downplay Paul Nowicki and Jeff Ross, who are both also very good candidates. Globe readers deserve some argument for Flaherty over those two as well. I'm not disputing the editors' choice, just their explanation. Perhaps it would help if they at least set out their reasoning for presenting their endorsements the way they do.
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