The Boston Globe endorsed challenger John Connolly, and only John Connolly, for at-large city councilor today, refusing to endorse any of the four incumbents. Ouch!

The Herald is a bit more predictable, endorsing three Irishmen (Connolly, Michael Flaherty, and Steve Murphy) and dissing the two progressive minorities.

Connolly's been doing pretty well with Ward Committee endorsements, too, for what they're worth. I'll try to get a wrap-up of those for you soon.

Not that you care. You're voting a Beckett-Ortiz-Lowell-Papelbon ticket, aren't you?

In 2004, Stuart Stevens, who came out of Republican politics, and Madison Avenue's Harold Kaplan and Vada Hill, advised the Bush ad makers alongside an informal group of other New Yorkers in the ad business.

Like the Reagan team, the Bushies get lots of input from the New York ad world. “I’m a huge fan of Madison Avenue,” says Bush ad-maker Stuart Stevens. “I think some of the most creative people are in that world.” Harold Kaplan of Young & Rubicam is advising Bush, as is Vada Hill, best known for working on Taco Bell’s talking-dog ads. In addition to these formal advisers, Stevens says, the campaign regularly bounces ideas off an informal group of New York ad-makers, just as Reagan’s did.

In fact, Republicans have been using media professionals since Dwight Eisenhower, when adman Rosser Reeves, from the Ted Bates ad agency, sold Eisenhower on the idea of running television ads ahead of I Love Lucy.

The ties go back to 1952, when M&M pitchman Rosser Reeves (who made up the phrase “It melts in your mouth, not in your hands”) sold Dwight Eisenhower on the idea of running spots before I Love Lucy.

The Family Research Council's big "Values Voter Summit" in DC this weekend included a straw poll, which Romney won in a squeaker over Mike Huckabee. Huckabee was the clear favorite of those actually in attendance -- beating Romney 488 to 99 in the ballots cast on-site, according to a Chicago Tribune report -- while Romney made up the difference among FRC members who voted online. (Romney has been accused of trying to steal the straw poll by urging his supporters to sign up online as FRC members, in order to vote.)

Huckabee may be emerging as a serious problem for Romney, now that the actual field of GOP nominees has solidified. With Gingrich not running, Fred Thompson finally available for scrutiny (he doesn't attend church!), Brownback out, and others (Tancredo, Hunter, Keyes) clearly not viable, Huckabee has a real chance to convince "Christian conservative" voters to support him -- to convince them that he's not a wasted vote.

Huckabee has concentrated heavily on Iowa, where he also was the top non-Romney in the August Ames Straw Poll. A recent poll of likely Republican caucus-goers in that state put Huckabee in the high teens, which is enough for people there to start taking him seriously -- and not too far behind Romney, the leader at 28% in that poll.

It wouldn't take much for Huckabee to move into second place in Iowa polls, which would get people talking about whether he can win the state, which would get many tepid Iowa Romney supporters -- social conservatives who now support Romney as the least-bad of the frontrunners -- to flip to the rising Huckabee.

Until now, Romney has treated Huckabee -- wisely, I think -- as a small insect not worthy of his attention. For a frontrunner like Romney to engage with a second-tier candidate like Huckabee is to elevate the other guy. But Romney cannot afford to fall out of first place in Iowa, not for a second -- his first-place standing there is pretty much the only thing that justifies him being considered a top-tier candidate.

If Huckabee gets any additional bump in Iowa, I'd expect Romney to start attacking him.

Political observers tell the Phoenix that the Bay State’s governor-elect may be the second-most important Democratic Party “influencer” in the region, behind Granite State guv John Lynch.

Based on preliminary, unofficial data:

1. A poll taken immediately after the primary had Tsongas at 51%; she appears to have ended there. Exactly as in the primary, she never gained a vote along the way; never convinced an undecided voter.

2. Tsongas won because of a liberal upper-middle-class suburbia vote; aka an Acton/Concord/Sudbury/Wayland vote; aka a Middlesex vote; aka a Cambridge-extension vote.

3. Tsongas almost lost because Democrats who voted for other candidates in the primary weren't much interested in her -- if just the core Democrats who voted in the party's primary had voted Democrat in the general, she would have had 55,800 votes. She only got 54,300.

4. In particular, Eileen Donoghue's voters in Lowell, Methuen, Dracut and Tyngsborough; Barry Finegold's voters in Andover; and Jim Miceli's voters in Tewksbury abandoned the party in the general election.

Niki Tsongas eked out her victory today; I'll hold off on analysis until I know a little more, but for now congratulations to her and her campaign team, and a nod to Jim Ogonowski and his team for making it close.

I've long thought it is inappropriate for the Boston Police Department's communications folks to try to put funny headlines on stories on their blog (BPDNews.com) -- for two reasons: A) it's not right for the agency processing the accused to publicly mock them, and B) this is the same forum where they're also reporting stories of people traumatized, injured, or worse.

Today, my point is demonstrated by a BPD blogger who thought to make a play on the phrase "paying the price" when writing about kids caught shoplifting. Get it? Shoplifters don't pay the price -- but then getting arrested is paying the price of a different kind! Clever, right?

Unfortunately, the resulting headline:

SHOPLIFTERS PAY THE ULTIMATE PRICE IN DORCHESTER

...appears immediately above the headline:

ORLANDO STREET HOMICIDE VICTIM IDENTIFIED

...which kind of makes the jokey reference to paying "the ultimate price" look kinda tactless, insensitive, and generally disgusting, no?

To tell you the truth, the most annoying thing about this bruhaha so far, to me, was Donny Deutsch going on the Today Show this morning to talk about how the media should all stop paying attention to Ann Coulter. Hmmm... maybe Step One should be that we should stop paying attention to Donny Deutsch talking about the need to stop paying attention to Ann Coulter.

Now, I'm actually not offended by the bulk of Coulter's comments, for the same reason I've never been offended by proselytizers trying to save my soul. They believe that I'm in big trouble if I don't get onto the Jesus page. I get that.

Also, I don't get terribly offended by the words of buffoons, regardless of what they say.

I do have a little trouble with the premise leading into the remarks, that Deutsch -- and others -- seemed to accept. Asked to describe her dream of what the country should look like, Coulter said: "It would look like New York City during the [2004] Republican National Convention.... People were happy. They're Christian. They're tolerant. They defend America."

Putting aside what New York looked like, and assuming that she meant the actual delegates to the convention -- they were not all Christian. In fact, they were Jewish (and Catholic, BTW) at just about exactly the same rate as the country is as a whole. And Jewish Republicans were featured prominently at the convention, including the city's Mayor, Michael Bloomberg.

So it strikes me that it's the RNC -- which has been working very hard to court the Jewish vote in recent years, and took great pains during the convention to emphasize the religious diversity of the delegates -- that should be offended by Coulter's remarks.

New WBZ poll has Niki Tsongas ahead by 9% over Jim Ogonowski, essentially unchanged from its poll taken immediately after the primary. Opinions vary as to what that means.

I think it verifies what we learned in the primary, which is that Tsongas isn't good at adding voters; in that race she received at the ballot box the same percentage she had shown in polling the entire time. She starts with a strong base, but anything she does to win over a voter also drives one away, it seems, and undecideds break against her.

That leaves her extremely vulnerable to a late surge in this final week, just as she was in the primary, when Eileen Donoghue almost caught her.

Now she's hurt at just the wrong time by the Rep. Atkins comments about Ogo's immigration views. While quite possibly accurate, those remarks have thrust the spotlight on the immigration issue, which is where Ogo wants it. Don't underestimate the ability of that issue to move votes in the district, and to get otherwise passive portions of the electorate to the voting booth.

The bad news in the poll for Ogonowski, of course, is exactly the same as for Niki: he has no more people ready to vote for him than he did five weeks ago. And whereas Tsongas has the excuse of being already so well-known that voters' views had solidified already, Ogo was at that point primarily just Not Niki.

And Tsongas is still over 50% in the new poll, if only barely, and that still wins. (Actually, 49% probably still wins given the 3rd party candidates.) And most likely, her bigger budget and better election-day organization will be worth a couple of points at the end.

But this poll is still good news for Ogonowski, who now needs to stop playing nice and start opening fire at Tsongas to close the gap by Tuesday.

Beginning tomorrow, the candidates for Boston at-large city council meet in a series of four public debates/forums in seven days. There have been previous events, but this week kind of has the feel of the real start of the serious campaign surge. The events are:

Oct. 9, 5:30pm., Boston Public Library Copley Square

Oct. 10, 7:00pm, Brighton Elks Lodge

Oct. 11, 6:00pm, Roxbury Community College

Oct. 15, 7:00pm, Florian Hall, Dorchester

Niki Tsongas raised $619,674 in the pre-special-election period (8/16-9/26), with about $200,000 of it after the 9/4 primary by my count. That's less than I expected. Almost all of that post-primary dough was from in-state, just like Ogonowski's.

But Tsongas has raised more than $130,000 since then in large donations (which now must be disclosed pretty much as they come in, thanks to new rules), compared with just $27,000 for Ogo.

By my rough analysis, Tsongas spent roughly $200,000 after the primary through 9/26, had $240,000 in the bank at that point, and raised another $130,000+ since, meaning that she'll spend around $575,000 in the general election plus whatever she raises in these final two weeks.

Ogonowski spent a little over $35,000 from 9/5-9/26, had $220,000 in hand, and raised $25k+ since, giving him roughly $290,000 general-election spending, plus late contributions.

So, Niki will still outspend him 2-to-1 in the general, plus she has the equity from close to $1.5 million she spent in the primary, which included more than a half-million in ad buys.

So far, there seems to be more interest in outside groups spending money for Tsongas than for Ogo, and you're likely to see far more third-party expenditures for her, from the likes of the state Dem. party, DCCC, Emily's List, labor, and others, than you'll see for Ogo -- especially since Ogonowski is being forced to distance himself so much from the GOP.

Tsongas also has a distinct advantage in unquantifiable contributions of the many powerful Democrats and left-leaning organizations in the district helping her out, particularly with phone banking, voter ID, and getting out the vote.

And don't underestimate the advantage of having Kiley polling to work from -- $25,000 worth after the primary.

That's a lot of advantages for Niki -- not surprising, but just a reminder of what Ogonowski is up against.

Today is the reporting deadline for the 5th CD campaign finance "pre-special-election" reports, covering 8/16 through 9/26. Ogonowski's is now in, and we can now plainly see that he is not being funded by out-of-state Republicans. And that's gonna be a problem for him.

He raised a disappointing -- in my opinion -- $200,513 in that period, for an election-cycle total of $434,120 (much of which he spent during the primary). He showed $221,119 cash on hand as of 9/26. He has raised some, but not much, since.

Of the $200k he raised in this recent period, by my count right around $30,000 came from outside Massachusetts, $117,000 from inside, and $53,000 was unitemized so I can't tell. That last batch is small donations, and from what I could tell from the national conservative blogs, they were not successful at driving more than a few thousand dollars to Ogo, but who knows.

So clearly, Ogo's campaign has not whipped up a frenzy of national monetary support, as many expected it might.

Of course, the RCCC or other groups could still spend their own money to run ads for him (or more likely, attacking Tsongas). But for now, it sure looks like a Mass.-funded campaign.

Unfortunately for Ogo, that's probably going to leave him way, way, undermatched financially. We'll see soon when Niki's report comes in.

This is a major, major public issue. Boston's residents, property owners, and businesspeople must be able to trust that the personnel who respond in an emergency will be professional, well-trained, and ready to perform. If firefighters were sent in while drunk or high, that represents a serious breakdown of the public trust. (Side note: the judge who tried to suppress the info was until last year the city's counsel.)

Meanwhile, the Boston police were finally testing last night a gunshot-detection system that was supposed to be in place before the summer. (And should have been earlier, but Mayor Menino fought it before giving in and co-opting the idea from councilor Rob Consalvo.) The delay was caused by protracted negotiations with the vendor. As I've mentioned before, shootings rose dramatically this summer while this system was awaiting the go-ahead.

It has long been the opinion of some that negotiations between the city and its firefighters' union (and patrolmen, and others) have repeatedly settled for financial advantages for the city at the expense of the ability to effectively oversee and control the workers -- drug testing being just one example.

In both cases, has Menino been trading our safety for a few bucks?

If there are any political hopefuls willing to go at Menino in '09, I would say now is the time to start swinging. (Perhaps a certain young-faced city councilor in the West Roxbury district where the fire took place?)

In tomorrow's issue of the Phoenix, I look at recent election results and wonder: has the big Deval Patrick-inspired progressive movement lost its energy?

It's online now:

The Left, left out? Deval Patrick's famed grassroots progressives are losing steam and influence.

WGBH's Greater Boston devoted a full episode tonight to a look at the inner workings of the state's Supreme Judicial Court. Four of the justices, including chief justice Marshall, sat for interviews, and Emily Rooney and Jarret Bowen did a nice job walking through the often mysterious process. Kudos to the justices for allowing a public look-see, and to Rooney and Bowen for doing a nice job -- nothing earth-shattering or hard-hitting, but well worth watching. If you missed it, maybe they'll replay it sometime -- or maybe they'll show it on their new super-display over the turnpike?