Tsongas, Ogonowski win in primary (MA special election)

The Lawrence Eagle Tribune ^ | September 04, 2007

[Clintonfatigued]

No surprise here.

The only question is whether the GOP will seriously contest the election. This is the most marginal district in Massachusetts, but Nikki Tsongas has a strong sympathy vote.

[Gay State Conservative]

This is the most marginal district in Massachusetts...

What? When did the 5th last send a Republican to DC? 1928?

[ConservativeStatement]

Paul Cronin:

Republican, formerly a Selectman of Andover, MA. Elected to the Massachusetts State Legislature at the age of 28, the youngest politician at that time to become a legislator. Run a successful campaign against John Kerry in 1972 for the Massachusetts 5th District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Kerry had rented an apartment in Lowell, MA, so he could enter the election; as such, he was pegged as a carpetbagger by the local press. Bad publicity combined with a third-party candidate dropping out of the race days before the election sealed Cronin's victory. However, Cronin lost his own re-election bid in 1974 in the wave of anti-Republicanism following Richard M. Nixon's resignation months earlier. Cronin ran another unsuccessful campaign for the same position in 1992. He was instrumental in forming the Lawrence Girls' Club, though he insisted that its buildings be named not for him, but for his mother. http://www.nndb.com/people/077/000055909/

[ConservativeStatement]

The Dem named Finegold called WAAF (local FM rocker) today. He said that he is a huge fan of the band Queensryche and that he received 100 votes from people solely because they knew of that interest. The DJ then said “You should have been a Sabbath fan, you would have received more votes.” :-)

[The PeteMan]

TAX ON GAS

[Gay State Conservative]

Run a successful campaign against John Kerry in 1972 for the Massachusetts 5th District seat...

So I wasn't far off.

[ConservativeStatement]

My brother lives in that district. He recently went away with his wife on vacation and asked me to pick up their mail, feed the cat, etc. While I was there, the phone rang and this very inarticulate person on the other end, claiming to be from one of the candidate’s HQs (Finegold I believe), started with some anti-Bush rhetoric. I told him to stop in a very harsh tone. Imagine, that was how they BEGAN a phone call to gain supporters.

[fieldmarshaldj]

The seat was competitive into the ‘90s and voted for GHW Bush in 1988. The previous incumbent before Meehan, Chester Atkins, was a particularly nasty little slimeball. He just barely won reelection in the anti-Dukakis landslide of 1990, but left such a foul taste in the mouths of the voters, he lost renomination to Meehan in ‘92. Had he been renominated, Atkins might very well have lost to Paul Cronin that year, in what would’ve been a spectacular comeback (though as with all the federal MA Republicans, Cronin probably would’ve been swept out by 1996).

In the end, I’d speculate that the Widder Tsongas beats Ogonowski by around 65-35%, 60-40% if he performs well. If only we could persuade a 3rd party far-left candidate to get in the mix, though probably still wouldn’t help by much. Hard to overstate how badly the party apparatus has atrophied thanks to the RINO quad from Weld on, with little in the way of resources to help our nominee.

[Disciplinemisanthropy]

good luck to jim

[Maneesh]

They might as well not hold the general election, Tsongas will win for sure. Ogonowski is a patriot, ex US military and supports the Iraq war and above all he has a “R” after his name. Game over. He is too pro-American to be elected in Massachusetts.

I agree that 60-40% would be the optimistic result, 65-35 is more like what the margin will be.

No Republican will ever win a seat in the US Congress, Senate or the Governor’s office again. I predict that the GOP will lose seats even in the state legislature from its current 13% to single digits. MA is a hopelessly lost cause for the GOP.

Any candidate with a “D” after their name simply wins, take that to the bank.
The only good news is that because of people leaving the state in droves, MA will lose seats in Congress to hopefully Texas !

[fieldmarshaldj]

As we discussed a few days ago or so, where the GOP needs to focus its efforts in MA is on the legislature. Why not take a page from the playbook that bolstered the rodents to overrepresentative numbers in the legislature beginning in the '60s and let some enterprising college students do the organizing ? We sure as hell couldn't do any worse, and we might even start to build up a decent minority bloc.

[jcs1744]

Ogonowski is the brother of an American Airlines pilot whose plane was hijacked on 9/11. So I question somewhat the validity of a “sympathy” vote.

[johnthebaptistmoore]

I believe that the margin will be closer to either 72-28 with Tsongas winning or 73-27 with Tsongas winning. This is another wasted effort for the Massachusetts GOP, who should be concentrating only on the most local levels throughout the state and truly building successful farm teams for the future. No matter what election year in the future, all of the big and important political races throughout Massachusetts will always go to the Democrats during the general elections without much effort after the primaries are over. I always question the reasoning of all Massachusetts Republican candidates who are running for any major political office throughout Massachusetts as to why they even bother to decide to run in the first place since the end result is always the GOP candidate losing and losing badly.

[Galactic Overlord-In-Chief]

Any candidate with a “D” after their name simply wins, take that to the bank. The only good news is that because of people leaving the state in droves, MA will lose seats in Congress to hopefully Texas !

Yeah, if we ever got lucky and elected a Republican to one of those seats, the legislature would just redistrict him right out of there.

[stevio]

Dem votes=34985
Rep votes=13078

Dems out number Pubs 2.68 to 1. Hopeless.

[MassachusettsGOP]

Actually that result is very good for Republicans in Massachusetts, especially considering the Republicans did not even have a serious primary race. Ogonowski won with 89% of the vote. Republican Registration is at 14% in the district.

The way it seems right now, a lot of folks do not like the nepotism that Tsongas is trying to play out. She nearly lost to fmr. Lowell Mayor Eileen Donoghue who was trailing Tsongas distantly before the primary. Many people, including my Democratic friends, are concerned that Tsongas has no real world experience and would not make a good representative. And Ogonowski is a nice enough and accomplished enough guy for them to vote for. Plus, he has solid roots in the greater Lowell area, which bailed from Tsongas to Donoghue in the primary. If there was a reason why they bailed for the other Lowell candidate over the brand name Tsongas, there may be a reason Ogonowski can win (Who is a Lowell guy himself). And besides that, Ogonowski also has a name people know in the district, EVERYBODY knows his family from 9/11 and even from before that. I think if this race was just in the Merrimack Valley, Ogonowski would have a serious chance of winning, but because of the addition of the Liberal Metrowest Suburbs, I think Tsongas will probably win, and collect somewhere between 48-55% of the vote. (There are a bunch of Independents in the race). Look for Ogonowski to get between 40%-45%.

[Clemenza]

OK, why the hell does the GOP in Mass not get its act together and retake the western half of the state. Most of the "Berkshire Liberals" only live there during the summer, and vote in metro Boston.

Same phenomenon can be found in the Hamptons, where the locals are much more conservative than the summer people (which is why they elected conservative Democrat Otis Pike back in the day, and Felix Grucci in more recent times).

[fieldmarshaldj]

They tried a couple times. When the old liberal RINO Silvio Conte bought the farm in early ‘91, Weld, IIRC, scheduled the election at a time hoping that his former primary opponent and ex-House GOP leader Steve Pierce could retain the seat (probably the last time Weld tried to do the right thing for somebody not himself), but Pierce came up short against the Socialist fossil, John Olver. Janie Swift came the closest since to giving Olver a scare in ‘96, but it’s been clear sailing since.

Even if Olver were to end up like poor Paul Gillmor (RIP) today, and the GOP were to manage a surprise upset, I fully expect to see that district (barring an upset in the 5th) to be merged with the Springfield-based 2nd and given over to Richard Neal when the state loses its 10th seat in 2012.

As I’ve said many times, the ultimate problem remains that without a viable GOP in the state to provide base support, it’s hard to run any substantial campaign. That has to be repaired.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Hey, I want to be proven wrong. I’d love to see Ogonowski have an upset win. It would be a nice psychological boost, at least.