[fieldmarshaldj]

"Studds first won it in ‘72 as Tricky Dick was almost certainly carrying it. He beat Hastings Keith (R) at the time the only halfway conservative member of the Mass. delegation since Joe Martin. That same year Kerry lost a house race in MA."

Studds challenged Keith in 1970 and nearly won. Keith retired in '72 (because the Dem legislature removed some GOP precincts and moved them into the adjacent district) and Studds faced and beat Republican William Weeks by just 1,200 votes. Weeks was a wealthy State Senator and the son of Ike's Cabinet Secretary Sinclair Weeks.

[Senator John Blutarski]

If you want to know why the Democratic Party has had a lock on the MA congressional seats for decades, just look at the way the voting districts have been so grotesquely gerrymandered.