Posted on 11/04/2002 5:14:10 AM PST by krodriguesdc
Campaigns converge on New Bedford
By JACK SPILLANE, Standard-Times staff writer
NEW BEDFORD -- If there were any doubt about how important SouthCoast is in the closely contested gubernatorial election, it will be put to rest this morning in New Bedford.
Not to be outdone by a Democratic Party drawing on a charismatic former president to drum up a big vote in the traditionally Democratic area, Republican Mitt Romney's campaign late yesterday announced it will start a statewide bus tour at a 9:30 a.m. rally on the steps of the main branch of the New Bedford Free Public Library.
Meanwhile, the city and local Democratic establishment prepared all weekend for former President Bill Clinton's appearance at a 1 p.m. rally for Shannon P. O'Brien a few blocks down the road at Custom House Square.
Other state Democratic leaders, including U.S. Sens. Edward M. Kennedy and John F. Kerry, and U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, are expected to be at that event, which has been designed by Mayor Frederick M. Kalisz Jr.'s administration to showcase the National Historical Park, which was signed into existence when Mr. Clinton was president.
The Republicans say they aren't intimidated. "We think we can do great in Southeastern Massachusetts," said Charles Manning, a longtime Republican operative and Romney adviser.
He noted that Bristol County Sheriff Thomas M. Hodgson and Fall River City Councilor Alfredo P. Alves are running advertisements contrasting what they say are conservative death penalty and tax positions of Mr. Romney with the liberal ones of Ms. O'Brien.
Sheriff Hodgson said there is so much information available to the public nowadays that party labels don't matter so much in SouthCoast or any other region of the state.
"The Democrats have been coming down here for our votes for years and years and look where we are," he said.
The Democrats, professing not to be bothered, said they'll be glad to compare the turnout for the Clinton/O'Brien event with the turnout for the Romney event.
City officials have been working since Friday to make sure every detail is in place for what is now expected to be a mammoth rally headlined by the former president in Custom House Square.
George J. Leontire, an adviser to Mayor Kalisz and longtime Democratic Party activist, said he has revised upwards into the thousands his original estimate that about 500 people would attend the Clinton event.
"The first indication of how this area feels about things will be to compare the number of people who attend the Democratic rally at Custom House Square with the Romney event," he said.
State Sen. Mark C.W. Montigny, D-New Bedford, said the Democratic vote coming out of New Bedford will be significant.
City residents know that the party has delivered on the same programs and city initiatives that the Republicans want to cut, he said.
The rally will be a historic event for New Bedford, with a locally popular former president, one of the best senators in the nation's history, and a senator who is a presidential contender in 2004 attending, he said.
"Clinton will electrify this city tomorrow with thousands of local citizens turning out. I don't think anything the Republicans do will compare with that," he said.
Mr. Leontire cited a recent article in Commonwealth Magazine describing the New Bedford-Fall River region as the second-largest Democratic-voting area in the state after Greater Boston.
The area is progressive and is unified this year, he said.
"I think she is going to do very well down here," he said about Ms. O'Brien.
Greater New Bedford and Fall River and other urban areas of the state are seen as key to any O'Brien victory as tracking polls showed that the Bristol/Norfolk measurement area, along with Worcester County, included the largest number of undecided voters in the state.
The polls over the weekend also showed the momentum going all Mr. Romney's way.
A Boston Globe/WBZ tracking poll had Mr. Romney ahead by 3 percentage points last night and a Boston Herald/NECN poll that ended Saturday had Ms. O'Brien hanging onto a 1-point lead, with Mr. Romney gaining over the last few days.
Gerry Chervinsky, of KRC Communications Research, said that independent men have been moving toward Mr. Romney and independent women are moving away from Ms. O'Brien.
His poll's results are still within the 5 percentage-point margin of error but the momentum during the past week has been steady for Mr. Romney, said the pollster who is working for the Boston Globe and WBZ-TV.
"Every day is a little more. It's definitely a trend," he said.
There is still time for the race to be reversed, with 8 percent of the voters, most of them female independents, still undecided, he said.
Many of those voters are probably deciding whether to vote for Ms. O'Brien or to sit out the election, he said.
The minor party candidates, polling as high as a combined 12 percent a week ago, have begun to fade, he said.
The race will be determined by whether the Democratic Party -- almost three times as large as the Republican Party in Massachusetts -- can counteract the Republicans with a successful get-out-the vote drive, he said.
That's what the Clinton/O'Brien rally in New Bedford is all about, Mr. Chervinsky said.
"O'Brien is spending all her time in large cities where she needs a significant turnout," he said. "If she's in New Bedford, she must have concerns."
teddy knows the future Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, can mount a successful challenge against him for the senate in the years to come...
teddy-boy is trying to protect his butt and the many business holdings his family has that feed off of the public coffers!
if the kennedy's lose political power the family fortune will suffer loses...
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