The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight
How incompetent is the Massachusetts Republican Party? If it were a minor-league team it would be the Lehigh Valley IronPigs, only with a worse record. If it were a television network, it would be the CW, only without "America's Top Model" on its schedule.
In October 2007, Republican Jim Ogonowski narrowly lost a special election to replace outgoing Democrat Marty Meehan—he won 45% of the vote, but Niki Tsongas, widow of former representative and Senator Paul Tsongas, captured 51% of the vote.
How ineffectual is the Republican Party in Massachusetts? Let me show you two ways.
First, the party will not have a challenger to Tsongas, even though its choice in the special election won 45% only 7 months ago.
Second, Ogonowski decided that his 2007 campaign was the foundation for a challenge to Senator John Kerry. But it seems that the organization of his campaign leaves more than a little to be desired:
Republican Jim Ogonowski, who has the backing of key party members in his bid to challenge US Senator John F. Kerry, could be in danger of stumbling on his first crucial test: collecting 10,000 voter signatures to secure a spot on the GOP primary ballot.
With all the signatures submitted by the campaigns and the exhaustive certification process winding down, Ogonowski still needs at least 259 certified signatures to qualify for the September primary. But even that estimate is low, because he is expected to need a cushion of up to 1,000 more to withstand challenges to the validity of individual signatures that are sure to be mounted by his rival in the GOP primary, Jeff Beatty.
"There appears to be some question as to whether he will make it," said Secretary of State William F. Galvin, a Democrat whose Election Division compiles signature tallies submitted by individual city and town clerks.
How a candidate who recently ran a campaign, and his staff who recently filled key roles in that campaign, could fail to meet the fairly modest signature requirements to get on the primary ballot is nothing short of amazing.
But there is something that Republicans are good at—and that is fundraising dinners:
Galvin's questions about the viability of Ogonowski's signature drive coincided this week with a boost to Ogonowski from former governor Mitt Romney, who is hosting a $1,000-per-person fund-raiser tonight at the Taj Boston hotel on Arlington Street.
Now, that's rich.
(In a sane state, the utter incompetence of the Republicans and the ethical dodginess of the legislative leadership would get the Green Party to contest a bunch of legislative seats in an effort to get the Democrats to pay heed to the Green platform. As far as I can tell, the Green Party is running for one state Senate seat. One out of 200 possible legislative slots means that the Greens are running a vanity operation, not a party.)
Labels: Jim Ogonowski, Massachusetts Green-Rainbow Party, Massachusetts Republican Party, Stupid Republican tricks
