Thanks to alert reader Brittain33, who in our fabulously successful Open Thread on the Second Middlesex race pointed out that the Somerville Journal has quoted Michael Callahan as saying that he is "not against gay marriage" and, more importantly, that he does not support altering the state Constitution with respect to marriage. With Pat Jehlen and Joe Mackey squarely in the pro-marriage camp, that leaves only Paul Casey favoring the proposals that would amend the state Constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman.
So here’s an interesting question. Let’s say you’re a person who favors gay marriage and who would like to see all of the proposed amendments go down to defeat. We have 200 state legislators, 160 reps and 40 senators. Each of them gets exactly one vote in a constitutional convention (the ConCons, as they’re known, are joint sessions of the Senate and the House). Obviously, then, your goal as a pro-marriage person is to ensure that as many of those 200 legislators as possible are pro-marriage and anti-amendment – and it doesn’t matter whether they’re in the Senate or the House. So if you’re voting strategically and you care a lot about gay marriage, would it make sense not to vote for Jehlen, in the hope that she stays where she is (in the House, but still with a vote in the ConCon), and instead vote for Mackey or Callahan, neither of whom currently gets to vote? If Mackey or Callahan wins, you have ensured that two seats (the open Senate seat and Jehlen’s) are pro-marriage. If Jehlen wins, on the other hand, you get a solid pro-marriage vote in the Senate but you have no idea what will happen to her house seat. Especially with Callahan having as much traction as he does with the old guard, is there a possibility that strategic voters on gay marriage will abandon Jehlen for Callahan?
