“It was an identifier of who they were so the (election) wardens would know they were there with a purpose,” said Neil Janssens, the chairman of Rice’s campaign and City Council president. Janssens said the volunteers did not break any laws.
The City Clerk’s Office said the matter was resolved by changing the stickers to say “Election Day volunteer.” After the results were announced, Ellis could not say whether he would contest the issue further.
The way this is written, it sounds like Rice’s campaign was actually unaware that you’re not supposed to wear anything identifying one of the candidates, at the polls on election day. That seems like a very strange thing for a campaign not to know. Do any of you know if that’s what actually happened, or whether there was something else going on? Mariposa?
FWIW, I hear rumor that they really just didn’t know.
Cos, I hail your ability to make purdy tables. 🙂
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News about the election around these parts is pretty non-existant. No one that I know in Ashby or Ashburnham voted because they didn’t think that anyone could beat the candidates from Gardner. (yeah, I know… a different rant for another time)
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It’s disappointing to me because I think that Mike McCallum could have done much better if he had a better organization and there was more lead time up to the election.
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I cannot for the life of me understand how Rice volunteers, under the supervision of Rice’s campaign manager (and Gardner City Counsel president, for crissakes!) not know that you cannot advertise a candidate within 150 feet of a polling place. That’s just ridiculous. I’m sure it had no effect on the outcome,but that’s just a dumbass mistake.
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The upside of all of this is that Rice (as far as we know…) is not as conservative as Knuutilla was so that’s in the plus column.
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The downside is that Rice will now have to face the Republican Dennehy, who will be well funded and helped by the St. Rep. in the district next door, Robert Hargraves (R-Groton). Who is my St. Rep. (yay….NOT!) Hargraves has a very formidable organization and I’m sure he would like nothing better than to flip 2nd Worcester over to the dark side.
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I know groups like MassEquality stayed out of this primary because they didn’t object to any of the primary candidates, but if they (and anyone else who wants to see a Dem keep this seat) they had better help Rice out (like, uh, NOW) because he’s going to need all the help he can get.
Could you tell us some more about him as far as issues?
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For example, would he vote for or against the marriage amendment? That will determine whether MassEquality should care.
Because I double-checked and apparently MassEquality PAC did endorse Rice. I could swear that the article I read previously said that they were staying out of the primary because none of the Dem candidates opposed marriage equality. That same article mentioned that at that time (Bay Windows – December 08, 2005, no longer available) that Dennehy declined to respond the the equality question.
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Well, in today’s Bay Windows Political Notes they note that Dennehy does not support marriage equality:
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“The MassEquality PAC did endorse Robert Rice,” says MassEquality Campaign Director Marc Solomon, noting that Rice is a strong supporter of marriage equality and opposes amending the constitution to say otherwise. “His opponent on the other hand, Jonathan Dennehy … would vote to advance the amendment. There’s a real chance to move an anti-equality seat to a pro-equality seat.” With pro-equality forces fighting an uphill battle to muster a 151-vote majority to defeat the current initiative petition to ban same-sex marriage, a vote that could take place as early as May, that’d be nice.
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Not surprisingly, the equality stuff is absent from Dennehy’s website. The rest of the issues stuff is pretty standard for a Republican. Taxes bad. Gun rights good. No specifics though, just blah, blah, blah.
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He’s fundraising like crazy. Wednesday with Mitt, Thursday with Kerry Healey.
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This will be a very interesting race.