As noted on several other blogs, tomorrow’s the big day for two contested Democratic primaries for the MA House of Reps. sco’s got the basic dope on these races.
It would seem that Denise Provost is the prohibitive favorite in Somerville over Elizabeth Moroney, so we’ll probably see another reputed “progressive” to fill Pat Jehlen’s old seat in the House. Andy’s got more on this one.
The more interesting race is in the Worcester 2nd, where there are three candidates to fill the shoes (but not the vowels) of departing Rep. Brian Knuuttila. There was a debate on Thursday night — here’s nice little write-up from the Sentinel and Enterprise: brief, bare-bones, but one does get some good impressions of the candidates. (Isn’t it amazing how we have to scrape around for whatever tidbits the “real” press has to offer us?) The Dems in the race are Michael Ellis of Gardner, Michael McCallum of Ashby and Robert Rice of Gardner. In the debate, McCallum and Rice seemed to be more on the progressive side, talking about universal health care, while Ellis and the Republican Jonathan Dennehy criticized the proposed assessment on employers that don’t provide health care. Here’s another, less helpful, article about the race.
Mariposa has a lot more on this race. Cos likes Mike McCallum, and notes that McCallum has a website. Rice has SEIU support, which may provide needed organizational support tomorrow.
So make up yer mind already! And thanks to our great bloggers Cos and Mariposa for doing the work that in a perfect world would be done by professional reporters and read by the electorate.
I posted a long and detailed comparison of the two Somerville candidates from my point of view, along with informational links, here, on the davis_square community blog on LiveJournal.
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For the BMG crowd, I want to stress that there’s no such thing as a “prohibitive favorite” in a special election. Denise is the favorite because a large majority of Somerville voters prefer her over Moroney. But it’s also almost certainly true that the overwhelming majority of the district’s voters will not vote today, and the election will be decided by the few who do. It’s all about getting out the vote, and now I’m off to the Provost campaign office to help with that. Come join me! (it’s next door to Diesel)