Leone spoke to a roomful of campaign backers in Cambridge last night saying,âI am honored to have her here as my supporter.â
Coakleyâs endorsement further heats up a race that pits Leone against state Sen. Jarrett T. Barrios in the September Democratic primary.
Leone is a former prosecutor of high-profile defendants including nanny Louise Woodard and shoe-bomber Richard Reid. Barrios is a Cambridge lawmaker who chairs the Senateâs Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security. In addition to Coakley, Leone is backed by Rep. Michael Festa (D-Melrose,) who dropped out of the DAâs race.
Barrios is backed by the State Police Association of Massachusetts and the political action committee of the Massachusetts Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.
âWe are proud of social workers endorsing us,â said Barriosâ campaign spokesman Colin Durrant. âThey work with prosecutors and help to defeat addiction and other things that can lead to crime.â
Critics of Barrios have said his lack of prosecutorial experience may hurt his chances.
About the critics hit the nail right on the head. Barrios spoke at the Lafyette club a few weeks ago and nobody who spoke about him spoke of his prosecutorial experience because there is nothing to speak about. Now its all well and good to suggest that a DA doesn’t need these abilities but it makes a DA better when they have them and his opponent Gerry Leone does. I’m a bit surprised that the Police Department is backing Barrios considering that Leone historically speaking has been harder on crime and on criminals than Barrios does. Maybe someone could shed some light as to why they are backing him. One thing is certain. Leone now has the backing of the current DA, one of his former opponents, Attorney General Tom Riley & others who haven’t officially endorsed him yet but will probably do so by the time of the June state convention where the race will probably be decided based on the amount of delegates that Leone will have there. I am going to be a Leone delegate and I am expecting to see many more
It has nothing to do with who they think is better for the job…The right-wing leadership of this union have always based their support on pure politics. They endorsed Romney over O’Brien, Bush over Kerry, Bush Sr. over Dukakis.
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Do you really think that the rank and file state troopers are going to vote for Barrios (he, of the press conferences, not the courtrooms) instead of Leone, who has spent 15 years working with law enforcement at crime scenes and in courtrooms?
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Let’s be serious here. Barrios is chair of the Committee that controls the legislation that affects the union…he’s done them favors, now it’s payback.
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I think if you took a poll of law enforcement on this race, Leone would get 90% of their votes. To believe otherwise is naive and laughable.
I would suggest changing the title of your user post to something suggesting what the post is about, namely that Coakley Backs Leone or something similar.
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Also, do you have an opinion about this endorsement? If so, then I’d be interested in reading it and that would make this user post more informative.
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I’d hazard a guess that most, or at least many of us already read the Globe and Herald online daily. Posting a link with the text of the article is helpful, I suppose, but since this has probably been read by most of BMG readers already, I’d really like to read what YOU have to add — that’s what blogging is all about.
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Just sayin’.
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