Our own Smart, Sexy & Liberal had the story first (and, incidentally, is the undoubted winner of the “most intriguing handle” award), and now it’s official: Lt. Gov. candidate Tim Murray has announced that he has collected the required 10,000 signatures to get himself on the ballot. He also updates us on everyone else’s progress. From the press release:
As of 4:30pm yesterday (May 1), Timothy P. Murray, Mayor of Worcester, was the first candidate in the Lt. Governorâs race to reach the required minimum 10,000 signatures to qualify for the primary ballot.
âI am ecstatic that our team is the first to reach 10,000 signatures and I am grateful for the support of hundreds of volunteers around the state that made this possible,â said Tim Murray. Of Murrayâs 10,000 signatures, only 3,219 came from the city of Worcester, showing the campaign has a broad base of support across the state.
As of 4:30pm yesterday, Andrea Silbertâs campaign had 7989 signatures, Deborah Goldbergâs campaign had 8880 signatures, Sam Kellyâs campaign had 1028 signatures, and Reed Hilmanâs campaign had 4086 signatures.
The deadline for submitting signatures to the various town clerksâ offices for certification is May 9.
Andrea and Deb will no doubt reach 10,000 by next week. Sam and Reed, however, are going to have to scramble. I wonder how the Gov candidates are doing … anyone?
Hillman just had the state GOP convention, where I’m sure he and the other GOP candidates had petitions circulating. I’m sure his total increased or so over the weekend.
<
p>
Also, these are the total certified signatures as received by the Sec of State. The campaigns are likely to have piles of signature sheets that are either waiting to be filed with town clerks (the deadline is May 9th, I think), or that have been certified but not submitted to Galvin’s office. The Murray campaign is not in a position to know how many signatures the other campaigns have collected thus far, only how many have been submitted.
<
p>
I’m not sure how Healey, Reilly and Gabrieli are doing, but I do know that Deval Patrick passed the threshold over a week ago.
I guess this just goes to show that all the time that time FrankStef and fieldguy are bragging about Silbert’s organization and team they should have been standing out at markets and opening day little league parades collecting some signatures. Goldberg’s campaign just continues to sink she cant raise money and the only way she could get on the ballot was paying her way on.
First, FD, I challenge you to find one posting or comment I EVER made bragging about Sibert’s organization…and I am assuming you meant “field organization”. You will find comments I made questioning people who say “field” will make a difference in a down-ballot election. With nearly 80 % of signatures cerified, with probably a few thousand signatures currently at town halls not yet certified and probably another thousand signatures in the campaign offices–as other post here note, both Goldberg and Silbert most likely have their 10,000 cerified with one week to go. It’s obvoius Silbert’s campaign will get the necessary signatures, get their 15% (plus) to get on the ballot and raise the necessary money for a media campaign to sell a superior message. Why expend resources to get one more signature than necessary?
<
p>
I’m a big boy and I don’t mind that BCD (that would be Bob, Charlie and David) let your personal attack stand, becuase it gives me a chance to put your and SSL’s comments in perspective.
<
p>
All I’ve been hearing is what an awesome field Murray has–four hundred caucuses covered, hundreds of signiture collectors every weekend.
<
p>
Well if Murray’s field is so awesome, how come Silbert and Goldberg are just footsteps away? Why did it take all this time to collect Murray signatures? If SSL is to be believed and hundreds of collectors were gathering signatures “one anygiven Saturday”, how many were each collecting…5? Do the math. If one hundred people collected 100 signatures in one day, then 10,000 would have been collected. So it would have taken only two Saturdays to collected a safe 20,000.
<
p>
So what did these hundreds of volunteers do on any given Saturday…? I’ll stop right there.
Even if I did get one hundre sigs oin one given dayh how many do you think were certified? Yoy, can do better than that. Ive already posted how pitiful the certification rate was and how reluctant people were to sign, I believe in part due to the fraud with voter petitions in the recent past.
<
p>
YOu are one funny dude
Well Frank if I was a candidate and spend over $13,000 to a signature collection company I would expect to be leading the collection race, but looks at least Goldberg cannot find true supporters to go stand and get signature. And Frank furthermore you need to start not trying to prove numbers wrong. Hundreds of volunteers throughout of signature campaign I never said we had 100’s every week or anything along those lines. I love how to try to prove my comments wrong by putting in things like every signature gather collects 50 signatures. Well we all know thats not true some go around their neighborhood and collect 10 and that’s perfectly fine. You just have to accept the fact no other LG Candidate has the organization that Murray campaign does and by trying to change numbers around you think you prove a point, but simple logic that does not work. It’s like Silberts job plan. A lot of ideas that could have just been cut and pasted from the two previous issue plans the Murray campaign has rolled out. So lets see if we can get something beyond “job job job’s’ but o wait my ideas “are all Tim Murrays”
Anyone know? I didn’t ask my clerk (and don’t want to bug them again…)
Deval has upwards of 13,000, Gabrieli who bought all his signatures has like 11,000 and supposedly, Reilly hasn’t hit his 10,000 yet, but is hanging aroung the 9,000-10,000 mark.
untill signatures are certified, nobody got nothing. don’t forget that maxim kiddies:-)
I’m pretty sure that these are all numbers of certified signatures. There’s no way the Murray campaign could know how many raw signatures each other campaign was sitting on.
The numbers people are quoting are certifed, as shown by the Commonwealth’s computer system. There is of course the difference between certified and at the clerks’ offices and in your hands ready to turn over.
My cousin voted in today’s Brookline town election and told me he saw a few people from the campaigns collecting signatures at the polling place. They must be really scrambling if they’re willing to be out in the cold, rainy weather for a few signatures (turnout was light he said).
Going to a town election, no matter how small, is pretty smart considering you know pretty much for sure which town people are coming from (each sheet has to be from the same city) and the people coming to a small election like that are probably going to show up for a vote that really counts. Being active there (in the rainy weather) shows some dedication!
What’s “scrambling” about it? More signatures are a good thing even if you think you already have enough, unless you definitely have 10,000 certified at the state already. So every candidate should have had people collecting more signatures. And a local election is perfect: You get active voters, who are interested enough to sign rather than brush you off, and they’re all registered in the same town, so you don’t have to have lots of petition sheets for different towns. It’s very efficient. You’ll get more signatures per hour at a town election than you will on a busy sunny street with 5 times as many people walking by.
Except for Murray’s 10,000, of course.
<
p>
But the rest of them, who knows what they mean.
<
p>
Volunteers collect signatures. Some of them turn those signatures in to their city or town for certification, then get them back and give them to the campaign. Others just give them to the campaign, which then turns them in to cities and towns. Either way, the certified signatures then have to go to the state, to be certified there.
<
p>
Murray is reporting how many have gone through that last step. A campaign might have thousands more signatures in their hands, or waiting to be picked up by volunteers at city and town clerks offices, and there’s no way we’d know unless that campaign told us. They may see no urgency in turning them in to the state yet because they know they’re getting more soon. So these numbers could just indicate different timing, or different processes, rather than actual numbers of signatures.
It’s unclear to me from Murray’s release on his website whether he has submitted 10,000 to the Sec. of State or whether the Sec. of State’s database says that he has 10,000 certified. Do we know for sure that he’s submitted them? I know, I know…splitting hairs here…
<
p>
I think we’re all officially nuts here. Who wants to meet up at the Convention Friday night and get hammered and joke about all of our insanity? I’m buying…
it’d be interesting to find out what all of you look like.
I can tell you that I am tall, dark, and handsome. And did I say incredibly dashing and sexy? I would never lie, you can ask Susan, sco, and Lynne. They have all had the (dis)pleasure of seeing me in real life!
at Murrays tent or does it have to be neutral ground!!! I dont believe the 10k has to be submitted until after the convention
for statewide candidates are due May 9th.
but to the SOS’ office?
Link
<
p>
5:00 PM MAy 9, 2006 last day and hour to sumbit nomination papers to Registrar of Voters for certification. ( federal and statewide candidates)
<
p>
5:00 PM June 6, 2006 last day and hour to file nomination papers( including party enrollment or voter registration certifican and Ethics commission receipt)with the secretary of the commonwealth
Is he throwing a Circus party for delegates? That would be a first…
<
p>
Seriously, I’m all up for meeting up and if Murray is having a tent, then all the better. I hope there will be free beer and Polar soda there…
Murray’s “camp” although I do get the whole circus party
I asked someone to put up a user post before the convention to coordinate a meetup.
<
p>
SSL – was that you? Or Susan at Below Boston?
<
p>
Having a senior moment here. 🙂
<
p>
Also! I hope that many folks will get a chance to meet at the Lowell LG Forum May 21, at 2:00 PM. Save that date, folks. We’re so-sponsoring, so we should do what we can to have a good turn out of bloggeristas.
I had a conversation with Andrea Silbert today (I’m an Andrea person) and I just want to set this record straight. Tim Murray is the SECOND Lt. Gov candidate to hit 10k signatures. Andrea has collected 16,000 signatures (margins of error, etc.) and many of them have already been certified.
<
p>
Murray having nothing more substantive to release than his signature count isn’t something to be proud of in my opinion — and in fact there’s a story in there somewhere.
<
p>
“Candidate Murray: Political Milestones More Important than Issues”
Judging by how quickly Silbert was to release her tax returns and subsequently criticize other candidates for not doing the same, we would have heard about this the moment she heard.
Since December when entering the LG race, Murray has outraised all canidates in the LG Race, built close to the best field organization for any statewide race, and has already released at least two issue proposals that i’ve gotten word of. He laid out his Municiple Bill of Rights as well as his Rail and transportation issue paper. I think Silbert final has caught on and quickly copied and pasted much of Murray’s proposals and changed the titles to make it seem like shes trying to talk about the issues.
You’re incorrect when you say that Murray’s the only one talking about issues.
<
p>
Silbert has been talking about job creation, economic development, expanding communter rail, statewide wifi, and universal preschool since before Murray even got into the race. She talked about it at an event I was at last summer. I could make a credible (but incorrect) argument that Murray’s plans were copied from Silbert’s stump speech, albeit with certain obvious expansions like the Rail Commissioner, to name but one. But that wouldn’t be true, because Tim Murray cannot credibly claim that he owns either the rail expansion issue, the wifi issue, or any other issue. We Democrats own these issues, because they’re what we Democrats need to be talking about to win.
<
p>
As I’ve posted elsewhere: no one has a monopoly on these ideas; they’re all great ideas; the winner will be determined by who articulates them the most effectively.
Hoss I was simply making the pont that Silbert’s plan, which was meant to be a big plan with new ideas is full of nothing new, but rather she just came out and copied the past issue plans of Tim Murray’s. She paints herself as the job goddess, but cant come up unique plans or ideas. To me this looks like a C student in college just copying the A students work.
What I said is that Silbert’s plan could not have been copied from Murray’s because she’s been making her points since before Murray got in the race, but only put them out as a written “plan” this week. That’s why I said she could claim (albeit incorrectly) that HE was stealing HER ideas. Just because they’re “on paper” first doesn’t mean he owns them.
<
p>
WE own them.
<
p>
I have a feeling both Tim and Andrea were good students in college… there’s no way they’d be where they are now (that would be fun to find out, wouldn’t it? Who wants to call the registrars’ offices…?)
I’m undecided in the Lt Gov race, but it really doesn’t make sense to criticize Murray for not being forthcoming on “the issues.” He’s got more out there than any other candidate at this point. So that particular attack doesn’t fly.
The announcement is that Murray has 10k certified not collected and you know what they say about opinions…………. migraine from what?
many have been certified, how many?
Today the Murray campaign came out and said they were the first statewide campaign to have reached the requirement of collecting 10,000 signatures and having them certified by town clerks from around the state. Silbert’s campaign is of course trying to flip the story. The Murray campaign collected a far greater number of raw signatures on top of the 10,000 signatures because on average between 30-40 percent of all the signatures collected are not valid for one reason or another. Silberts campaign may have collected 16,000 but they can not say they have reached the 10,000 certified mark. If they claim they have collected 16,000 certified signatures well the campaign is lying to its supporters and any town clerk or election office in the state can tell you that.
The Murray Campaign has probably collected 16,000 or more raw signatures just to get to the 10,000 Signature mark. According to the certified count Silbert doesn’t have her 10,000 yet. I trust the town clerks’ accuracy.