Tomorrow’s Globe will run a story on the (so far) nine folks that would be interested in running for Congress should Marty Meehan become the Chancellor of UMass-Lowell. Meehan says he interviewed with the search committee, but he also says “I am happy doing what I am doing.” Not that he wouldn’t necessarily be happier doing something else … way to leave the door open, Marty.
Anyway, Niki Tsongas, Steve Baddour, yadda yadda. No surprises. The best comment on the whole thing, however, belongs to our friend and blogger extraordinaire Dick Howe:
“We’ve been through this before when he was going to run for governor and senator,” said Richard Howe, the Middlesex North register of deeds, who said he will not run. “Everyone gears up to run, and then nothing happens. I just decided not to worry about it.”
Heh.
… but for the people who are interested in running, it’s not an option. Maybe Meehan will stay put. If he does take the UMass job, though, those who have already started preparing will have a very large advantage over those who haven’t. So if someone is serious about it, they ought to do some preparation now, even if it might all come to nothing in the short term.
So far, I’ve heard of a lot of potential candidates from the cities on the northeast side of the district – Lowell, Haverhill, Andover. My favorite, James Eldridge, is from the southwest (Concord area) side of the district. Other than Cory Atkins, who I’ve heard is not preparing to run, has there been mention in the press or on the grapevine of other candidates from there?
Yes, Dick knows quite well that the 5th District has been led down that path before by our sitting Congressman. So if you want to be an effective public servant, you cannot plan your political career on what Marty may or may not do.
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As for the nine or so candidates, is it my imagination or is the Globe already making Niki Tsongas the leading contender. Lowell, the geographic center of the 5th District and its largest city, will be polite to Mrs. Tsongas if she moves back, but we already have our “announced” candidate, it is City Councilwoman Eileen Donoghue who has served Lowell continuously for the past 10 years.
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I do agree with Cos you need to be ready the moment Marty gets the job.
That’s what I was getting at in my earlier comment: I see the possibility of multiple candidates splitting up the “local” base in places like Lowell.
For 25 years, the congressional delegation has not included a woman. And, interestingly, in the 5th, I think you could argue that there resides the largest group of elected women; Resor, Tucker, Fargo, Atkins, L’Talien, Pollard, Donaghue, etc. Add Tsongas and one could make the case that this is the time to elect a woman. And I would add that if a man is elected in a hypotethical special, he will be de-facto term limited to 2012, because the legislature will opt for a last man in, first man out approach. But if a woman is elected, the legislature would not dare. Care to comment Congresswoman Heckler? Keep the 5th! Elect a woman.
But do we know for sure that Kennedy will run AGAIN in 2012? Don’t get me wrong, I hope he runs ’til HE is 2012. But is that realistic?
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If Kennedy leaves, a number of Congresspersons will run for his Senate seat and no one is going to have to worry about losing his/her district.
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Maybe we ought to think about who’s the best person for the job and worry about redistricting if we need to then.
but we’ll still lose one district
Did you see the discussion on this subject that we had on this post recently?
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I wrote,
sabutai replied, “Not either/or: It doesn’t matter what nature of institutions we have, if the end result is still a white male polity, there is something wrong.” I responded with this:
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To sum up: I’m going to support the best progressive candidate, regardless of gender. I agree that we ought to have a woman in our Congressional delegation, but letting that desire outweigh substantial differences between candidates is the wrong way to go about it. I also firmly believe that through supporting the best progressive candidates for every seat, we will get a much more diverse legislature and Washington delegation, the right way, and they will do a better job for us.
I believe the women on the list to be progressive. I also believe the twelve member congressional delegation should include a woman.
Where is the indication that the Lowell vote will be split?
Tsongas and Donaghue
…Marty Meehan’s possible leaving of the Congress is another example of something that I mentioned a few days ago–that with Kerry and Kennedy interminable sitting on their Senate seats, there is obviously no road of succession of talent from below. The party stagnates. If that is what the national Democratic party wants to see (it is the national party that’s doing it, via the seniority system in the Senate and House), so be it. But it isn’t healthy for the party.
“But do we know for sure that Kennedy will run AGAIN in 2012?”
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Yes, its his seat till he dies or he drowns another woman thats the facts in this state.
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And personally I’d still vote for him if he died or if he did drown another woman, he’s a damn good Senator.
Dick Howe’s comment in the Globe piece is key here. Judging by Marty’s past history, this will most likely turn out to be much ado about nothing.
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In my most humble opinion, the Gentleman from the Fifth District has become the Manny Ramirez of Massachusetts politics. You can reliably count on Marty to test the waters for higher office or the next best thing every two years ago. He whips everyone into a frenzy, politicos in the district start making plans to run, and then he inevitably backs off deciding to stay in the House.
Even as someone who (as you all know) constantly extolls the virtues of Lowell, one thing I am keeping in mind is that I feel that Lowell needs to realize they do not own the 5th CD seat. It wouldn’t be a bad thing for a strong candidate or two to emerge from outside of Lowell (in fact, given our history of hackery, that might be best for all concerned). Lowell has quite an ego about the whole thing, in my opinion. It bugs me.
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Of course, everything’s up in the air until Meehan makes a decision. I can say, however, that I have gotten a few phone calls. People are definitely starting the process of putting out feelers.
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Now, if only we had a blogger in Lawrence at least. I’d feel better about that.
If we split Massachusetts into two districts and elected 5 peopple from each district, then all these people could run even without someone retiring. They wouldn’t have to beat a specific incumbent, they would just have to do better than at least one of them. It would also reduce the ability of people to gerrymander districts. Though it probably makes more sense to start at the state level with the Massachusetts House of Reps. And it probably would require a constitutional amendment, which makes it very unlikely.
Now, because progressives wanted it to be more ‘representative’, we switched to a population based formula of 150 Reps., which allows the Lege to gerrymander to keep more of the seats in Boston and enviorns.
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How’ that workin’ out for ya?
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Here on the outer Cape, my Congressman lives in Quincy. Yeah, two mega-districts – so EVERYBODY can live in Boston!
The suggestion was to have multi-representative districts. The benefit would be that people could run for a seat without having to run specifically against one incumbent: if the district has 5 seats and 5 incumbents, there’s a greater chance of drawing challengers, one of whom might take out whichever incumbent turns out to be weakest.
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We have something like that for Cambridge City Council, so I can attest to both the advantages and limitations. We elect 9 city councilors every two years, all running citywide. Yes, we do draw challenger candidates every single year, even if no incumbents are retiring. And yes, sometimes one of the challengers wins and an incumbent loses. But no, it doesn’t happen often. When all 9 incumbents run for re-election, usually all 9 win.
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Cambridge’s single transferrable vote system (a combination of instant runoff and proportional representation) is probably also responsible for the fact that we always get strong challenger candidates, and that on rare occasions one of them knocks off an incumbent. If we had multi-representative districts for state house, I hope we’d also try STV for electing them.