Kirk’s finish comes as a surprise for various reasons. Certainly anyone driving the streets of Gloucester over the past few weeks saw far more signs for Destino, City Councilor Mike McLeod, and former City Councilor Jeff Worthley than they did for Kirk. Likewise, the advertising in the local newspaper was much more prevalent for those three than it was for Kirk; Destino’s signature ad apparently set a record for the most names in a signature ad in the Gloucester Times.
More importantly, Gloucester is a city known for its conservative politics. No, not that red/blue “conservative,” but a politics of support for the status quo. No matter how much we complain about things, we rarely actually get around to doing anything to make a change. We’re happy re-electing officials who represent things the way they are; our state senator and state representative (Bruce Tarr and Tony Verga, respectively) represent the status quo on Beacon Hill quite well, thank you. Our current three-term mayor, John Bell, has been re-elected twice despite an undistinguished record of accomplishments. You would not go too far wrong by betting on Gloucester electing the candidate most closely tied to “business as usual.” (Note that this does not apply to the statewide races, where we tend to mirror the picture across the Commonwealth.)
Kirk, who has been on the School Committee for the last four years, has emphasized the need to stop “business as usual.” She has highlighted the need to look at every aspect of Gloucester’s municipal government and find out what is broken, and then make plans to fix it. She has said that she wants to hold public servants in Gloucester accountable for results, which flies in the face of a political culture that often tolerates poor results from city leaders.
On the other side, Destino is clearly the candidate of the Gloucester establishment and was supported in the preliminary by many of the familiar faces in Gloucester’s political community, from the conservatives to the progressives. His newspaper ads featured such slogans as “experience” and “proven leadership.”
The election results can also be seen as a victory for the new municipal PAC, “Get Gloucester Going,” which was formed by local leaders of the Deval Patrick campaign. They “recommended” both Destino and Kirk in their endorsement list (see http://www.getglouce…) and certainly helped direct supporters of the governor to the winning candidates.
November’s election provides Gloucester with a clear choice. Both candidates are highly qualified leaders of high personal integrity who can be counted on to lead Gloucester towards their vision of the future. At the same time, the visions of the future that they represent are quite at odds with each other.
Since this is Blue Mass Group, it’s worth pointing out that Kirk is a Democrat, although this is a non-party election. Destino was unenrolled in the last listing that I saw.
(I am a supporter of Carolyn’s, but not affiliated with the campaign).
