Carl Sciortino for State Representative – Somerville, Carl was one of the original PDM Half Dozen in 2004, and faces a difficult primary campaign. He is running a write-in campaign because of problems with his nominating papers.
Astrid af Klinteberg for State Representative – Cape Ann, Astrid was a founder of PDM, and she is in a three way race against an incumbent and another challenger.
Ken Donnelly for State Senate – this is the race for Jim Marzilli’s Senate seat
Jim O’Donnell for State Representative – 22nd Middlesex (Chelmsford area)
Doug Belanger for State Senate – this is the race for Ed Augustus’ Senate seat
Jamie Eldridge for State Senate – this is the race for Pam Resor’s Senate seat
Please share widely!
He is running against Brad Hill the incumbent Republican Representative. Or do your endorsements follow MassEquality’s? http://donbumiller.com/?cat=1
My recollection is that the PDM statewide endorsements are based on the recommendations of the local PDM groups and the candidates that they have endorsed. One of the purposes of this process is to bring candidates to the attention of local groups in areas around the state where they have no local races so that they can go help in other areas. For example, the Cape Ann group, which this year has an endorsed candidate in the 5th Essex, has contributed time in the past to races in Worcester and Somerville.
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p>Unless I am mistaken, there is no PDM group in the Ipswich area that would have produced a local endorsement.
and Manchester-by-the-Sea is in the 5th Essex.
Manchester is in the 4th Essex and is part of Cape Ann.
We chose six candidates to actively support. We’re free to endorse more than that, but the six above can expect active support from PDM members.
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p>Why those six? Generally speaking, they’ll be pushing the progressive envelope in their district, they’ll be nearby at least one PDM chapter, and they’ll be in a race where PDM thinks we’ll be able to have a tangible and demonstrate-able positive impact.
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p>Of course exceptions may exist; remember that PDM limited in size and geographic distribution, and the list of interesting elections that overlap PDM’s geography is limited.
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p>I’m sure Michael Wilcox can expand/correct if need be.
To oversimplify, our criterea are twofold:
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p>1) we want to get involved in races where it really matters — contests between true progressive candidates and whatever is the opposite of that…
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p>2) we want our endorsements to have practical significance — this means a commitment of time, money, and volunteers to help the candidate get elected. This we can most easily do where we have strong, active, local chapters. It’s easy to endorse candidates whose values we share, and we’re happy to do that, but to make the cut for the “half dozen” we want to be able to commit resources to help them get elected.
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p>We’ve worked hard on lots of campaigns where we feel we’ve made a real differnce (not the least of which was the Deval Patrick campaign, where many PDMers played prominent roles in his effort), and we want to continue that pragmatic approach.
I want to thank PDM for their endorsement of Ken Donnelly. He will be a great, progressive Democrat in the state senate!