Appears an attorney named Jim McKenna got enough write-ins on the ballots to take on martha Coakley for AG on Nov. 2…info on McKenna from his website:
About Jim McKenna
– Worked as Assistant District Attorney for Suffolk and Worcester County
Jim worked as a prosecutor for 10 years, gaining perspective and experience by serving in three different offices. He prosecuted public corruption and organized crime in Boston for three years while serving as an Assistant District Attorney in the Organized Crime Division of the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office. Jim also served for six years as an Assistant District Attorney in the Worcester County District Attorney’s office, which work included two years as supervisor of the Grand Jury Unit. He began his work as a prosecutor by serving in the Civil Division of the Franklin County [Ohio] Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.
In 1998, Jim moved to private practice, but also served as a Special Assistant District Attorney concerning a case on which he had worked while a full-time prosecutor. Specifically, he represented the Commonwealth before the Supreme Judicial Court in support of the first-degree murder conviction of the murderer of Paxton Police Chief Robert Mortell. That conviction was affirmed, as were all others in that case. Commonwealth v. Souza, 428 Mass. 478 (1998).
Since then, Jim has worked in the private sector, primarily doing civil litigation (insurance defense) on both the trial and appellate levels. During that time, Jim also served a campaign coordinator for Greg White’s Campaign for Worcester County District Attorney in 2002, and as campaign chair for Steve Paige’s campaign for state senate in 2004. Most recently, Jim served as chief legal counsel for Mary Z. Connaughton’s campaign for Auditor.
In addition, for the last 17 years, Jim has taught courses on law and ethics as an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the part-time MBA program at Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s Department of Management. Last year, BusinessWeek ranked that program 9th nationally. This year, BusinessWeek ranked that program 1st – with UCLA, UC (Berkeley), Nebraska and Michigan rounding out the top five.
For the last 5 years, Jim has served on the Board of Trustees of Quinsigamond Community College.
Jim graduated from Holy Cross College and Boston College Law School.
He is married – he and his wife have six children, ranging from 17 to 8 years old….he also coaches soccer
NOTE TO MARTHA: don’t take him for granted!
That may be why there was no mention of the write in effort pre-primary, for example. This was done through GOP Town Committees, Facebook, blogs, and dissatisfaction with Coakley.
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p>There were TWO write in candidates – Jim McKenna and Guy Carbone. Getting behind one guy for an unprecedented statewide sticker campaign was too EASY! THAT’S now how Mass. Republicans do things!
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p>That said – they are still tabulating, but it looks like McKenna did qualify – not sure about Carbone. If they BOTH got more than 10,000 sticker votes, then the one with more will be Coakley’s opponent. So we are still in limbo, although I do expect McKenna to be the qualifier.
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p>Here’s a LINK to his website.
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p>And I have to say – this is a testimony to how many unenrolled pulled GOP ballots AND were willing to make the extra effort to oppose in this race.
They’ve done such a swell job of doing things as shown by their MA Legislature representation.
Ch. 4 WBZ TV:
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p>http://wbztv.com/local/martha….
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p>Website:
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p>http://jimforag.com/
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p>The news is slow in arriving because it’s pretty damned incredulous. Even hardcore Republicans doubted the sucess of the campaign.
Just what the office of the Attorney General needs: a weasal in the chicken coop.
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p>Elect this bozo and it will be open season on insurance rate payers.
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p>Go back and coach soccer where you can probably do less harm…then again maybe not. It a kid gets hurt on the soccer field is Jim McKenna going to side with the insurance company for whom he flacks.
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p> Don’t put the office of the Attorney General in the hands of an insurance industry paid flack.
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p>Re-elect Coakley.
If Jim McKenna were a Democrat, I would become unenrolled to vote for him.
Why no sign of him earlier in the season, during nominating convention, or primary yesterday. Could it be that it took that long to find someone to run, or that they wanted to hide him from any campaign before the final push?
Just another crackpot Republican. Probably some TEA Party loon. Or like that guy Lively who was a write-in against Baker.
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p>On conservative blogs, on Republican web sites, the McKenna-Carbone fight was huge. At the last angry GOP State Committee meeting there were THREE close votes (voice, hands, roll call) between those who wanted to endorse Carbone pre-primary (the get behind one guy movement), and those who wanted to let the process play out. Both men appeared in front of RTC, TEA Party meetings, citizen forums.
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p>But since the effort was doomed anyway, why report anything they had to say?
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p>If you’re speaking at dozens public forums, you’re not exactly ‘hiding’. But as far as Boston media is concerned, if you aren’t a friend of Todd Domke or Charley Manning, well, how much credibiltiy could you actually have?
26% of republican primary voters wrote in a name in the Attorney General’s fight. There will be well over 50,000 write-ins for this race. Based on the trends in the data i’ve looked over McKenna will get about 30,000 of those write-ins and Carbone 20,000. As a Democrat, if you weren’t scared about the intensity gap before yesterday’s election. you should be today.
I’ve gotten 3s and 0s before for being provocative. I put up a reasoned fact based opinion that there will be 50,000 write in votes and I get a 3. It seems only Charley, and a few others here, gets what is happening in the country. The rest of you are content to put your heads in the sand and go na na na na. I for one am glad you’re doing it keep up the good work.
They are still counting, but Galvin’s office now says there’s a “strong chance” McKenna will make the 10,000 threshold. This is the first word that I’ve seen from someone other than McKenna.
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p>Link
In my precinct in Somerville, we had 40 voters pull Republican ballots. Of these 6 wrote in Jim McKenna. Assuming this is representative of the State as whole, that would translate into about 30,000 write-in votes, well over the 10,000 margin.
Howie Carr and several other area talk jocks were encouraging people to give McKenna a vote…not so surprising…Carr is Boston’s # 1 misogynist and Coakley sends him into spins…
Thank Goodness someone is running against her!!!
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p>Martha doesn’t want to be the states AG-remember she tried to get out, but couldn’t- and is not well respected by either side of the political isle. While Jim McKenna may not be my first choice for AG, it will be a drastic improvement over Coakley! She thought she had the Senate seat and did nothing but hurt herself every time she spoke. . .
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p>Maybe someone can get Tim Cahill to run for AG as an independent too, the only reason he’s running for Governor is as a “spoiler”. The AG race is going to need a “spoiler” too. . .
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BMGers:
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p>I’m proud to be the Democratic nominee for re-election as Attorney General. We had a busy spring and summer on the trail and I’m looking forward to the campaign ahead. As many of you know, the AG’s Office works every single day to stand up for the Commonwealth in the face of unfairness. We listen to what the people of this state are asking for from their government, and we respond.
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p>Please read a message I sent to supporters this morning about the issues I fight for as your AG, and why they’re importance to this campaign: http://www.marthacoakley.com/b…
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p>It is a real privilege and a serious responsibility to serve as the Attorney General and to represent you, and the campaign I’m running will reflect that. We’re going to be out campaigning hard every day through November 2nd.
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p>I ask for your support, and I hope you’ll join me.
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p>Martha
First, there is no reason to criticize Jim McKenna for representing his clients.
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p>A lawyer should vigorously defend his client’s interests, not some impersonal sense of “balanced order”, in their legal practice.
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p>That being said, we need Martha Coakley as AG for ECONOMIC REASONS.
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p>Why economic reasons?
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p>Because she is keeping National Grid, a utility company, from raising rates for electric and gas utilities.
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p>And, she is much more likely to force insurance companies to keep rates down than McKenna.
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p>I have no problem with letting prices go sky-high on top-of-the-line luxury items that are used by connoisseurs.
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p>But utilities (a natural monopoly) and insurance (needed for financial reasons) should be affordable, as should other necessities of life.
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p>And re-electing Martha Coakley is a good step in keeping those rates down.