“The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.” SENATOR TED KENNEDY
I am so proud to announce the good news on BMG that my friend and protégé, Anthony Guardia, endorsed Jason Lewis for State Senate in the 5th Middlesex District seat previously held by now Congresswoman Katherine Clark.
I am honored to serve on Jason’s Steering Committee and call on all my friends in the progressive community to rally to his cause. Jason’s opponent, anti-choice, anti-equality, Monica Medeiros of Melrose, will be formidable and we can’t underestimate her appeal in the +2R district that Scott Brown won over Elizabeth Warren. Let’s go all out to keep this seat progressive Democrat. Strength and Honor, Jason! Forward to Victory on April 1st!
Anthony ran a populist grassroots campaign based on economic and social justice issues. His endorsement statement follows;
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Dear Friends,
Rep. Jason Lewis should be our next State Senator. He has the background and skill-set to move our Commonwealth forward.
A week ago I met with him for nearly three hours. We discussed our campaigns, our ideas, our shared values, and how we could improve our communities.
I walked away very impressed. When we talked about local aid he spoke passionately and sincerely about reforming Chapter 70. When we talked about non-profits he talked about the need for Massachusetts to pursue social innovation bonds. We talked about economic development and his background as a Harvard MBA who helped build two successful software companies that created hundreds of private sector jobs.
My campaign was about the status quo being unacceptable. Young people cannot find work and older workers cannot find meaningful jobs. Education needs to be reformed: from early education to local aid to lowering and controlling the costs of higher education. Finally, our seniors are losing their independence, as the costs of living increases.
Jason has ideas to fix all of the above and more important, he has the track record of doing so.
Residents from the towns he represents share stories of Jason reaching out to them for their advice and opinion on how to improve the status quo. He has hosted forums to do the same. He even asked me for my thoughts on a number of issues. It’s obvious he uses this information to create and/or support legislation that represents a consensus among his constituents. Further a look at his website shows that he is the lead sponsor on different pieces of legislation that will improve the lives of many of our neighbors.
On April 1st, a vote for Jason Lewis is a vote for a proud progressive who gets results for the communities he serves.
Sincerely,
Anthony Guardia, Esq.
Fred Rich LaRiccia,
Steering Committee, Lewis for State Senate Campaign
Chair, Guardia for State Senate Campaign
Chair, Clark for Congress Campaign
It was a pleasure getting to help out Anthony on this site and elsewhere and getting to have good conversations with him. He is a leader to watch.
But so is Jason Lewis. And he will be a great State Senator for the district and will fight for every community. Monica is a self described “strong conservative” and will do all she can to cut local aid, cut social services, cut taxes for the wealthy on the backs of the needy, and get government out of places where it belongs (public schools, public healthcare, public parks) and into places it doesn’t (your bedroom and your doctors office). Katherine Clark boldly challenged the status quo of this once Republican district, time to keep it bright blue with Lewis!
We’ve got 1 week to win this and we need all hands on deck for April 1st.
Anthony Guardia and his supporters are on board which is very much appreciated. Rep. Chris Fallon has not endorsed Jason but we’re pretty confident that despite that Jason will get very strong support from good Democratic voters who voted for Fallon in the primary.
That said, we’ve got a TON of work to do and we need your help.
The Lewis campaign has 3x the voter universe to get to the polls on April 1st compared to what it accomplished on March 4th for the primary — but as things currently stand we don’t have nearly enough volunteers signed up to do that critical work.
Our GOP opponent is from Melrose and she is anti-choice, anti-LGBT rights, and a Tea Party fan. This is a purple district, so this is winnable for us but by no means is this a slam dunk.
In addition there’s some concern that the more Republican-leaning towns of Wakefield and Reading have municipal elections on April 1st that will boost their turnout, but there’s nothing on the ballot except state senate for Winchester, Malden and Melrose — so the Lewis campaign will be the only force pulling voters in those three cities, which are obviously the bulk of our base and are thus super critical. We need lots of bodies to do that.
Every Melrose elected official who has endorsed in this race has endorsed Jason. Most of the Malden city council/school committee folks are on board as well. Best of all Senator Markey and Congresswoman Clark have endorsed Jason enthusiastically.
But more than anything we need an army of volunteers to help those of us who’ve been on the ground for months in 5th Middlesex to bring this home.
Sign up here to help GOTV for Jason Lewis on April 1st and please pass this link on to friends who might be interested as well:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ly4f1fB6N2Tctc55DB7Ha8IesGt23lSWGWqgHltmQPs/viewform
Thank you!