Forgot to post these yesterday: in the Middlesex 5th Senate district (to replace Katherine Clark), Jason Lewis (43%) is the Democratic nominee, easily beating Chris Fallon (35%) and Anthony Guardia (22%). I think there’s some Republican running against him in the general, which is on April 1. And in the 13th Suffolk House district (to replace Marty Walsh), Dan Hunt is the Democratic nominee and will win the seat since no Republican candidates ran. Hunt won just over the half the votes cast, trouncing John O’Toole, Liam Curran, PJ McCann, and Gene Gorman. And the Globe continued to demonstrate its electoral irrelevance at all levels of government, as its preferred candidate (O’Toole) received only 24% of the vote. If Boston’s “paper of record” can’t wield any influence in a low-turnout race taking place almost literally in its own backyard, maybe it should just get out of the endorsement business all together.
The Republican in the 5th is Melrose Alderman Monica Meidieros, but Lewis solidly won every single community in the district except his primary opponents hometowns. I expect this race to be a little easier, but it will be interesting to see how his attempts to tie her down to the extremist MA State GOP platform work as a preview for the 2014 gubernatorial contest. If they stick they could be potent weapons for progressive candidates at all levels.
It won’t. Like the Tribune, sometimes it might want to back candidates it knows will fail who somehow pass a purity test of theirs. The tribune always endorses any no name who runs against Bobby Rush or Danny Davis. And like the Globe, it has a penchant for going out of it’s way to treat any remotely moderate Republican with the softest of kid gloves (Judy Baar Topinka, Bob Dold, and Mark Kirk to name a few, and of course Weld, Cellucci, Brown, Gomez and Baker on the Globe’s end).
It will be interesting to see indeed.
A lot of voters in the 5th Middlesex are unaware of just how right wing Monica Meideiros is. She was the top vote getter in the last round of Melrose alderman voting, and yet a lot of the same people who voted for her then voted for Lewis last week. She has ties to the tea party, she’s solidly anti-choice with a strong record of support from Mass Citizens for Life, and she has a strong record of being anti-LGBT rights with ties to Mass Resistance, the noted (by Southern Poverty Law Center) hate group in our fine Commonwealth.
Up until pretty recently, this district was represented by a Republican, so it’s by no means a slam dunk.
So jconway it sounds like you may be on board that it is the job of the Lewis campaign between now and April 1 to call out MM on her record and beliefs, and to tie her to the now more extreme than ever Mass GOP platform? If so, I’ll be glad to hear it. Would be good to hear the same from Guardia and Fallon, frankly.
Local pols and Forry’s Dorchester Reporter endorsed Hunt. But it was already a foregone conclusion that Hunt would win. I believe the Globe’s ed board picked who they wanted even though they knew he would not win. Hunt had it locked up for a while.
David, you have no evidence of the influence of the Globe’s endorsement. Without that endorsement, the endorsed candidates may have won by more or less than they did. Furthermore, if the Globe always backed the frontrunner, one could (rightfully) accuse the Globe’s endorsement of being craven and devoid of original thought.
“Accuse the Globe’s endorsement of being craven and devoid of original thought” — I *love* this line.
Lord knows I would NEVER support such an accusation against the Boston Globe. 🙂
I imagine endorsements sell copy, if not votes.
If an organization can’t influence elections, it ought to stop endorsing.
with both the Walsh endorsememt for Mayor and the Hunt endorsement for State Rep, DotOut continues to demonstrate power at the grassroots.
But a nod from the “paper of record” used to be a huge get. Now it’s really not.
… that my snark was too subtle. I was referring to BMG.
And by way of that disagreeing with David. No, the Globe should not stop endorsing.
In my view, that’s because the Boston Globe USED to be Boston’s paper of record. It hasn’t been that for a long time.
Boston has no (hard copy) paper of record.
The BMG endorsement became (lovingly) known as the BMG Kiss of Death for a reason…
that the principle purpose of the Globe, supposedly, is to report the news, with opinion and commentary relegated to a relatively small number of column-inches per day. Whereas here, of course, the entire purpose of the enterprise is to express opinions. Also, the Globe continues to have far, far more readers than we do.