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August 28, 2005
2nd Middlesex: Candidates on fast-forward
So, Channel 4 gave the four candidates 25 minutes to debate, and they all raced through four or five issues, all speaking very fast, except Jehlen. There were really no surprises. These are my initial and superficial impressions, which you can supplement.
- Casey is hyper, reminds one of Denis Leary. Claims the fiscal conservative mantle.
- Callahan really loves the lottery. Move on from gay marriage.
- Jehlen speaks slowly and gently, claims progressive mantle. Straightforward on marriage, relatively so on mandates for health care. Mentioned Health Care for All's plan.
- Mackey speaks fast, jumped in immediately in "open rebuttals" (bad idea on station's part); touted Shannon's widow's endorsement; talked a lot about going door-to-door; measured tones about gay marriage (supports it, acknowledges resistance but says people have other priorities); doesn't support mandates on small business. Property tax tough on older people.
If you watched it, fill in your own impressions.
Posted by Charley on the MTA at 09:15 AM in Massachusetts | Permalink
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Jim Dean, chair of of Democracy for America and Howard Dean's brother, is on his way to the Jehlen campaign for a canvass. DFA sent email out to its Massachusetts list (which I think is about 20,000) urging people to join Jim canvassing. That could be a good draw. I'm heading to the office now (though I've got a different canvass, that I made up walk lists for last night), so maybe I'll run into him and see how it goes.
Posted by: Cos | Aug 28, 2005 11:47:02 AM
Also, this Friday MassEquality emailed everyone on their list who is in the district, saying that a recent poll shows Jehlen 16% in the lead among likely voters, with the other three candidates within the margin of error of each other. Polls are tricky in a race like this because, as almost all of us rambunctious commenters here have agreed, it'll really come down to which campaign can pull the most voters to vote on election day, and pre-election polls don't tell you anything about that. But if the poll MassEquality is quoting is correct then it does mean Jehlen has a lot more voters to pull from than the other campaigns.
Posted by: Cos | Aug 28, 2005 11:50:37 AM
Wait. Jim Dean's coming.
Forget everything bad I said about Jehlen.
Posted by: The troll | Aug 28, 2005 1:19:28 PM
He was alright in "Giant", but i loved his sausages.
And "King of the Road"
Posted by: The troll | Aug 28, 2005 1:20:22 PM
Jimmy Dean, LOL. I was going to say the same thing.
Seriously, I think the effect of that is to rally the DFA troops -- the ordinary voters don't know who he is. Doesn't hurt Jehlen, anyway.
Posted by: Charley on the MTA | Aug 28, 2005 3:17:49 PM
I think that phony poll .08 spoke about today is what is being used to rally the troops from defecting when they get to the polls.
Posted by: The troll | Aug 28, 2005 3:25:18 PM
Two things -
1) I have no reason not to trust MassEquality's poll numbers, though polling means little when turnout is key...
2) This was a post at the Somerville News. Frankly, it's the best thing I've seen this campaign cycle -
In an informal polling of likely voters for Tuesday's special election for State Senate in the 2nd Middlesex District, the following survey queries were posed to carefully selected voters after Sunday mornings debate with Jon Keller ATLARGE
BEST HAIR
CASEY Only Jon Keller received any other first place votes
WORST HAIR
CALLAHAN Sorry Mike! Pat and Joe both received many votes
BEST SMILE
CASEY Why is this man still smiling?
FASTEST TALKER
CASEY Was clocked at 931 words in one 45 second answer. No one knew what the hell he said.
MOST CONFUSED
JEHLEN No explanation necessary
MOST LIKELY TO CHANGE SUBJECT TO PLUG ENDORSEMENT
MACKEY It was probably a dumb question anyway, right Joe?
MOST LIKELY TO GIVE SAME ANSWER TO EVERY QUESTION
CALLAHAN Did you know he wants to take the cap off the lottery?
MOST LIKELY TO GIVE THE RIGHT ANSWER TO THE WRONG QUESTION?
MACKEY Did you know he was a lawyer?
MOST LIKELY TO HAVE SORE KNUCKLES?
CASEY He knocked on 10,000 doors, Mackey a mere 8,000
MOST LIKELY TO APPEAL TO THE LEFT WING
JEHLEN
MOST LIKELY TO APPEAL TO THE RIGHT WING
CASEY
MOST LIKELY TO APPEAL TO THE CENTER
MACKEY
MOST LIKELY TO APPEAL TO THE GOALIE
CALLAHAN
MOST LIKELY TO GET THE ITALIAN VOTE
CALLAHAN He is from Meffa, three vowels in his last name. Vinnie Piro also received many votes
MOST LIKELY TO GET IRISH VOTE
JEHLEN The Irish are getting flustered
MOST LIKELY TO WIN SOMERVILLE
TIE JEHLEN-MACKEY Voters stay loyal to their own
MOST LIKELY TO WIN IN WINCHESTER
TIE MACKEY-CASEY Standouts at the Dump do pay off
MOST LIKELY TO WIN MEDFORD
TIE CALLAHAN-JEHLEN Go figure
MOST LIKELY TO BE NEXT STATE SENATOR
Just go vote and stop reading all these stupid postings
Posted by: eury13 | Aug 28, 2005 8:03:39 PM
Charley's got the right idea here. Dean's purpose is to activate the DFA types who follow national politics enough to give you a list of reasons to fire Donald Rumsfeld as long as your arm, but who probably didn't even know Senator Shannon died. His support will mean more to those DFAers than an endorsement from any local pol they've never heard of.
How many of those kinds of people are there? Maybe not a heck of a lot, but certainly enough to impact this election. The trick, of course, is getting them out tomorrow.
Posted by: sco | Aug 29, 2005 1:56:00 PM
sco: there were definitely a good number of Deanies volunteering on the GOTV.
Posted by: Cos | Aug 31, 2005 1:10:53 PM
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