Alas, poor Og. I knew him too damned well.
Somehow, his campaign seems to think Jim Ogonowski has more power nicknamed Ogo. We know better. He is decidedly the Og.
He ran very well against Niki Tsongas last October when they contended to take over Marty Meehan's 5th CD seat. He lost by only 6%. To frame this, both were politically inexperienced and unknown quantities. Both ran in fair measure on sympathy vote, she as widow of beloved U.S. Sen. Paul Tsongas and he as brother of a 9/11 Twin Towers pilot.
Having failed at one Congressional try, he does the only logical next step — attack a more powerful office. (Huh?) He announced he was going after the seat U.S. Sen. John Kerry has burnished since 1985. I'm sure to a Quixote type that makes perfect since.
What was most surprising about the Og's run for Congress before was how insubstantial his campaign was. He is a veteran officer, but he spent the vast majority of his time in the National Guard as a manager. With relatives, he grows hay for rich folks horses; he calls himself a farmer. He really didn't bring enough to the table to defeat the political tyro Tsongas.
Likewise for the Kerry campaign, he seems to rely almost entirely on attacking the Senator for not filing bills as lead sponsor. Kerry has a long, deep record of working on committees and chairing several. He sits on or chairs four committees and 12 subcommittees. Although wingers like to portray him as an extremist pinko, his voting record is moderately liberal. He is in line with his constituents and claims that he is very left wing filter his record to a few areas, such as reproductive rights and Iraq.
For the second time in two tries, the Og apparently relies on lies of omission.
I thought he was going to lose the same way, but he found a new one. A funny thing happened on the way to the Senate. As reported in the Boston Globe, the Og is the only candidate of either party who can't get the 10,000 signatures to get on the ballot. Pardon my schadenfreude, but the Og is a nasty piece of work. I'm not surprised district voters don't relish another of his inarticulate and unpleasant campaigns.
The Globe won't declare his failure...yet. It just reports that by the May 6 deadline to turn in the petitions to Secretary of State, the Og was 259 voters short. Moreover, given typical challenges, he'd need at least 1,000 extra for invalid signatures. So, unless inanimate markings on paper can somehow reproduce in an envelope, his campaign is ashes.
The other Republican seeking the slot, Jeff Beatty, had no problem getting voter sigs. He is considerably farther right of even the conservative Og and has as much chance of surviving against Kerry as an open bottle of booze has of making it through a frat party.
Another notable area political scratch, a certain Willard Mitt Romney, claims to adore the Og. Romney supposedly will host a $1,000 a seat fund raiser this evening at the no-longer-the-Ritz Taj Boston. So that should raise at least $2,000. If you raise money for a campaign but don't get on the ballot, does anyone know?
Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, Senate, John Kerry, Tsongas, Ogonowski
2 comments:
Don't be surprised if that open bottle of booze DOES make it's way unscathed through that frat party!
There is a lot of anti-Kerry sentiment out there in the Commonwealth. (It hasn't manifested itself in the polls yet, but give it time.) The quickest way to get someone to sign a Republican nomination ballot was to say "Hey, he's running against John Kerry!" It was like catnip. (Only the Democrats walked away sad, as they couldn't sign.) Joking aside, it's quite possible that the junior senator has worn out his welcome. Further, by the look of his TV news appearances, he's not running for senator anyway, he's running for Secretary of State in the Obama Administration. Lastly, I'm not sure the name of the planet where Jim Ogonowski could be considered a conservative. It certainly isn't Earth. If he were to run against John Kerry, he would simply be an echo, not a choice.
So sit back and relax, that bottle of alcohol will be around for drinking in November!
Zogby Poll showed Kerry defeating all Republicans by a healthy margin....unless Massachusetts voters know of Jeff Beatty's credentials (CIA counter-terrorist expert, FBI Hostage crisis agent, Delta Force assault team commander). Once those polled were awae of Jeff Beatty's history there was a statistical tie.
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