Saturday, September 27, 2008

Sonia Can Count and Keep Running

While the kind of live-blogging PolitickerMA has sort of kept an update of today's recount in half the wards of the Second Suffolk Senate race, word just in from Sonia Chang-Díaz:
It's Official: Chang-Diaz is Democratic Nominee

BOSTON – Sonia Chang-Diaz is the winner of the September 16th Democratic Primary in the Second Suffolk, according to election results announced following today's recount. Chang-Diaz is now the Democratic Nominee for State Senate in the district, and will appear as such on the November 4th ballot.

"I'm honored to have won the support of the voters of the Second Suffolk in this election, and I'm looking forward to joining Barack Obama, John Kerry and the rest of our Democratic ticket on the ballot this November," said Chang-Diaz.

"I also want to thank the city Election Department and all the volunteers for their efforts today, working to make sure the votes were fairly and accurately counted. It was a smooth, efficient process, and I think all the voters of the district can feel confident in today's results."
Apparently there were 17 unaccounted-for ballots among the 8,000-plus. That would not have altered the outcome of a 228-vote victory.

Amusingly though, while Boston's Election Department reports its totals, none of the state elections are real until the Secretary of State's office says they are. So, the nit-pickiest of us can wait until early next week to carve the headstone for Dianne Wilkerson's failed re-election drive.

Moreover, Wilkerson continues to insist that she'll win on a write-in...as a Democrat. She'll lose that big. You can tell people you read it here.

Not only will Sonia be on the ballot, where most people smudge the oval for a candidate. She'll be the Democratic nominee in a solidly Democratic city and district and state. Wilkerson's fantasy that calling herself a Democratic candidate makes her one is more magical thinking. She has made herself an independent, an independent loser.

Even my youngest child learned in kindergarten that he couldn't make up the rules for everyone.

This is an ignominious way to exit a long-held office. Dianne seems to want to play the part of a punch-drunk ex-boxing champ.

Now, just in from PolitickerMA, Wilkerson's camp admits it lost the recount, but is thundering along to Little Big Horn. In the statements, they are intent on the sticker campaign, pretend that the high-turnout for the Presidential race will compensate for the not-on-the-ballot issue, and absurdly enough, given Wilkerson and her supporters' racist comments, say it was the Chang-Díaz folk who brought race into this. Wilkerson Campaign Manager Boyce Slayman said:
"You know, because of the dynamics that have been introduced because Ms. Diaz-Chang has an exotic name and two different ethnic groups," Slayman said, mistakenly flipping Chang-Diaz's last name. "There has been some exploitation of that by some zealous supporters. Race is not the issue for us we wanted to make the issues experience."
Dishonest? Delusional? It's your call.

Follow-up: P0liticker is still at City Hall and got the city chair of the board of election commissioners to provide a post-recount tally. Geraldine Cuddyer reported that it was a victory of 213, with 17 missing ballots. They'll nose around for those ballots and maybe find them Monday. That would give a range of victory of 196 to 230, depending on a) whether they find some or all the ballots and b) which candidate if either or another is on those 17.

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