Blue Mass
Republican Ogonowski loses, narrowly, to Dem Tsongas* in bluest Mass. Scares the Dems. Talking Points Memo:
That is weird. This is Massachusetts, after all, specifically the rim of suburbs to the northwest of Boston, Marty Meehan’s (D) old seat, the 5th district. This is strong Democratic territory. At Openleft.com, Chris Bowers says it’s a +10 Dem district. (By the way, among many other things, this is one of the best sites to get smart and candid analyses and number-crunches of stuff like this.) One of many eye-popping numbers about this race was that the Republican, Ogonowski, was crushing Tsongas among voters under 35.
TPM may not be aware we had Republican governors in Blue Mass for 16 years until voters fell for the hype last year, and that there is a lot of pent up Republicanism and conservatism where opposition to big name Dems typically runs 30-40 percent. The governors were largely an expression of electoral disgust with the Democratic stranglehold on the Legislature, elected in spite of the sorry state of the Republican party organization in this state, despite the heavily organized Dem machine. But hope springs eternal in the kind of numbers woefully highlighted by TPM.
Name-branded Tsongas trotted out Clintons and other lefty starpower, got heavy out-of-state financing, and only managed 51 percent. GOP take note. Sadly, you’re not going to get a lot of Republicans of Ogonowski’s caliber with a compelling stories like his around here.
Jim fought hard, dealt with a particularly nasty smear, showed he is a force to be reckoned with. Too bad, it would have been nice going into 2008 to have a Republican elected in Massachusetts … particularly one who opposes a “cowardly” premature withdrawal from Iraq, whether he thinks Iraq was a mistake or not, and one who is willing to take strong stands on taxes and immigration. Don’t quit, Jim.
Welcome, Instapundit, etal! So good to see you. Come in, come in. We just put this in our pipe and we’re smoking it: Vlad Hearts A’jad. Yeah, ignore those three over in the corner, they’re dissing cousins. Well, now that Al’s been anointed, at least that’s settled. Hate Barney, sick of Sesame Street? Tune in some Hamas TV!
* Tsongas was endorsed by the editorial board of my generally conservative newspaper, which is of the opinion she’ll be an “engaged partner” for the cities of the Merrimack Valley. So Jim did well even without some support he might have expected. No comment on that. The ed board took a similar tack with Ted Kennedy last year. No comment on that, either.
Topics: pols
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:51 am on Wednesday, October 17, 2007
5 Responses to “Blue Mass”
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October 17th, 2007 at 10:53 am
Special Election in Massachusetts; (Update) Tsongas Wins
Jules Crittenden isn’t impressed, though as predicted, it’s big news now.
October 17th, 2007 at 10:59 am
Around The Blogosphere
I’ll be the first to admit, I haven’t been making the rounds to very many blogs of late, but I th…
Popularity: unranked [?]…
October 17th, 2007 at 11:15 am
This state has a bit of unpredictability to it–what was it, 2000 when we came within less than 10% of voting to abolish the income tax? Would have been fun to see the Beacon Hill crowd figure out how to render that one moot.
Why is no one mentioning immigration? I’d consider myself pretty moderate (well, not by local standards, I live in Eastie) but I can’t believe how hard political elites on both sides are working to make sure this issue doesn’t go anywhere. The Merrimack valley area strikes me as something of a hot zone for that issue socioeconomically.
PS- I was a City Desk EA back in 1998–didn’t realize you were also a member of the fifth column!
October 21st, 2007 at 1:37 am
[...] Crittenden’s post on Tsongas is here. AP’s story on Jindal is here. The RCP poll numbers are here. [...]
August 15th, 2008 at 3:59 am
[...] Republican Ogonowski lost, narrowly, to Democrat Tsongas. Tsongas won with only 51% in the the 5th district of [...]