Left In Lowell

Expensive Race and Early Election

18 Responses to “Expensive Race and Early Election”

1. Anonymous Says:
   March 14th, 2007 at 11:40 am

   “dignity, determination and integrity”

   Are you new in town?

2. Mimi Says:
   March 14th, 2007 at 11:51 am

   No, I have been here for a few decades.

3. Anonymous Says:
   March 14th, 2007 at 12:11 pm

   did you witness the changing of the guard at city hall last year?

   did you see how the hiring of a high school football coach went?

   if a true nitwit candidate emerges (one that all the nitwits can rally around — maybe DiPaola)i expect this campaign to resemble Fallujah.

4. inside/outside Says:
   March 14th, 2007 at 12:33 pm

   LOL…anon!

   Elect DiPaola and he comes with his own defense force that can be dispatched to bolster the troops in Iraq. Can you just see him discussing foreign policy and national issues? But he’s just the sort of lower common denominator candidate that unfortuately some will gravitate to.

5. Anonymous Says:
   March 14th, 2007 at 1:56 pm

   inside/outside

   you are correct in that you can’t count out the only candidate who has his own standing army

6. No Guru Says:
   March 14th, 2007 at 8:04 pm

   Can you picture the High Sheriff in Congress? With Rita Mercier as his Chief of Staff “welcommin all the forrin diggyterries” to Lowell? What a hoot. Another laugher: Eileen Donoghue. There are parts of Lowell she hasn’t even seen yet. How can she pretend to represent me while lounging on the divan in front of her grand piano? I’m sitting on my back porch listening to the police radio while munching all-arounds from Elliots. (Those are hotdogs, Eileen).

7. Mimi Says:
   March 14th, 2007 at 8:20 pm

   Anon & inside/outside: He may have a “standing army” but as we all know, it takes more than a large number of “well equipped soldiers” to win a war these days.

   And No Guru, what is with all the anger? Who would you like to see represent the 5th District?

8. No Guru Says:
   March 14th, 2007 at 8:25 pm

   I’d prefer somebody to come out of nowhere, just a regular shmuck who knows what it’s like to live from paycheck to paycheck. Sorta like what the Founding Fathers had in mind, maybe? Mimi, it’s not anger, its frustration.

9. Laura Says:
   March 14th, 2007 at 8:58 pm

   No guru, that gets to Mimi’s original point — this campaign is going to cost lots of money.

10. bd Says:
    March 15th, 2007 at 11:31 am

    Although No Guru is certainly entitled to his/her opinion, I would suggest No Guru is without a clue. How much of Lowell has he seen? I’ve lived here 50 years and haven’t seen it all but that doesn’t mean I can’t understand it. What exactly do you know about Eileen Donohue?

11. Lynne Says:
    March 15th, 2007 at 1:22 pm

    No Guru: don’t you think your comments were a little mean and personal? If you have an issue with a candidate or elected official, I suggest you’ll do better if you actually had something more substantive to say about it.

12. Mr. Lynne Says:
    March 15th, 2007 at 2:43 pm

    The class thing is a red herring. If she has good ideas that are good for the constitutants, I wouldn’t care if she grew up in the Taj Mahal.

    You may doubt that she can supply such a vision that has real meaning for those of us who live paycheck to paycheck, but you should be judging those ideas once she has iterated them.

    And if she hasn’t you should complain that you haven’t heard them, rather than assume they will not meet with your aproval.

    You need to point to her proposals or her record. The dig on her income level is irrelevent. It was FDR, after all, who brought us the New Deal.

13. Mimi Says:
    March 15th, 2007 at 3:31 pm

    For the record, Lynne and I discussed deleting No Guru’s last comment because we felt it crossed the line. We want to encourage discussions on issues that concern all of us and do not want to censor anyone.

    But we all have to attempt to keep the comments to some level of civility.

    Lynne will be updating the site shortly. At that time, a user’s policy will be in place and those who violate it will not be allowed to comment.

14. Anonymous Says:
    March 16th, 2007 at 9:27 am

    why not refute what no guru says?

    for example you could say that rita is thoughtful and eloquent… or that eileen isn’t wealthy…

    wait a minute, never mind. just silence him.

15. No Guru Says:
    March 16th, 2007 at 12:25 pm

    Anon: I find some people here very tolerant, as long as they agree with you.

16. K-R-S Says:
    March 16th, 2007 at 12:57 pm

    I can certainly understand where No Guru is coming from. On some points I agree and some I disagree..no differance really between No Guru, Lynne, Mimi or anyone else.
    It’d be pretty darn boring if we all agreed or disagreed all the time.
    Hoepfully, if we disagree on an issue, through discussion, we can all arrive at some middle ground.
    Have to admit had a bit of a chuckle at some of the comments that had been submitted by previous posters (right or wrong, still gave me a chuckle).;0)

17. Lynne Says:
    March 16th, 2007 at 1:25 pm

    You know, it’s getting ridiculous. You ask someone to be respectful and actually discuss on the issues, and they claim you are silencing them.

    Almost every site with a copious level of discussion has a usage policy. Ours isn’t yet down on paper (er, virtual paper) but that doesn’t mean we can’t try for some civility. If you take a look of what’s happening on Blue Mass Group, you’ll see why this is a good idea. If people are allowed to be cruel with malice, even just a few people, it ruins it for everyone. It ceases to be a pleasant place to be.

    Everyone here knows I am no big fan of Rita Mercier. But I prefer to call her out on her actions and her policy decisions rather than sink to the level of some school yard bully who wants attention.

    Even on occasions where I’ve let my anger out, it’s always in reaction to someone’s actual words, not their personality or their persons. Others claim otherwise perhaps, but I think if you look at the disputes people have had with me on this board, they’ve been about people’s assumptions, or their points of view, and not they themselves. And I do know I need to work on the fine lines a little more, even so.

    When this site has a usage policy, anyone violating it will have one warning before banning. In exercising such a strict moderation of the conversation, I hope to keep this a place that people want to return to. If some people are offended by the fact that we would like a certain minimum of civility on this blog, they are free to leave and start their own. Good luck getting anyone to read it.

    I’ve been a part of dozens of online forums, email lists, and blogs…sometimes moderator of some of such. I have seen what happens when civilty breaks down. We are soon to upgrade Left in Lowell to a user-based blog, where any user will be able to write their own posts. Get used to the strict enforcement of rules of civility, because they will be imposed to an even larger extent when that upgrade happens. I will not have my/our blog become something I am not willing to take part in myself. I say “my” because I started it, I host it, I have the domain name, and I maintain it, and “our” because it has evolved into a community, with multiple frontpage writers, commenters, and soon, user posts. But don’t mistake me. As much as it would pain me to do it, I could pull this blog off the internet tomorrow if I thought it was doing more harm than good for this city.

18. inside/outside Says:
    March 16th, 2007 at 8:37 pm

    Someone on Niki’s staff needs to use spellcheck…”committee” isn’t spelled right on her website (lower left corner), forgot the second “t”.

    But she is already outdistancing the others early on in her organization and other aspects as evidence by the only website up and running, the early fundraising totals, key staff people coming on board, etc. Again she can tap into resources and personnel that the others can only dream about.

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