Left In Lowell

Donoghue and Doherty on ‘CAP Monday Morning

37 Responses to “Donoghue and Doherty on ‘CAP Monday Morning”

1. Mimi Says:
   July 19th, 2010 at 7:42 am

   Revealing interviews.

   Memo to the Doherty campaign: When you have an opportunity to answer a direct question and you do not, and instead answer something else, then your credibility is in question.

2. Undecided Says:
   July 19th, 2010 at 8:03 am

   Thanks for helping me make my decision. I don’t know how many people listen to WCAP in the morning, but for Doherty’s sake let’s hope they are few and far between. Hey Chris - instead of complaining about Eileen’s “high-priced political consultants”, maybe you should contemplate hiring a few of your own.

   Actually, here’s a freebie: Next time this comes up, simply acknowledge that you commissioned the poll and then claim you didn’t know it would be a push poll. Apologize, and then move on.

   Jeez…talk about a train wreck.

3. Mill Girl Says:
   July 19th, 2010 at 8:07 am

   I missed it. Does anyone know where I might heard the interviews after the fact?

4. Lynne Says:
   July 19th, 2010 at 10:32 am

   I don’t think WCAP podcasts their shows, more’s the pity!

   They might want to think about selecting the best of their interviews and putting out a podcast…slap a little ad at the beginning even, run it on their own website (or better yet, rss feed it). I listen to podcasts all the time now on my Evo, while I work out. I found a good podcast subscriber, and I always know when my subscribed shows have new material. They’d definitely gain listenership if they did it.

   I don’t think it takes too much more in the way of editing/management, since they already are set up for such things, I think…

5. Peekaboo Says:
   July 19th, 2010 at 10:43 am

   They sometimes rebroadcast interviews on the afternoon show. Perhaps a call to the station might result in a scheduled reairing, unless they are anti-Donoghue. It was very damaging to Doherty.

6. Gerry Nutter Says:
   July 19th, 2010 at 10:53 am

   I am going to post on my own BLOG later today that I was WRONG for questioning the existence of the POLL and the fact that I made a rookie mistake and took a bunch of talking points as facts to make an assumption that appears to be not only incorrect but flat out WRONG! (let the LIL beatings begin, this time I deserve them)

   Today on WCAP Chris Doherty committed political suicide by refusing to answer a direct question and losing any and all credibility he had. Doherty was a complete train wreck this morning on WCAP and whoever his advisors are should be fired. If you go on a radio station and avoid answering a straight forward question then you look guilty and incompetent.

   After listening today I am now 100% convinced that I was an ASS thinking he was not responsible and for letting myself get played in this manner.

   No one but myself to blame.

   BTW: If you listen to WCAP in the 3:00-5:30 pm time frame, Ryan sometimes plays back the best of the morning interviews. Doherty’s train wreck of an interview should make the highlight. When you hear how good and strong Eileen comes across compared to Doherty it’s easy to tell who is lying!

7. trudy Says:
   July 19th, 2010 at 11:05 am

   Just spoke to WCAP, they said they will be posting the interview on their website under “more blog posts”

8. Lynne Says:
   July 19th, 2010 at 12:00 pm

   Nice, thank you Trudy for the follow up!

9. Teddy P. Says:
   July 19th, 2010 at 12:15 pm

   Interviews are both on the 980 WCAP website (www.980wcap.com) in the Radio Blog section. Here is the direct link:

   http://www.980wcap.com/blog.php?id=181

10. Lynne Says:
    July 19th, 2010 at 12:17 pm

    Ha, beat you to it Teddy! (Edited the post.)

    Nice job today, sticking with the question. Thanks for posting it online for listeners!

11. Lynne Says:
    July 19th, 2010 at 12:22 pm

    Also, another comment - Doherty was like, “this is a distraction” blah blah.

    First, Eileen Donoghue’s campaign didn’t start the fuss about this. Dick Howe posted on it on his blog, actually, posted a very objective account of his experience (including actual questions he remembered) then I followed suit (as it reminded me I wanted to post about it myself).

    My best guess, is that Eileen would think of this poll thing as a distraction too. Remember, she was in the MA-05 race, a race notable for its very issues-driven debates. There wasn’t a lot of personal attacks in that race, and it was a pleasure to cover it, frankly. Not like this dirty, nasty race (on the part of the GOB anyway). Eileen has a record of speaking to the issues in any race she’s run, so my bet is on Eileen being able to run circles around Doherty on the issues. Any time, any place.

    Eileen doesn’t play dirty. But don’t expect her not to call it like it is. (Even though in this case, it wasn’t really her, she was asked to comment AFTER it was already news, which of course, is only normal for news coverage, duh.)

12. Lynne Says:
    July 19th, 2010 at 12:24 pm

    And as I said…word to the wise, if you want to not get caught push polling or polling on dirty memes, might wanna pull off all the bloggers. Cuz it’s fair game for the blogs.

13. Teddy P. Says:
    July 19th, 2010 at 12:30 pm

    LOL. Listen, if you were as technologically challenged as I am, you’d be slow on the trigger, too! I tried gettting the audio links working properly before providing the link. Took about two hours…LOL

    Enjoy the interviews!

14. Lynne Says:
    July 19th, 2010 at 12:44 pm

    Hey Teddy, at least you try real hard. Anyway, anyone who spends as MUCH time on the internets reading blogs, twitter, and email as you do deserves some techie credentials.

    But this’ll learn me too…I am hooking up my old phone-to-output doo-hickie along with my voice recorder so that next time…I can record the poll myself. >:)

15. JC Says:
    July 19th, 2010 at 2:15 pm

    Thanks Mimi for this post - wish I had seen it in time to hear the interview live. And thanks as well to Lynne for the audio link.

    I just listened to it.

    While I still feel it is pejorative to characterize the poll as a “Push” poll, there certainly is no doubt that there was a poll, that it was backed by the Doherty campaign, and that the Donoghue camp found it objectionable.

    I would have expected Doherty to take ownership for commissioning the poll and then do his best to defend it. Instead, he danced all around the question. When directly attacked, directly questioned concerning a matter of integrity, a candidate cannot equivocate.

    At the 6:30 mark in his interview, Teddy asks him a non-loaded, straightforward question: “Did you commission this poll?” Doherty’s fumbling, dodging, bob and weave, non answer was telling, and devastating to his credibility. It left him wide open to Donoghue’s assault.

    “And the challenger is down!…He’s down!…He’s stretched out senseless on the mat, and the count begins!…One!..Two!…”

16. Prince Charming Says:
    July 19th, 2010 at 2:52 pm

    Nutter was wrong?? WTF??

17. nextyearishere Says:
    July 19th, 2010 at 3:01 pm

    You always have to suspect a person who uses a third party to deny culpability, as I am sure Gerry Nutter will now attest.

    And Doherty wants to talk about issues, but before issues comes trust. And without trust, the position on issues during a campaign means nothing.

    Cancel the debates.

18. Prince Charming Says:
    July 19th, 2010 at 3:18 pm

    As much as the Lowell Sun would love to have a rip-roaring election, this one’s OVAH. Watch the paper carefully, maybe they’ll toss a few snowballs his way, come up with a few articles about how much he likes puppies, helps old ladies across the street etc. In politics, there’s only one thing worse than a liar. An inept liar.

19. Lowell Lurker Says:
    July 19th, 2010 at 3:41 pm

    This is the most insane/inane set of posts and comments that I’ve ever read. No credible campaign is going to get into the details of its polling strategies. How many people do we think were called? 400 likely voters? What do we think the turnout is going to be in a primary? 30%? The actual poll, in terms of a tool to change public opinion, is useless. The poll is used to gauge public opinion … that’s why a statistically significant sample is used. If Doherty or anyone else wanted to use the phones to change public opinion, it would be either a cheap automated “poll” or robocall. It certainly would not have been a 20 minute detailed survey conducted 2 months before the Primary. Give me a break. Only in Lowell could this be newsworthy. I hope the poll was by Doherty and that he and his campaign have figured out what arguments, both in his favor and at her expense, will resonate with voters.

20. JC Says:
    July 19th, 2010 at 4:23 pm

    OK, Lowell Lurker, since I don’t, and never did believe this thing was a PUSH, I have no problem with believing that the poll itself was a fair method to gather data.

    However, the initiative on this “thing” was grabbed by Donoghue (and the Sun?) and they were able to frame this as an integrity issue. Doherty knew that, and Doherty knew exactly what questions would be asked about it by WCAP. So why the hell didn’t he just say: Yes, it’s our poll, then go on to defend it and tell the voters why there is nothing wrong with it?

    He played right into the hands of his opponent. It was clumsy, amateurish, and most unforgivable of all it was a completely unnecessary gaff! This will certainly be used to paint him as untrustworthy, and he deserves that consequence for being so inept in the way he screwed this up.

21. joe from Lowell Says:
    July 19th, 2010 at 4:31 pm

    Wow. What a trainwreck.

    First, when asked about whether he knows anything about the poll, Doherty won’t answer the question. OK, fine…but then he starts holding forth on how politicians come up with diversions to avoid talking about an issue. Did he not realize he was very obviously coming up with a diversion to avoid answering the question? I also enjoyed the way his non-denial denial repeated one of the points stressed in the poll: that he was a prosecutor, while Donoghue was a defense attorney. Smoove. Real smoove.

    Second, listening to Chris Doherty talk about how campaigns should be about issues, not inside-baseball, political-process stories, seems a bit funny, given how his very first campaign effort was an effort to gin up outrage about Donoghue’s campaign financ….zzzz. Anyway, I guess that didn’t work out so well.

    BTW, Lowell Lurker: I agree with you that the poll was innocuous. It was just a campaign testing its message. Apparently, though, Doherty himself disagrees, and he repeatedly tried to distance himself from it.

22. Mill Girl Says:
    July 19th, 2010 at 4:38 pm

    Doherty’s campaign staff look like a bunch of keystone cops and Doherty looks like he’s either sneaky or clueless.

    From where I’m standing maybe Eileen should offer to defray some of the cost of that poll. She certainly gained more from it than anyone else. All Doherty did today on CAP was add more fuel to the fire.

23. Jack Mitchell Says:
    July 19th, 2010 at 5:26 pm

    zOMG, Joe!

    The last week shows that Lowell is tuff turf. Snark, insight, analysis, blather, ect., mixed together and slathered across several bloga, AM radio and the local dead tree fold.

    I love process.

24. Lynne Says:
    July 19th, 2010 at 5:38 pm

    If people would F-ING READ (I’m looking at you, Lurker) my damned post, and all my comments, I note that it could have intended to be an “issues” poll (despite the fact that, in the “rumors that’s what they’re saying” section, there was a bunch of stuff NO one was saying, which makes it awful suspect). Also, like I said before, if these are the issues he’s polling on, then that ALSO says something about him, and how he’s running his campaign (again if indeed he commissioned the poll) and that alone is enough to condemn him.

    No, Doherty here was impaled on his own sword, and honestly, I could have called it about two months ago when I started to hear about his campaign and when he put out his first two lame attacks - which were not on substance but on, as people here have noted, that “insider baseball” he so wants to condemn now.

    In other words, Doherty is making it awful easy on Donoghue supporters to make our case. *shrug*

25. Lowell Lurker Says:
    July 19th, 2010 at 7:30 pm

    I think it is disengenous at best to write “F-ING READ” and *shrug* in the same post … which one is it? Are you outraged or could care less?

    The last two words of the first paragraph of this post are “push poll.” … not “issue poll.” “Rumors that’s what they’re saying” (which I doubt was actually what the caller said) is a way to introduce a statement in a question … did they really say “rumors”??? Probably not.

    I think the Donoghue/Kendall Wallace over-reaction is probably a response to the “rumors”/facts about her record that were read in the survey. The Wallace/Donoghue ‘10 campaign clearly wants to kill the messenger … what was the message Lynne? What were the other questions?

26. Mimi Says:
    July 19th, 2010 at 8:01 pm

    Lurker:

    Framing this as a Kendall, Lynne, etc… production does not help your candidate. This campaign got off on the wrong foot and stayed there with the “I am not Eileen” message.

    All this started last Tuesday and could have ended that day, if Doherty had not signaled to some of his supporters to start calling us liars. If they had admitted to it and stated their reasoning, it would have been a one-day story

    However, his campaign mishandled the poll and more importantly the fall out.

    Blame everyone you want, but you know where the buck stops.

    And on another note, yes Kendall likes Eileen so don’t I but if you think he controls the reporters at the Sun, you are clueless.

27. Lynne Says:
    July 19th, 2010 at 9:09 pm

    Oh Lurker…are you that desperate for material? Yikes.

    The term rumors was not stated, what was stated was (as I *noted*) something to the effect of “statements that are what people are saying in the state senate race”. Gee, is that close enough for you, considering that’s the *definition* of rumor?

    The things stated in the survey were at BEST distorted facts, if not outright distortions that only a person looking to distort a record would state. Did you take the poll? No? Then, stop making assumptions.

    Dick listed several questions, as did I. Read them or not. Whatever. I don’t even know why you post here, if you don’t like anything you read, unless it’s to get attention?

    (RE Kendall, hilarious, Kendall hasn’t had day to day input at the Sun for years now, is my understanding.)

28. Say Whaaaat? Says:
    July 20th, 2010 at 9:59 pm

    Just listened to the interviews. Can’t see how any Doherty supporter, let alone an impartial one, can think his performance was anything but an embarrassment. I agree with most of the comments here.

    The poll itself isn’t that big a deal. The issue would have gone away as quickly as it popped up had he simply told the truth and explained how he could benefit from the information gathered. Instead, his evasiveness after being asked about his involvement three different times made him look like he had something to hide and didn’t have the courage to stand up for something he did. Panos seemed almost exasperated that his attempts to throw the guy a life preserver and help him save himself were being ignored. By the time he asked the question the third time, he was in essence saying for the love of god Chris answer the damned question and it will be over with. The answer never came.

    Every single person I’ve spoken to told me it was the beginning of the end of Doherty as a legitimate challenger. I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt till I heard it myself. They were right.

29. Jack Mitchell Says:
    July 20th, 2010 at 11:40 pm

    This was a bad week for Doherty, but don’t write his concession speech, just yet.

    In Lowell, there is a block of voters that will support Doherty blindly. Enough to make it worth his effort. Outside of Lowell, it is unclear how much this fumble has caught on.

    Doherty, from Day 1, was clear about pulling votes in from outlying towns. That game is still in play. He just needs to bump his numbers up a wee bit to offset whatever support he may have lost here.

    Problem for Doherty is, I’d venture to say, he is getting shitty advice.

30. Lynne Says:
    July 21st, 2010 at 2:28 pm

    The thing is, first, many of the core GOB voters are, well, not Democrats. Maybe quite a number are unenrolled, but cut off at least some percentage of them for that.

    Then, of the rest who are left, I’m not sure if they (particularly unenrolled) will be that motivated to show up on this one primary race. There isn’t an upper level primary to doubly motivate people after all, Grace Ross failed to make the ballot.

    The ceiling (as we’ve discussed in the past) of the “Kaz” (or really, strong anti-Eileen) vote is probably somewhere around 3,000. You’ll need to make up a lot of votes in the outlying regions to push that to 50% +1. Again, that’s if you count potential Republicans in the mix, which you can’t.

    Not to mention, my impression of the Donoghue campaign is they are working hard in the towns themselves. At best, I think it’d be a 50/50 split there, but that’s being optimistic for Doherty in my reading the Donoghue campaign.

    Anyone know if the Doherty camp is even doing traditional voter ID? I haven’t heard a peep about it. Seems like if you want to run an insurgent campaign, a really strong voter ID phone/canvass presence is essential. At a minimum, you’ll know where your deficiencies are and can work them.

31. JC Says:
    July 21st, 2010 at 4:39 pm

    Cruise around the towns and you see signs for Doherty prominently displayed by suburban businesses. He’s not “dead” out there. I also think that the fallout from this badly handled poll issue (a non-issue, really, but brilliantly crafted into one) will be limited in its effects.

    Lynne, you have provided a thoughtful analysis of the situation. Unenrolled will not be lining up in droves to vote in this primary; voter ID stuff, talking percentages etc. I appreciate you in that cool, professional, emotionally detached role. No tirades, no emotional outbursts, just thoughtful, believable remarks of how you see a path ahead for your candidate to be successful.

    If your lady wins this, it will be due to dedicated people working together in a well defined, professional campaign. This last post of yours is real, sincere, and spin free! Hooray!

32. Lynne Says:
    July 21st, 2010 at 5:09 pm

    Um, what? It’s not like I’ve never written horserace analysis before. It’s not like, new.

33. JC Says:
    July 21st, 2010 at 5:51 pm

    No, just too often delivered (IMHO) with a heavy dose of rhetoric and a scolding for non-believers.

    For me, the straightforward, non-judgmental, non-scolding, analytical approach is much more effective, and it defuses the issue of obvious emotional bias.

34. Say Whaaaat? Says:
    July 21st, 2010 at 8:39 pm

    Those same shitty advisors Jack are the same ones he’s going to count on for debate preparation. You heard him on the radio, didn’t you? Does he sound to you like a man ready to tackle Eileen on issues? She’s going to clean his clock if a simple did you commission a poll question is enough to rattle him and turn him into the not-so artful dodger.

35. Lynne Says:
    July 21st, 2010 at 8:45 pm

    JC: if you don’t like the way I write, go get a blog. I’m not stopping you. I’m pretty clear on where I stand and I try to back up my stands with reasons and facts. That’s about all anyone can do.

36. JC Says:
    July 22nd, 2010 at 11:40 am

    If we’re talking about clarity, I love the way you write, Lynne. There is almost never any ambiguity. We know where you stand! And I really wouldn’t want to see that change. It’s an integral part of this place; part of the character and charm of this blog.

    I wouldn’t think of re-arranging anything. All the furniture fits quite nicely. All seems quite comfy just the way it is.

    Don’t be so freaki’n sensitive!

37. joe from Lowell Says:
    July 22nd, 2010 at 8:38 pm

    The ceiling (as we’ve discussed in the past) of the “Kaz” (or really, strong anti-Eileen) vote is probably somewhere around 3,000. You’ll need to make up a lot of votes in the outlying regions to push that to 50% +1.

    Just some quick numbers:

    In the Congressional primary, Eileen beat Beloved Lowell Icon Nikki Tsongas by 2450 votes. Doherty, whatever else may be said about him, is not a Beloved Lowell Icon, but let’s generously assume he keeps that margin the same.

    The other towns in the district cast a total of 5240 votes in that primary. (For Pepperell, I’m using the number of votes cast in the last gubernatorial primary). In order to make up for Donoghue’s lead in Lowell, he would have to beat her by better than 73%-27% in all of the other towns.

    I am somewhat less than certain that will happen.

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