Left In Lowell

If you missed your chance to come find out more about renting at the new Appleton live-work affordable rental housing for artists, there’s another info session on Tuesday, September 28th, 6:3 0 - 8 pm, at the 119 Gallery, 119 Chelmsford Street, Lowell. The first session was very well attended and great questions came up, so expect the same! From the PDF flyer:

Come to snack, sip and learn about 130 new, loft-style rental apartments designed for those who create art and those who appreciate it. Meet the people who want to help you make the Appleton Mills your next home. Find out about the Preference for Artists and how you could be moving into the building when it is completed next spring.

Can’t attend? Visit LiveAppletonMills.com or call 978.458.0588

Get out and vote. No vote, no complaining!

A pic from this morning’s standout. I’ve been up since 5:30am - lit drop and sign holding. Go Eileen!

In case you were not aware, this Tuesday is primary election day for the state of Massachusetts, and we’ve got a state Senate primary goin’ on!

GOTV is in full swing at Donoghue HQ, so if you are a supporter and you want Eileen to win on Tuesday, head on down to the campaign office at 73 East Merrimack St. in Lowell. If you want more information, call the office at 978-601-8898, or email the campaign at donoghueforsenate@gmail.com.

They are doing lit drops and GOTV (get out the vote, for all you newbies!) call reminders for supporters to make sure they get to the polls. Maybe we bloggeres and readers are all plugged in and tuned in, but the average voter has a lot on their minds and sometimes need a reminder. Come on in and they’ll put you to work! I’ll be heading in after the Pats game and putting some time in on Tuesday as well, so I hope to see you there!

Go Eileen! And go Pats!

Dick Howe has a great post up comparing numbers from the OCPF reports that are now out. I’m sure there’s a lot more detail to delve into, but I wanted to comment on some of the numbers. Mostly, because I want to see just how many more “new” desperate drive-by Doherty commenters attacking Eileen I can get before the primary. Ha.

The big sense of this campaign is that some less-than-beloved background characters have been shaking the trees for Doherty - and the feeling is, not because they love Doherty, but because even a toaster, for them, is better than a Senator Eileen Donoghue. The fact that there’s a lot of out of district support (28% to 53%) and big maxed-out donors (158 as opposed to 78) for Doherty as compared to Donoghue supports that, in a general kind of way.

The “average” donation is about the same, but Dick also mentions that Donoghue aggregated her small donations (under $50) which is common, while Doherty line-itemed each, so the average would actually drop for Donoghue if we knew total number of small donors including the under-$50s. How much it would drop, is uncertain.

But there’s another number, one most won’t pay much heed, that I found interesting. In the “Amount spent on paid staff” category, Dick lists Doherty as having spent $3575, while Donoghue spent $26,206. That is clearly a huge difference.

And I think you can see the difference in the campaigns. Doherty might be surrounded by young kids from college (supposedly), but he ran a relatively unprofessional campaign. Instead of spending some of his money making sure his communications, messaging, and other high-level aspects of his campaign went smoothly, he had to have been letting some big decisions be run by young volunteers. Meanwhile, Donoghue hired staff to manage those things, and I think, had a more coherent campaign all together.

It helps of course that Donoghue has some pretty extensive experience running a larger campaign, as well as smaller ones.

Now, on first blush, one might think that, well, wouldn’t it be better to be able to attract volunteers for your staff than to have to hire any? It would seem to make sense, except that the end results are a sloppy campaign as opposed to a tight ship. Trust me when I say the Donoghue campaign runs a tight ship and have very specific goals and strategies worked out. And I know volunteering pretty well, too, and I wouldn’t want to run a campaign this large (district-wide) with mostly volunteers in charge. You need people dedicated to the job, and that means paying something. I wouldn’t want to have a volunteer web developer to help me on a project - I will attract better talent and be a bigger priority if I pay someone. The same holds true for campaigning on a broader scale than locally (where you can get away with an all-volunteer force).

The paid staff number makes you wonder who really was advising Doherty during this race. Was it the low paid or unpaid staff, fresh out of college (or still in it) who had little actual experience? Or was much of the advice from other sources, ones that don’t show up on OCPF? Whoever it was, I can say pretty objectively (all “biases” aside) that the messaging and the tone was pretty unprofessional and ultimately, will likely cost Doherty the race - and more importantly, his reputation going forward. I think people will remember the photoshopped puppet/crown debacle, or the push-like poll, for quite some time - and not in the way Doherty intended.

Words can’t describe. I really mean it this time. I think images can, though. So here’s a scan of the latest Doherty state Senate direct mail piece. Front and back. Click on them for the full scan in PDF format.

First, the front:

It gets worse. And less classy. The back:

Particularly classy and so very mature is the photoshopped photo on the back of Eileen in a crown. I mean, WTF? And the slogan is like something out of 7th grade. “I know you are, but what am I?”

And once again, of course, Doherty twists facts in order to attack Eileen - modus operandi for his entire campaign.

This whole thing smells of severe desperation - Doherty obviously thinks he’s going to lose next Tuesday and is pushing a gambit that is sure to backfire like Kerry Healey in a parking garage. But one thing is definitely for sure. We now have proof positive that this whole campaign is about Eileen Donoghue, not about Chris Doherty. Taking down Eileen - that’s the only thing that matters here, for those Doherty-Cox supporters. A toaster could have run against Eileen and we would have seen the same campaign.

The manner in which Doherty has conducted his whole campaign is extremely telling. He might be trying to attack her character here - laughably, ridiculously - but it is his poor character that is showing through like a beacon in the night.

By the way, Chris, you should really leave photoshopping comedy to Jon Stewart and his crew. (Added note: who the f wrote the drivel on the back? Jim Campanini? I think Chris should also leave marking writing to real marketing people…)

Not so good when the shoe’s on the other foot, I imagine? But that’s exactly what’s going on this weekend - only, with Korans, not Bibles. It would be fitting if us atheists decided to host a Bible burning on the same day, don’t you think? No?

Universal condemnation of the Koran-burning assholes in Gainsville, FL (why, why is it always Florida?) isn’t stopping the tiny, bassackwards church and its leadership from hosting a Koran burning on 9/11. Even the fact that this will harm our troops overseas, and pleas from General Petraeus to not inflame hatred in the Muslim world with this act - not phasing them.

Here are some things that I think would be great counter-protests for the 99% of us that are still sane. Gainsville residents who don’t want to look like your entire town is filled with redneck hillbillies - you can use any of my suggestions and I don’t even need credit!

1. Hundreds of people showing up with a Koran in hand, but only to trick their way to the fire - where they throw a water bottle full of water on the flames, over and over til it’s out.

2. Hire a plane that fights fires and fill it with water, dump it over the site. Soak the lot of these bastards along with their pyre.

3. Get a fire hose (local hydrant?) and spray it into the air above the area so it falls like heavy rain, hitting the crowd and fire.

4. A few hundred people (with earplugs in place) show up to use the most annoying loud sound makers available - vuvuzelas if they can get them, air horns if not - and stand right nearby to drive the assholes away. Since they’re obviously already deaf to the pleas of the entire world, it can’t do much harm.

5. Host a book burning of the pastor’s “Islam Is of the Devil” - every copy you can get your hands on. This is a last resort, though, since it would likely require buying them up in the first place.

Your suggestions? I don’t advocate violence or vandalism, but I wouldn’t be that upset if some enterprising young person sneaked in the night before and plastered the place with obscene phallic symbols. That’s how angry this makes me. If you just can’t contain your hatred and bigotry, at least don’t do something that will endanger our troops and American civilians abroad with your actions. People are going to die because of this.

Tomorrow night will be the first in a weekly evening “friend bank” for Deval Patrick organizers. Tomorrow it will start at 6pm at 17 Kirk St (the Niki Tsongas campaign HQ). Next week and beyond it will be weekly on Tuesday nights at 6pm.

For information, contact I-Hwei Warner at iwarner@devalpatrick.com.

Come on, people, a governor doesn’t elect himself. We have to work at it. See you tomorrow!

Rachel Briere’s article in the Sun led me to check out Boston Magazine’s list of top public high schools in Massachusetts ranking to check out where my alma mater, Lowell High School ranked. I did not expect LHS to be ranked near the Westons, Wellesleys, Westboroughs, etc…

We are not that kind of town. Our per pupil spending is considerably less and our student body is much more challenging. LHS is a good school and has provided and continues to provide a quality education. Nevertheless, I was a bit surprised with the average SAT score, English Writing 440 and Math 464, I thought it would be a bit higher, but it was the graduation rate that bothered me, 72.3%. I know that the School Committee has addressed the issue the high school’s graduation rate in the past but now that they have finished with their debate on Assistant Coaches, the graduation rate discussion can be moved to the front burner.

Two weeks ago, the Sunday Sun’s provided on-line its popular, political gossip/news, speculative static blog, “The Column. It was about a year ago that it disappeared from the free, on-line edition. At the time, I speculated that it was a probably a business decision, so when I saw it re-instated two weeks ago, I thought perhaps that the paper, or should I say its parent company, Media News Group, made another business decision realizing that they need to bring traffic to their web site. So I waited a couple of weeks to see if the Column was making a come back, but alas it is not.

It will remain available on the hard copy and to those of us who subscribe to the e-edition. My problem is that I cannot link to stories that appear, the archives are not available and it limits discussion on what is written. So much time and effort is put into the Column by the contributors, I wish the powers that be on Dutton Street and in Denver would reconsider. Also, it would be interesting if the contributors would sign the paragraphs they authored.

And speaking of the newspaper, I do not know if they are any plans for replacing the four individuals (three reporters and one editorial writer) who have left or are leaving due to retirement or to move on to greener pastures but I certainly hope so. Right now in Lowell, we have two individuals running around trying to cover hard news. So last Wednesday when Jen Myers was covering the Donoghue-Doherty debates, the paper sent a stringer to cover the Lowell School Committee; and when Rob Mills was covering the tragic death of the 2 year-old baby, no one was available to cover the fire. The paper either has to hire more people or clone those two. Yes City Editor Chris Scott continues to write the occasional, in-depth news story and Lisa Redmond does cover the courts, but essentially Lowell is being covered by two reporters. I am sorry writing a award-winning headline does not do it for me, even if the alliteration is catchy.

UPDATE: I noticed in today’s paper (9.8.10) that Andrea Gregory is listed as Sun Staff; last week she was listed as Sun Correspondent. So Congratulations Andrea.

UPDATE: (9.12.10) Heard that Matt Murphy, State House Reporter, is also leaving. Matt is a good journalist. I wish him the best.