Left In Lowell

Last week, Evan Lehmann of the Sun’s Washington bureau reported that Congresswoman Niki Tsongas campaign account is down to about $11,000 and it owes her $50,000 for a loan she made to her campaign last fall.

Tsongas was able to raise close to $5 million for the special MA 5th District congressional race which she won. But in a few months she will need to campaign again.

Kurt Hayes, who ran as an Independent during the special election, has announced that he will run as a Republican this time. With all due respect to Hayes, who I found to be an articulate, prepared and knowledgeable candidate, the Massachusetts Republican party is not going to be able to provide a lot of help, financial or otherwise. They just do not have their act together.

As for Tsongas, needless to say, she will not need the kind of funds she needed for the special election where she had formidable opponents and it was a wide open race.

However, a Representative needs funds in their campaign war chest not so much for the race itself but to make the kinds of contribution to the party and other races that is expected of them. Furthermore, she needs funds for the day to day political activities.

According to my calculations the majority of her money came from out of the District; this may make it a bit more difficult to raise money. The other issue is Marty Meehan. As the Sun reported today, the U. Mass Lowell Chancellor has close to $5 million in his campaign fund, “The total included $15,373 in donations that were contributed from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31. Meehan took over as UMass Lowell’s chancellor in July.” I hope those who gave that money to the former Congressperson were as generous to the sitting one.

It is over a week that the 5th District Congressional election took place and the national press is still trying to analyze the election result. On Tuesday, the Globe’s Peter Canellos in his column, “Tsongas’s Slim Victory Signals a derailed Congress;” and then yesterday, Reuters had a story with a Lowell by-line that asked “Now political strategists across the country are trying to figure out what Ogonowski’s strong showing means for the nation as a whole and how worried Democrats should be about next year’s elections for president and Congress.”

My answer is nothing. The “strong showing” is not an indication of what will happen next year; first I question how strong it was. If the Republicans intend to follow Jim Ogonowski’s campaign strategy and start beating the drum of “anti-immigration,” they will meet the same fate he did, defeat. Needless to say, neither of these articles analyze the voting results nor discuss the voting history of the 5th District. What was the margin of victory that would have satisfied these observers of the national political scene?

Needless to say, I do not share the concerns that were expressed last week on BMG. Dick Howe is on the right track when he asks “But the bigger issue here is not why Tsongas won …but why Republicans like Jim Ogonowski and Kerry Healey do so well in the towns that surround Lowell.”

If you look at the detailed election results, Niki Tsongas, received 54,363 votes and won 18 communities and Ogonowski, received 47,770 votes and won 11 communities. And if you look at the cities and towns that he won, you will see the impact of a Dracut residency as well as a conservative bend. So, I disagree with both The Globe and Reuters, I would not say that as Billerica, Methuen, Chelmsford and Tewskbury go, so goes the nation.

And if you read the Reuters story it refers to a Mary Burns with a “Democratic pedigree” who voted for Ogonowski? I am not sure which Lowell resident the reporter is referring to but I thought the Mary Burns active in Lowell politics was a Republican.

Fist of all, congratulations to Congresswoman-elect Niki Tsongas and her campaign staff. She is going to Washington just in time to vote to override the President’s veto of a bill to expand the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Hopefully she will also have an opportunity later on this week to cast a vote in favor of H. Res 106, the Armenian Genocide resolution (more on this later).

Most of the blogs (BMG, Richard Howe) are discussing this election, so I do not want to repeat anything that can be found somewhere else. Lynne attended last night’s celebration and I am sure when she returns to her computer she will give us her views on this Democratic victory.

Today in addition to an historic election, I discovered that the Lowell Sun has an excellent new tool, The Sun “Electronic Edition.” It is the hard copy of the paper presented electronically and it is available at 6:00 a.m. There is a fee involved, I think $5.99/month but you can try it out for free for one month.

It is very easy to maneuver and looks just like the hard copy; ads, color photos, headlines, etc…. I certainly will subscribe to it. First, it saves me from buying it at the local DD every morning; second, I do not have to lug all my newspapers to a recycling bin and third. I still have to play with it some more to discover all of its features but I think this is a winner.

Most major newspapers’ have abandoned the “pay-to-read” business model for their on-line version; instead they are relying on increasing readership thus increasing their ad revenue. But the Sun is a regional paper with a local focus; the majority of its subscribers are used to reading the hard copy. However, in order for the paper to remain viable in the future, it needs to have a better electronic version. I do not know if this is it but it is a good beginning.

By the way, this new tool does not allow us to link to it. So anyone wanting to do it will still have to wait for midday for the Sun’s “on-line” version to be posted.

This coming Friday is the deadline for the questionnaire from Left in Lowell for each of the city’s races. We will accept anything postmarked Friday, but no later. (Kinda like taxes, eh?) Candidates are invited to email me (lynne -at- leftinlowell.com, replace the -at- with an @ and no spaces) to get the questions electronically, or even just send their answers (please at least use the numbers of each question with your answer) by email without that document. We prefer to get electronic responses, because typing out potentially 30+ handwritten questionnaires is not very appealing. We are prepared to do so, however (please be sure it’s legible!)

If you are a candidate that did not receive a questionnaire in the mail (there’s always a small chance things get lost) please email me at the address above, and I can send you the electronic version. Everyone should have gotten theirs but you never know.

We know it’s a long questionnaire, especially for city council…which was pared down considerably from all the questions we got on the blog and the ones we wanted to be sure to include. Mimi and I also recognize that the candidate forums, especially for city council, are necessarily short on time for each candidate. This questionnaire was designed to be thorough so that voters can have longer answers from candidates unlimited by temporal concerns. It’s in that way we hope to be of service to Lowell in this election.

Finally, any candidate for any of the races who wants a “Coffee with Left in Lowell” podcast interview, Mimi and I are available to schedule such. You can email Mimi at mimi -at- leftinlowell.com (again change -at- with @ and no spaces), as she’s in charge of managing that. Our Coffee with LiL podcast is going to be a simple format: a conversation with us, with informal Q&A, where the candidate can tell voters what they offer if elected, recorded and available online. It’s yet another chance to get your message out, so I encourage candidates to take advantage of it.

Oh, and one more thing - today’s Election Day for the Congressional special election, so whomever you support, you have a duty to get out there and vote! You can find your polling place here. And BMG has some great info on where you can do more than vote, if your a Niki Tsongas supporter.

As David says, Ogo’s campaign keeps driving itself further into total parody territory. Ogo now appears to be blustering against the stations which are airing a Tsongas ad.

Truthfully, I saw the ad yesterday and wondered if this wasn’t going to get Idon’tknowski’s dander up, since he’s been angry before about being “misrepresented.” I didn’t know the source of the “Ogonowski called the SCHIP program harmful” part of the ad until I got on the nets today. I must say, he dug himself right into this one…since he did actually call it harmful.

SCHIP was originally intended to help poor children. Instead Congress worked to expand another big-government program that actually harms those working class children and families it was supposed to help. We all support helping poor children and families, but government seems unable to help those who need us. When I helped organize the largest airlift of aid in New Hampshire National Guard history to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, I saw firsthand how big government programs like FEMA don’t work for the American people.

His own words, from an op-ed he wrote.

Hilarious…so, children who could get insurance under this expanded plan are now harmed by the (false) “fact” that some illegal children might get it? (Since that’s a total lie, it’s moot, but besides that, the internal logic just doesn’t work). Then Idon’tknowski has the gall to say he’ll sue the TV stations who run the ad quoting his own op-ed? And it’s now Niki’s job to try to explain Ogo’s lack of logic (ie his “nuanced” position that this SCHIP bill is bad because of boogymen undocumenteds getting health care)? Give me a break.

Seriously, seriously unhinged, this one. He needs to get back to haying and leave politics for the less sensitive, more informed crowd.

Update: and he might be in violation of the FCC rules for advertising himself…it’s like this guy has no intention of winning an election.

My god, even the Herald. I guess Ogo even outconservatived the conservative papers.

Or rather, outincoheranced them.

As a commenter said, however, of course the Herald, like the Sun, had to qualify their endorsement (can you imagine the angst at these two editorial boards?). “OK, so there will be votes on the war and troops. There will be resolutions, and Tsongas will vote for them. But foreign policy isn’t made on the floor of the U.S. House - for which we are increasingly grateful,” they wrote.

But even the often-reactionary Herald took Niki Tsongas’ points on immigration over Ogo’s shrill and unintelligible mixed signals (his arbitrary definition of what path to citizenship is “amnesty”): “You can rail against all the illegal immigrants who are here, but if you don’t do something it’s de facto amnesty,” she said. “It solves nothing.”

Touché, Herald, touché.

[Via the ever-alert BMG.]

I would be remiss in not linking to fellow Lowell bloggers from richardhowe.com or jackiedoherty.com and their impressions. Here’s Dick’s, and here’s Jackie’s. And Tony writes about his experience with the runpolitics.com site (I too had their site up and was using it during the live blog, though without sound on the live webfeed as I was right there, and it definitely made things more interactive and interesting).

All and all, it was an exciting forum which really moved things along - in the direction I wanted, of course, which is even better. So go and find some time to volunteer!

Flabbergasted. I can’t even think of words to say. The Lowell Sun has endorsed a Democrat in the MA-05 general election! Niki Tsongas gets the nod from the editorial staff.

From the endorsement: “We were pleased to see Tsongas didn’t hesitate to state her position on President Bush’s recent veto of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program expansion bill…Ogonowski said he supports SCHIP, but has repeatedly refused to say whether he would support the veto or vote to override…We find his lack of candor on this issue troubling.”

SCHIP is such an important issue, even the Lowell Sun can’t tolerate Ogonowski’s total reluctance to admit what his vote on the override would be. BMG has more commentary.

I’m still just totally stunned. And, this is a huge blow to Ogonowski’s credibility, if he can’t get the generally conservative Lowell Sun’s endorsement.

*still fuming at computer*

Some general impressions from the very active, quite bloody, MA-05 debate tonight.

OK, Thompson is delightfully kooky and off the deep end, but entertaining, fairly articulate, except when he gets into a libertarian screed…then he talks a mile a minute and sounds really kooky.

Hayes is a Republican (even unto the war) but running independent. Sure, he can say so, I suppose. He’s somewhat articulate, I think actually would have made a better Republican candidate than Ogo turned out to be.

Ogo made a total ass of himself, again not answering the damn question on the SCHIP veto. What’s more, he answered the question on how he’d deal with gangs with making Bush’s tax cuts permanent. And and big WTF to him?

Murphy did good, he really needs to leave off the forced “Kennedy oratory style” he tried to get away with in his closing and opening statements. I dunno how it came off on TV, but it didn’t work in person. He’s at his best when he shows off his understanding of the question he’s asked, because he really has come a long way in being comfortable doing that, and he does actually answer the question. Patrick also had several instances of rebuttals that cut, especially when Ogo tried to get away with equivocating (which he did all night) on Social Security.

Ogo scored a couple points maybe (honestly though, he sounded like a walking Republican talking point), but he lost far more. He really seemed clueless. For instance, he does understand that he can’t go to Congress and rewrite a bill that’s already passed, right? I think he said at one point (regarding the SCHIP veto override) that that will take a whole two weeks to get to that override vote - if he were in Congress now, he’d be working to redo the provision that (he thinks) will let all the undocumented workers get free health care (uh, ok). Right. Because rewriting the actual bill and going through committee and then getting it on the floor won’t take three or four months. *shakes head* Clueless. And if he’s not clueless and knows better, he’s a dishonest person.

Niki Tsongas stayed focused, answered questions (unlike Ogo) and with some exceptions where I more agree with Murphy than Tsongas on specifics, is a true Democrat who understands the stakes. The biggest disappointment I’d say on her performance is that she fell into the “have to say I’d support funding for the troops because Republicans will say I’m anti-troop if I don’t” equivocation. It’s not even politically dangerous to say the words “cut the funding” now, folks, it’s what the American people want.

BMG also covered this live and has post-debate commentary.

The candidates just walked in, and I’m all wired up, so I guess that I am liveblogging.

Run Politics is here, doing some real cool live stuff including online submitted questions and an intriguing “View upcoming questions” that is a mystery to me, so check it out.

Watch it live (online), by the way, at any of these links listed at BMG. WBZ WUML (91.5FM) is also airing it live! Right now! Also LTC Channel 8 if you’re in Lowell.

OK the Run Politics thing is really funky! You can rate the candidates as they answer…check it out, click on the Dashboard in the Run Politics site.

Opening statements: Patrick Murphy: didn’t raise money for race but for charities in this race. I didn’t know that. Seems politically shaky but interesting idea. Shared sacrifice act. Will accept no larger salary in Congress than 5th district average, no heath care.

Kevin Thompson: Talks about monopoly, Democrat controlled Congress, misleading statement about tax and spend Dems, who got thrown out in 1994…uh…Clinton and the Dems cut some spending, notably in the industrial military complex. Talks about how handing the reigns over to the Repubs didn’t work.

So far he’s not mentioning how the Constitution Party is really conservative, far-libertarian, Instead focuses on constitution…well, all well and good. Talks about unborn rights - there we go, there it is.

Ogonowski: starts with bio. General puppies and lollipops. Congress broken, election referendum on Congress. Claims like everyone here to be for real change. Immigration reform, “does not include amnesty.” Wants to cut taxes permanently.

Hayes: pretty articulate, good speaker, clear, talks about extremists that have taken over party. There’s that change motif again. Again, no mention on his actual political philosophy, just how the two parties are poisonous.

Tsongas: Change again. Goes right into children’s health care, “set record straight” SS- against raising age, against amnesty, for bringing troops home on timetable. Back to SCHIP, 200K live here in MA that need this CHIP program. Good, mentions bipartisan nature. Hammers on override, how she will vote for it.

Q to Murphy: If elected, what would be your top urban priority?
create environment for econom dev, can’t just bring one project home. Good answer so far, incentives for small biz. (My question - what are the conditions and how do you create them?)

Q to Niki: Would you vote in favor of more war spending?
Never vote to advance the surge, will always however vote to support troops on the ground. (Why do Dems fall for this one every time?) Is for timeline for troop withdrawal.
Thompson: Cut funding, force president’s hand, not getting another dime. He is quite emphatic.
Murphy: Shared sacrifice act
Ogo: Iraq was mistake. (And it isn’t now??) Support for safe stable Iraq (how’s that going?) (Ogo is telling us what makes military sense…does he make any?)
Hayes: Irresponsible to set timetable. When we pull out, need Iraqis to fill vacuum. Want to get troops back eventually to just training and support of Iraqi forces.

Q for Ogo: If elected, your first vote could be re: SCHIP, made opposition to bill clear, have not answered question how you will vote. Of not why?
If I was in Congress today, I would be working with them to put together bill to put together better bill. Fraud abuse yadda yadda. If we override veto take two more weeks. (Is he insane? Does he know how Congress works for heaven’s sake?? Like his plan would take less than two weeks?)
Abstain from vote?
(Ogo does NOT answer question. Repeats Audience responds to moderator who asks Matt Murphy of the Sun, did you get a response?)
Hayes: Would override. But this is example of partisanship (yeah, Ogo is insane, why shouldnt Niki call him on it??)
Thompson: Twostepping issue, for sustaining issue. Against socializing medicine, he lies about who qualifies (400%? Is he smoking something?)
Murphy: Would override. Question is why will there still be children uninsured…need single payer (yes, yes we do)
Ogo: SS admin: current proposal would allow illegals to use it. If this was out of bill, would be for. Niki why don’t you call all your friends in DC and tell them to take that out of the bill (yeah, very mature)

Which do you prefer: current tax system, flat tax, fair tax, etc?
Murphy: Simplify taxes, repeal Bush tax cuts, close loopholes.
Thompson: No taxes at all. (Haha, he’s just going into a rant now, I can’t type fast enough, he’s just off and running).
Ogo: In favor of making tax cuts perm. Misleading number on how much people got ($4K? All right, the average is maybe, but not what average wage earner got)
Hayes: if you take 10% of people who make 50K, it’s painful. 10% from a millionaire, is a lot of money, 100K, but that person is not in equal pain as 50K person.
Niki: Repeal bush’s tax cut for wealthy. 450K or above, that is not your average american, is 1% of US. Keep tax cuts that benefit middle Americans.

Q to Tsongas: Can you tell us what is your position on illegal immigration?
I am opposed to amnesty, tough border security. Need to know who’s coming in or leaving. Hold employees accountable. Also need to address problem that’s here. Millions are here, support earned path, need to learn English, pay back taxes. This is complicated problem. Ogo has no real solution to this problem. Earned path to citizenship will solve problem.
Ogo: Amnesty, amnesty fence fence. Pathway to citizenship is amnesty. (Got a dictionary, Jim?)
Hayes: Path or amnesty, am against it.
Thompson: same answer. Enforce law. Fence.
Murphy: earned path, or else you cannot effectively deal with people who are here. Reaons people come here, need to rework our trade policies which hurts them in their home country (thanks!)

Q to Ogo: Street gangs…wat would you do?
Puppies and lollipops, make government work. Keep tax cuts permanent. ??? (how the hell does tax cuts help gang violence??)
Thompson: state and local issue not fed. Deporting 12M illegals will be first good step.
Niki: Marvelous program in Lowell, UTEC, getting out in the streets with afterschool programs. Education, early on, fed govt has to be partner with education. Funding. High cost of loans preventing people from college.
Hayes: Enforce current laws (law and order…yeah cuz that’s worked so well so far). Fully fund NCLB, incentive to teachers to teach in hard districts.
Murphy: Need afterschool programs, avenues for children to pursue, work programs in summer, so many things happen when people can contribute. Keeping tax cuts perm is not going to help anything with gangs in Lowell.

OK just lost my whole damned liveblog. And people wonder why I never do it?

I had some really good comments too. Stupid blogging software…

I’ll post more reaction later on, when I’m no longer fuming at my computer. But this was a seriously lively debate, watch it archived later on, it was worth coming tonight.