Newstalk for September 21st 2005

A flyer showed up on our doorstep this week. It featured the odd, yet true voting record of State Rep. Patricia D. Jehlen. It said she voted: No on a bill allowing victims or parents of minor victims of violent and sexual crimes to testify at the parole hearings of their offenders, NO on a bill that would allow mothers in crisis to safely give up their babies to a safe haven where the baby will be protected until a permanent home can be found, NO on a bill to freeze the state gas tax, and NO on a resolution  stating that the phrase “one nation under God” should remain in the pledge of allegiance. Let’s get this straight, she voted to protect violent offenders, endanger babies, raise gas gas prices and remove God from the pledge of allegiance? Those don’t sound like the values of the people of Somerville, Medford, Winchester and Woburn do they?

The final act is about to be played out in the election to fill the late Charlie Shannon’s Senate seat this coming Tuesday the 27th.  Hopefully people will get out and vote, but we think there will only be in the neighborhood of 20,000 votes in the special election out of 86,000 voters.  No matter which person wins, only a minority of eligible voters will have gone and voted and that’s just sad.  Pat Jehlen’s campaign has seemed to have slowed down since the primary with not that much activity out on the streets – but we are sure that those phone banks in Boston and Newton will be busy over the next few days.  Bill White’s campaign kicked into high gear right after the primary and basically only had three weeks to get his stand on the issues across to potential voters.  Regardless of which candidate wins, hopefully Somerville wins in the end, since both candidates are from here.  We think that Medford is going to be the key in this race.

Bill White had a rally this past Monday night at Goodtimes and it was very well attended.  The four brave Aldermen who have been public with their support of fellow Alderman Bill were there as well – Walter Pero, Ward 4, Bill Roache, Ward 1, Maryann Heuston, Ward 2 and Dennis Sullivan, at Large showed a lot of courage by being so public with their support and they should be applauded for having the conviction to do the right thing. Meanwhile across the city in Davis Square at Orleans Restaurant, Congressman Mike Capuano was holding a function for Pat Jehlen and her supporters on the same night.  Orleans was filled with her supporters and friends to boost her campaign.    

On an interesting side note, local political activist and known Democrat Joe Lynch is not only endorsing Bill White for Senator, but is his campaign manager.  We also heard a rumor that Pat Jehlen’s campaign manager – Georgia Hollister Isman – is a professional campaign organizer and doesn’t even live in the district (she supposedly lives in Cambridge and at that only recently from Amherst).  It’s kind of hard to get away from the idea that you have “out of towner” political help when your campaign manager is the perfect example of outside political influences at work in a local race.  It’s also kind of hard to get away from the stigma that goes part and parcel with having to go outside the district for money and campaign workers.  Does that mean she will have our local interests in mind if she’s elected?  We think not.  We heard she raised over $250,000 mostly from people outside the district and spent almost all of it in the primary with very little money left.

We had an interesting comment on the Somerville News weblog the other day.  Someone asked for all the Legislation Pat Jehlen has sponsored in her 14 years of service as our State Representative.  Well, after a couple of days someone came back with only three pieces of Legislation in 14 years – that’s one per every 4 years 8 months people – and then made the comment that sponsoring Legislation isn’t necessarily the sign of a good Legislator.  Hello?  Did we miss something?  Oh wait, it must have been another “planted supporter”.  We can only hope that she did more while in office, to be honest, we don’t know.

Last weeks primary in Ward 3 wasn’t a huge surprise – except for the votes that Alderman Taylor received.  His massive victory over his two opponents was sufficient to ensure him a virtual victory in the final election in November.  His final opponent –  “Laurence” as he likes to be referred to on his signs and literature – has his work cut out for him.

In Ward 5, the race also known as Joe/Tony II, between challenger John L Sullivan and incumbent Alderman Sean O’Donovan has been moving along steadily.  Both candidates have the added boost of their friends.  Mayor Joe, who is unopposed this term, has been walking door to door with Sean and we hear they’ve been getting a pretty good response, then again the person we heard it from is in the O’Donovan campaign.  Meanwhile, once and future (we are so sure) Mayoral hopeful Tony LaFuente has been working both out front and behind the scenes for John L.  We have personally heard from several residents in Ward 5 that they have seen much more of John L than anyone else.  Speaking of that, John L had a large crowd at Mulligan’s in Magoun Square last Thursday evening to help boost his campaign.

Now for yet another commentary on what we refer to affectionately as the “Sign Race”.  In the Alderman at Large race, of the newcomers, we still say if signs could vote, Steve Glines would win hands down with Foster-Hirsch right behind and the fairly frequent Dennis Sullivan sign right after that.  We found the several Martinez signs we saw very hard to read – he definitely picked the wrong colors for that one.  There’s plenty of time left to comment about all the rest of the candidates in all the races, even if they’re unopposed later.