Member of the reality-based community of progressive (not anonymous) Massachusetts blogs
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.
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