endorsements

[totient]

Tomorrow (Tuesday) is Primary day in Massachusetts. Ordinarily this doesn't amount to much. But this time around it's a very important election. The legislature is closely divided on the proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. And the issue doesn't break down along party lines, so in heavily partisan districts (which is most of them) the primary is often the contested part of the race.

Of particular interest is the 34th Middlesex district, in which many of my readers reside. Openly gay Carl Sciortino is challenging anti-gay-marriage Vincent Ciampa in the Democratic primary, and there is no Republican candidate. If you live in southern Medford or western Somerville, voting in this election is probably more important than voting in November.

Also interesting is the 26th Middlesex, a race between two pro-gay candidates, one a Progressive and one old-guard. Bay Windows published an interesting endorsement of the old-guard candidate and I think I agree.

There are plenty of other contested races out there, and even if you don't live in one this is a good occasion to give money to a worthy candidate.

Comments

[rmd.livejournal.com]

i'm looking forward to kicking ciampa out.

Toomey vs. Green

[cos]

I only partly agree with Bay Windows. I agree that the statewide gay groups should be endorsing Toomey, even though he's much less pro-gay than his challenger Avi Green. It is important to reward him for that vote by showing support. However, unless gay marriage is the one and only issue you care about, I don't think that should be the deciding factor for a voter in this race, for the simply reason that Avi Green, if elected, will actually advocate for gay rights, rather than simply reluctantly not vote against them sometimes.

If I were a voter in that district, I'd support Avi Green because voting him in would:
- replace an anti-choice rep with a pro-choice rep, in a House that has a very small anti-choice majority
- replace one of Finneran's key allies and top lieutenants, with someone who has pledged not to vote for Finneran for the speakership
- replace an old-guard Democrat who cares more about party loyalty and acts as a barrier to new people getting involved in the party, with a Deanie who is helping revitalize the party by getting new people involved

To me, the most important aspect of this is the prospect of knocking off a key Finneran ally. Since Avi is making that a campaign issue, if he wins it could have the effect of encouraging other reps to distance themselves from Finneran too.

Re: Toomey vs. Green

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

the prospect of knocking off a key Finneran ally

That's a great reason to vote for Green right there, yup. I'd love for the stranglehold Finneran has over the state lege to be broken.

[cos]

By the way, I posted a bunch of links and my opinions about both of these races to several communities a few days ago, including this post.