« Backtalk 10/04/2007 | Main | Backtalk 10/08/2007 »
October 9, 2007
Are 5th District campaigns getting dirty?
WHILE THE 5th District Congressional race has largely focused on issues, the campaigns of Jim Ogonowski and Niki Tsongas are drifting toward the negative in the final days.
Tsongas has tried at every pass to tie Ogonowski, a Republican, to an unpopular president. Ogonowski shares many positions with President George Bush, though by no means is he a parrot for the administration.
Last week, the state Democratic Party sent out a mailer with Ogonowski's picture in a lineup with Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Ogonowski, in silhouette, is wearing a trench coat, which makes him look more like a sinister CIA agent than a Dracut hay farmer.
The unretouched photo comes from November 2003. Standing directly to Ogonowski's right is then-U.S. Rep. Marty Meehan, who presented Ogonowski with money to help preserve his 33-acre farm in Dracut as a living memorial to John Ogonowski, Jim's brother, who died in the 2001 terrorist attacks.
Most of the attacks have come from Ogonowski's staff.
When President Bill Clinton arrived late to a Tsongas fundraiser on Sunday, Ogonowski's campaign put out a David Letterman-esque "Top 10 List" of reasons why.
Included in the list: "Thought fundraiser would be where Niki Tsongas actually lives, so he went to her Charlestown Town House; Wanted a tan, went to Niki Tsongas' Chatham Mansion."
Tsongas moved to Charlestown to be closer to her daughters after her husband, the late U.S. Sen. Paul Tsongas, died in 1997. She's renting a condo on the Merrimack River during the campaign.
OGONOWSKI'S PERFORMANCE has been gaining attention nationally. The Cook Political Report, an independent, nonpartisan newsletter that examines federal elections, had pegged Ogonowski as a longshot in the 5th, based on the district solid Democratic credentials. That assessment has been revised.
The Cook Report's most recent analysis has Tsongas "significantly underperforming," a conclusion based no doubt on the only poll thus far, which showed her winning by only 10 percentage points.
KEN LAVALLEE, Lowell's new police superintendent, walks the walk.
During a meeting with Sun editors and reporters last Thursday, Lavallee said one of his priorities is strict enforcement of traffic laws: speeding, right-on-reds, stop signs, etc.
Minutes after the meeting concluded, City Councilor Rodney Elliott told The Column that he had seen Lavallee stop a driver on Princeton Street on Wednesday, for crossing a solid double yellow line.
"How many chiefs would actually get out of their car and do that?" Elliott said.
Lavallee issued a written warning to the woman, who was from Lawrence.
Lavallee commonly makes traffic stops. He admits he has an advantage because his Ford Crown Victoria is unmarked.
PUT WALTER "Buddy" Flynn in the "I'm sick of Jim Sullivan" category.
Flynn, a Housing Authority commissioners, called a local radio station the other morning while Sullivan, the former head man in Cambridge and a short-term city manager in the 1970s, co-hosted.
Sullivan often has said Elliott isn't up to snuff on financial issues related to the new parking garage downtown. Flynn told Sullivan his diatribes are counter-productive and that he ought to have more respect for "public servants." Sullivan stood his ground.
The bottom line is many at City Hall are tired of Sullivan's "I know it all" rants against the garage and redevelopment plans for the Hamilton Canal District and the Jackson-Appleton-Middlesex area. Those plans have been in the works for years. Sullivan hasn't muttered a peep until recently, long after his opposition may have had impact.
Sullivan also says Lowell is in a financial mess, but has not proposed how to fix it, except for giving Tsongas Arena and LeLacheur Park to UMass Lowell.
Many councilors and city administrators also are questioning Sullivan's track record as city manager, during one of the lowest points in Lowell's economic history.
TAKING THE podium at the Lowell Plan's annual breakfast at the Lowell Memorial Auditorium last week, James Conway promptly wished "Happy Anniversary" to Lowell High School on its coming 175th.
Conway, a successful businessman and chairman at the economic development think tank, also plugged Headmaster William Samaras and urged him to stay beyond the current school year when he's set to retire.
That's not what School Superintendent Karla Brooks Baehr and School Committee members Jackie Doherty and Connie Martin wanted to hear, especially while surrounded by 350 of the city's most influential political and business leaders.
Samaras would like to stay. But Baehr, with strong support from Doherty and Martin, flatly rejected the request with no explanation this summer.
Last week Samaras was awarded the "Friends of Education Award" by the Harvard Club, for excellence in public education.
"He is as good an educator as we have in the system," said Sen. Steve Panagiotakos, chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, a Harvard alum, and former School Committee member.
"If he is leaving of his own volition, that is fine, but if he is being forced out, that is a serious miscarriage of justice and appreciation," Panagiotakos said.
This week's Column was written by Editor James Campanini; City Editor Christopher Scott, Statehouse reporter Matt Murphy and City Hall reporter Michael Lafleur.
Posted by Admin at October 9, 2007 10:14 AM
