SurveyUSA (MA-05): Tsongas (D) 51%; Ogonowski (R) 41%.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

I am absolutely mesmerized and dumbstruck by this poll.



I would be even more mesmerized and dumbstruck if Ogonowski can actually get to 40% in the general.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

This might have been a race, if the NRCC weren't broke.

Whoa, whoa, let's not go crazy here. 

Besides, if this poll is legit, I wouldn't be surprised to see the NRCC put a couple bucks here anyway.  I mean, after all, it'd be a great morale boost for the party to even come close in a seat like this.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

How is some right-wing dumbass in a uniform clearing 40 percent in Massachusetts? The Democrats need to be hitting this guy over and over.

I don't know everything about Ogonowski, but that which I do know seems to seriously point away from him being a "right-winger."  I'm not sure what makes him a dumbass either, aside from him being of a different party than you, but I digress.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Not worth starting a new thread over, but in the Boston Globe today:

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[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

When does the GOP ever have a positive approval rating in Massachusetts?

If Ogonowski's showing can tack more closely to Romney's 2002 showing, or even "somewhat outpace" K. Murph's 2006 showing, he's in pretty good shape.  I mean, Lowell is pretty damn Democratic, but there are towns in this district that went around 3:1 for Mitt.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Why is Marty Meehan still selfishly clinging to his $5.1 million war chest?

Because he's a selfish guy?

Seriously, it's for a future statewide run.  It's tough when the Junior Senator of your state has been around for "only" 23 years.

What motivation do GOP base voters have to vote in this special election? They're angry about immigration, a mishandled war, federal profligacy, and the ineptitude of their party's President. I doubt that Ogonowski will have the kind of grassroots army that lifted Ron Lewis to victory in 1994 and nearly pushed Paul Hackett to victory in 2005.

Well, first of all, the grassroots are highly overrated, but the fact that a candidate who honestly never should have had a shot is (allegedly) coming within single digits of a win can do a lot to motivate a team who's used to being so far out of the game that it's barely worth showing up to it.  (Besides, MA-05 is not the kind of district where the GOP base are xenophobic neo cons.)

And it's not like Democrats here have a lot to go wild about.  A solid portion of the Democratic base in the district is minority, and we know they probably won't even show up to the polls for an October Special Election.  And honestly, it's not like Democrats are doing a great job in Congress right now opposing the President and ending the war—that frustration is definitely evident in a large portion of the Democratic base here.

The turnout dynamics will be very interesting to see.

And with the 2008 Election heating up, more people are paying attention to that, with fewer paying attention to Bush, who thankfully hasn't done anything mind-numbingly stupid in the last few months.

And I'm not sure how much help the Democratic State Party will be for a race like this.  In my experience, they're virtually absent from scene because they're never needed.  I know that when I was working a "top tier" open-seat legislative race in '04, the Democrat got literally no help from the state party, and instead relied on a phalanx of special interests for cash and volunteers (unions and the gay lobby, to be specific).

I'm getting somewhat excited, because this may be the first real race Massachusetts has had in a long time—I think the last race that was even on the radar was the Torkildsen/Tierney rematch of 1998.  (Elections can be quite boring up here, if you can imagine.)

im going to guess that lowell and lawrence wont have good voter turnout for a special election.

That's pretty much a given.

And think about this: If Tsongas somehow loses, then Eileen Donaghue looks solid to pick the seat up in November 2008 when turnout is normal.  It's acutally to Donaghue's benefit for her to root for the Republican here.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Redmond won because a Green in Santa Fe siphoned off middle class liberal Anglo votes against an Hispanic machine hack, and Redmond took the seat with a plurality of something like 39% of the vote (don't hold me to that percentage). In the subsequent election, the third party factor was gone, and although Redmond worked hard at it, and did increase his vote with the Native Americans in particular in the Pueblos and beyond (up to something like maybe 43% of the total vote), it was not enough, and he lost. If the Pubbie wins in a clean two party race in the Mass-5, he will have a chance to cement himself into the seat, if he has the skills. Does he have the skills? I doubt it.

There are a bunch of third-party candidates running in MA-05 for the 2007 Special.

No matter what his skills are, it is going to be very difficult for an inexperienced Republican to hold a seat that Hillary Clinton is likely to carry by close to 2 to 1 in 2008.  Also, he is likely going to have to cast some tough votes that will be very unpopular in the district like against expanding S-CHIP and other economic issues. 

Probably not too many votes.  I'd anticipate his record to be the most liberal of House Republicans.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Safe Kucinich.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

If this race truly tightens, expect the DCCC to pump cash. Despite the anecdotal evidence, I still expect a 5% victory for Tsongas.

Probably about right. We had a Senate Race last year that looked a bit like this. Ultra-Heavy Democratic District(Romney lost it by 20 points in 2002), but a weak Democrat against a strong Republican. It looked like it was getting close and ended being about 54-46. The last five points are enormous climb for a Republican in Mass. Its good that Ognowski has gotten close, but each point afterwards is going to be a mammoth climb.

No such district exists in the Commonwealth—all "close" races were in districts Romney carried easily.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

That's an interesting race to analogize here, and I mean that positively. I would say that Jehlen wasn't just a weak candidate, she was hated by the old machine in Somerville which voted for Bill White as a protest. Conversely, Bill White wasn't that strong a candidate, he just enjoyed a solid reputation in Somerville and became the suitable vehicle for protest votes.

Differences: state vs. federal races, obviously. White was a liberal who differed from the city Democrats on local policies and has actually switched to the Democrats since that election. People didn't mind elected a Republican to the legislature, but might feel differently about sending George W. Bush another proxy in Washington. Secondly, I can't imagine people hate Niki Tsongas with the fervor they felt against Jehlen. Some people will want to vote against her because they don't respect her or how she won the nomination, but there will be no STOP TSONGAS campaign the way there was against Jehlen.

Yep.  Old Somerville vs. New Somerville.  Though I don't know if people "hated" Jehlen.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Mr. Moderate, "hate" is not too strong a word. If you have time to waste, you should see how Jehlen and her allies are discussed in The Somerville News.

As someone who lives in Somerville, I assure you that even speaking the name "The Somerville News" is to give it too much credit.

And yes, Winchester is INFINITELY more Republican than Somerville (Cambridge-lite).  It is a miracle that Bill White was ever elected as a Republican here ever; further a miracle that Charlie Shannon was ever elected as a Republican himself.

Of course, both eventually had a "change of conscience" and switched to Democrats.