Newstalk for Wednesday September 7th 2005

Okay – so the Primary is all done and one candidate rose to the occasion and easily beat the rest of the pack.  Congratulations to Pat Jehlen and her many many workers for their victory by pulling out the vote.  They also had help from an unexpected source who worked for Joe Mackey – Cathy O’Dea – the former Assistant to Former Mayor Dorothy.  Cathy was trying to lay low and work behind the scenes, but we knew she was there – it’s hard to keep anything secret in this city.  Would you believe she was entrusted with running Mackey’s campaign headquarters on Election Day?  We heard from several city workers (who told us that they were asked by someone in the Mayor’s Office to take a vacation day) who showed up at the headquarters to work and Cathy had nothing for them to do.  They thought they’d be on the phones or pulling people out of their homes and driving them to the polls – typical special election stuff.  Hey, we didn’t make her reputation, she did.  Why they ever let her in the door is a total mystery to us.  Otherwise, Joe ran a great campaign and with him now gone from politics we have lost more than most people will ever realize.  Howie Carr was right – Callahan was the spoiler – and O’Dea was the political death knell.

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Bill White spent some time behind the scenes picking up people from Mackey and Callahan to work in his campaign and you know that those two camps as well as Casey’s votes won’t all go to Pat.  One thing is for sure, Bill better get a bigger than life organization together to fend off the out-of-towners working for Pat.  We personally talked to four campaign workers who were recruited from Newton.  It’s going to take an onslaught of Election Day workers and a large percentage of Shannon supporters coming out on that day to work for Bill.  In case anyone has forgotten, it was Republican (at the time he was elected) Charlie Shannon who ran and beat incumbent Democrat Sal Albano 15 years ago – nobody thought it could happen – but it did.  Maybe it will again.

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An interesting thing happened to Pat Jehlen on primary night – you’ll never guess who showed up.  Yep, you guessed it – none other than our illustrious Mayor Joe – to congratulate Pat on her win.  We heard that the mayor wasn’t even acknowledged as being in the hall and one person we spoke with who said they saw him there described him as having a “deer in the headlights” look about him as he pushed through the crowd.  Pat knew that Mayor Joe had Mike Buckley from his office and others making calls to city workers to help out and also to vote for Mackey that day.  You can’t fool Grandma – she’s smarter than that.

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Here’s a rumor we have heard from multiple reliable sources.  There is a movement underfoot to encourage voters in the municipal election to vote “Nobody” for Mayor.  Actually, it sounds pretty good if you think about it.  Advocates have been heard saying that Nobody is the best candidate because Nobody has solved the city’s fiscal crisis, Nobody has kept his campaign promises, Nobody has been loyal and remembered his friends who helped when he needed them and without a doubt Nobody has consistently told the truth.  The most important thing of all – nobody is going to win.

To quench your thirst for the entire edition of Newstalk, please see the print edition of The Somerville News, hitting the streets at 6 a.m. Wednesday morning.