Monday, February 25, 2008
Gogonowski
John Kerry's spokesperson David Wade has given the best argument I've read yet for why people should support Jim Ogonowski's bid for his boss's Senate seat this fall. Thus wrote the Herald:
This statement is so smarmy, so smug, so dismissive of the very idea of an genuine election--you know, the kind where there's more than one viable candidate--that it makes me wonder if deep down, he isn't actually a little worried.
For those who forget quickly, Ogonowski came within 5 points of defeating someone named Tsongas in the 5th district congressional special election just a few months ago. Given that there are probably as many public works named after Paul Tsongas in Lowell and Lawrence as there are named after Washington or Lincoln, that's no small accomplishment. The issue which carried him that far, and which may yet carry him into John Kerry's former office, is immigration.
No matter how the presidential race shapes up--I'm not ready to count HRC out just yet--there's going to be a lot of unrequited anger on the immigration issue, which is in the eyes of many middle and lower-class voters not merely an economic injustice but a cultural offense. Free trade may send jobs to China but it does not directly change the culture of a city the way unchecked immigration does. Immigration causes middle- and lower-class workers direct economic pain, it also threatens to turn their neighborhoods into foreign countries. Between economics and culture, it's the latter people usually feel most strongly about. ¶ 10:17 AM
John Kerry's spokesperson David Wade has given the best argument I've read yet for why people should support Jim Ogonowski's bid for his boss's Senate seat this fall. Thus wrote the Herald:
"These Republican Senate candidates should spend their time in Washington
lobbying FEMA to declare the Massachusetts GOP a federal disaster area and
pushing the Interior Department to declare Massachusetts Republicans an
endangered species," David Wade said in a statement.
This statement is so smarmy, so smug, so dismissive of the very idea of an genuine election--you know, the kind where there's more than one viable candidate--that it makes me wonder if deep down, he isn't actually a little worried.
For those who forget quickly, Ogonowski came within 5 points of defeating someone named Tsongas in the 5th district congressional special election just a few months ago. Given that there are probably as many public works named after Paul Tsongas in Lowell and Lawrence as there are named after Washington or Lincoln, that's no small accomplishment. The issue which carried him that far, and which may yet carry him into John Kerry's former office, is immigration.
No matter how the presidential race shapes up--I'm not ready to count HRC out just yet--there's going to be a lot of unrequited anger on the immigration issue, which is in the eyes of many middle and lower-class voters not merely an economic injustice but a cultural offense. Free trade may send jobs to China but it does not directly change the culture of a city the way unchecked immigration does. Immigration causes middle- and lower-class workers direct economic pain, it also threatens to turn their neighborhoods into foreign countries. Between economics and culture, it's the latter people usually feel most strongly about. ¶ 10:17 AM
