Mass. Special Senate Election – Primary Yawn – Low Voter Turnout Expected – Anyone’s Game?

The Senate Candidates - (Top) Gomez, Sullivan, Winslow, (Bottom) Markey & Lynch - Impage metro.us

The Massachusetts Special Election Primary is being held today, with 5 candidates vying for two positions. On the Democrat side of the aisle, one has Ed Markey, multi-term Democrat, a fixture in Washington, and a progressive, over-the-top pro-choice, “I invented the light bulb” type of guy. Steve Lynch, Democrat, Congress, several terms, not entrenched as deeply, can communicate with the working class and votes both sides of the aisle, depends on what the situation is. On the Republican side, one has Gabriel Gomez, ex-Marine, picture perfect, wrote a letter to Deval Patrick asking to be appointment, because he was such a supporter of Obama, including casting his vote for him. Mike Sullivan, nice guy, big on social issues, as in not running away from them, but as exciting as watching paint dry- in other words a solid conservative. Rounding out the field, is Dan Winslow, Libertarian-Republican – a fiscal conservative with the libertarian view of social issues.

The media is decrying the lack of interest, and suggests low voter turnout, most likely caused by voter fatigue give the last election.

The real problem is that the candidates are lackluster: one has two dinosaurs (Markey and Sullivan), one neophyte (Gomez), and then to good candidates (opinion) who would make for an interesting election – Winslow, the state Representative, who has the Libertarian bent, and is amusing, meaning he has a sense of humor, but appears to be serious as far as how his vote would be cast (and there’s good indication given his time in the Mass House, that it would be with forethought and not necessarily predictable. The same goes for Lynch, not predictable – looking out for the folks, similar in scope to Winslow. That combination would give Massachustts a win-win situation in a general election – a rarity.

However, it is Massachustts, and Markey is the anointed Progressive, unless the turnout is extremely low, and the troops just can’t get behinds Methuselah - an upset by Lynch is unlikely.

On the Republican side, one might anticipate Sullivan pulling it off – he’s got the nod of the rank and file Republican’s and any tea-party, pro-life groups behind him. Gomez has been running some slick ads, that make him very appealing, but with dvr, that’s not going to cut it – any upset would come from the underdog in a perfect world, Winslow, who has had zero media attention – unless on points to the endorsement of the Springfield Republican, which...carries little weight. – Low information voters do not read newspapers (E online perhaps, but not the – news)

This blogger will go and cast her vote this morning, anticipating a short wait in line, and a predictable outcome to the race. Not one of the candidates has crisscrossed the state, with any amount of flare, and has generated little grassroots interest outside of the Commonwealth. My pick – Winslow, for what it’s worth – on the GOP ticket, but…a Libertarian, cannot stress that enough, when one would like to see the two party stranglehold on Washington loosened a bit.