BAY WINDOWS: All politics is local
By Ethan Jacobs | June 5, 2008
If you thought the election excitement was over for Massachusetts after February’s presidential primary, think again. While the John McCain-Barack Obama swing state smackdown will dominate prime time TV, there’s no shortage of exciting state legislative races where political junkies can get their fix closer to home.
MassEquality will be working to pull off the hat trick of re-electing every pro-equality incumbent for the third consecutive election cycle, and some of the races promise to be nail-biters. For starters, one of MassEquality’s most important allies, openly gay Rep. Carl Sciortino (D-Medford) will be forced to run for his seat as a sticker candidate after failing to file the required number of signatures with the Secretary of State’s office. Another key ally, Sen. Dianne Wilkerson (D-Boston), faces a strong challenge from progressive Sonia Chang-Diaz, who came within six percentage points of beating her in 2006. MassEquality will also be working to protect three lawmakers whose last-minute vote switch on the marriage amendment last June was crucial to the amendment’s defeat; at least one of those vote-switchers will be facing an anti-equality opponent. There is also the potential for the number of openly LGBT lawmakers to double this fall, with four out candidates running either for open seats or to unseat incumbents. The primary takes place Sept. 16, followed by the general on Nov. 4.
A summer sequel in the 2nd Suffolk
Wilkerson is also a case study in the viability of an incumbent campaigning to hold onto her seat as a sticker candidate. Having failed to collect enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, she waged a sticker campaign run for her 2nd Suffolk District seat in the 2006 Democratic primary against three other sticker candidates. Her strongest challenger, Jamaica Plain activist Chang-Diaz, garnered 44 percent of the vote to Wilkerson’s 50 percent. Wilkerson and Chang-Diaz, both strong progressives, lined up on most policy issues, and in large part the campaign became a referendum on Wilkerson’s own checkered history, as her opponents questioned Wilkerson’s ethics and highlighted a number of controversies that have surrounded Wilkerson throughout her career, including a conviction for failing to pay federal income taxes and a 2005 lawsuit by then-Attorney General Tom Reilly for campaign finance violations.
This time around both Wilkerson’s and Chang-Diaz’s names will appear on the Democratic primary ballot. Wilkerson has managed largely to avoid negative press coverage since the last election. But the incumbent said she is not resting on her laurels.
"We are gearing up for an aggressive and a ferocious campaign. There’s no question. I take nothing and no one and no vote for granted. I will do again what I’ve always done, which is work hard and make the case on ... 15 years of fighting and delivering for a district [in a way] that is tangible. So I’m more than ready," said Wilkerson.
That includes making the case to the district’s LGBT voters. In last month’s Senate budget debates MassEquality credited her with successfully pushing for substantial funding increases for LGBT youth programs, elder programs, and domestic violence programs during a difficult budget year. Wilkerson said since entering the Senate in 1993 she has been the go-to member of that body for LGBT advocates - the first bill she filed in her legislative career was a domestic partnership bill - a role she shared with former Sen. Jarrett Barrios during his tenure in the Senate from 2002 to 2007.
"I’ve taken back the mantle that I carried for the ten years before [Barrios] was. So it’s continuing to do what I’ve always done with tangible evidence to prove it," said Wilkerson.
McTighe said that while Wilkerson may be better positioned than she was in 2006, MassEquality still considers her "potentially vulnerable."
"Any time you have a race where one year it was really close for an incumbent you want to look at that person as being potentially vulnerable, and you want to do everything you can," said McTighe.
Chang-Diaz told Bay Windows that she believes she has a stronger chance to unseat Wilkerson than she did in 2006. In her first race she said she started with almost zero name recognition in the district, launched her campaign less than four months before the primary, and ran a campaign on a much smaller budget than Wilkerson’s; despite those long odds she still won 44 percent of the vote as a write-in. This time around she said her campaign has more time, more money, and a network of supporters in the district, and she believes it will be easier to close the six percent gap.
"This time around it’s a huge difference because we’re starting where we left off in 2006. ... The clear number that we have, I have six percent to go. That was the number we needed in 2006," said Chang-Diaz. And while she won’t have the endorsement of MassEquality, she also brings gay street cred to the race, having worked as an aide to openly gay former state senator Cheryl Jacques and with MassEquality in the State House to preserve marriage equality. And just as MassEquality’s support for Wilkerson two years ago outraged some members of the LGBT community, despite her lengthy record on LGBT issues (See "Abandoning ship," Sept. 28, 2006), it looks as though she won’t have a lock on the LGBT vote this time around. In a recent e-mail circulated to members of the LGBT community, Carola Cadley, an out lesbian marketing executive, invited friends to a June 5 meet and greet for Chang-Diaz, who she is supporting, at a private home in Jamaica Plain. "Although Dianne Wilkerson has been a loyal supporter and friend to the community," Cadley wrote, "I have been uncomfortable with the way she has conducted herself over the past few years and I feel it’s time for a change."
But Wilkerson said if she was able to survive a challenge through the scandals and the sticker campaign of 2006, she will be able to win this time around. "I think there’s probably a lesson there. If there was an environment and a time in which the right candidate and message could have been fatal for me, it probably was 2006, both the combination of the fury and the press but also the sticker campaign. ... [This campaign] will be about who has the experience, the intellect and the record of delivering and fighting for a constituency that has not always enjoyed the favor from everyone else. And I’ve done it," said Wilkerson.
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