Ogonowski short on signatures

[Brittain33]

I caught this in the Globe this morning. Tough to make a race competitive in the general election if you don't qualify for the primary.

This is just embarrassing, considering that he was already producing ads targeting John Kerry! I suppose it makes sense for fundraising, but he really should have focused on finding enough people to sign to get him 10,000 qualified signatures.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/05/20/gops_ogonowski_could_be_short_on_voter_signatures/

[WalterMitty]

funny.  the article doesnt mention whether or not joel mahoney has submitted the requisite number of valid signatures. 

[Brittain33]

funny.  the article doesnt mention whether or not joel mahoney has submitted the requisite number of valid signatures. 

I'm embarrassed to say I don't know what you're talking about, and Google is no help...

[WalterMitty]

funny.  the article doesnt mention whether or not joel mahoney has submitted the requisite number of valid signatures. 

I'm embarrassed to say I don't know what you're talking about, and Google is no help...

little inside joke.

you must not have been on atlas when it happened.

we had a poster named 'joel mahoney' who claimed to be a political science professor at tufts.  later, he made an announcement that he was going to run for the nomination to run against kerry.

after a little research, we learned that there was no joel mahoney on the faculty at tufts...and well his whole story came apart.

[Brittain33]

Thanks for the explanation. No, the time I joined was the heyday of the "the following people are fascists." mega-sigs that I never understood, either.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Disappointing.

Ironically enough, Ogonowski was the first candidate I ever signed a signature sheet for.

[Adlai Stevenson]

Considering how close this man came to winning MA-5, I'm somewhat surprised he cannot get enough signatures to get on the ballot against John Kerry.  Since this doesn't happen often and hasn't been a recurrent problem for Massachusetts Republicans in the past - it would either suggest that Ogonowski is being rather lazy or that its just not meant to be maybe?

[Brittain33]

Considering how close this man came to winning MA-5, I'm somewhat surprised he cannot get enough signatures to get on the ballot against John Kerry.  Since this doesn't happen often and hasn't been a recurrent problem for Massachusetts Republicans in the past - it would either suggest that Ogonowski is being rather lazy or that its just not meant to be maybe?

One wonders. He obviously wasn't lazy in his previous race, and he had the time to go to Washington and film a cutesy web clip about what a bad job Senator Kerry is doing. This is like that Democrat in OH-6 who didn't get his signatures either; someone was asleep at the switch.

Which wouldn't be a problem, except Jeff Beatty got his signatures in and had a strong claim not to be muscled out.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Considering how close this man came to winning MA-5, I'm somewhat surprised he cannot get enough signatures to get on the ballot against John Kerry.  Since this doesn't happen often and hasn't been a recurrent problem for Massachusetts Republicans in the past - it would either suggest that Ogonowski is being rather lazy or that its just not meant to be maybe?

Massachusetts is rather strict regarding the rules for collecting signatures and how agressively they're checked.  It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if Ogonowski was being genuine when he said that the campaign turned in 22,000 signatures.

For a signature to count, the signature sheet needs to be sent back to the town of which said signer claims registration in for verification.  If Ogonowski's people were working the street corners of, say, Newbury Street, they've probably got a whole ton of invalid signatures from Democrats infecting the pile.

It sounds like it's too early to count Ogonowski out yet—not every town has certified signatures, it looks like.  But this is grim, and has sunk campaigns, Republican and Democratic alike.  In fact, a black Republican transvestite picked up a State Rep seat in one of the worst neighborhoods in Boston back in 1992 because the Democratic incumbent was kicked off the ballot due to a problem with bad signatures.

[Adlai Stevenson]

Considering how close this man came to winning MA-5, I'm somewhat surprised he cannot get enough signatures to get on the ballot against John Kerry.  Since this doesn't happen often and hasn't been a recurrent problem for Massachusetts Republicans in the past - it would either suggest that Ogonowski is being rather lazy or that its just not meant to be maybe?

Massachusetts is rather strict regarding the rules for collecting signatures and how agressively they're checked.  It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if Ogonowski was being genuine when he said that the campaign turned in 22,000 signatures.

For a signature to count, the signature sheet needs to be sent back to the town of which said signer claims registration in for verification.  If Ogonowski's people were working the street corners of, say, Newbury Street, they've probably got a whole ton of invalid signatures from Democrats infecting the pile.

It sounds like it's too early to count Ogonowski out yet—not every town has certified signatures, it looks like.  But this is grim, and has sunk campaigns, Republican and Democratic alike.  In fact, a black Republican transvestite picked up a State Rep seat in one of the worst neighborhoods in Boston back in 1992 because the Democratic incumbent was kicked off the ballot due to a problem with bad signatures.

Amazing - what happened to him/her?

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Amazing - what happened to him/her?

Her (MTF) name was Althea Garrison, and she's credited with being the first transgendered person elected to such an office.  She lost re-election two years later, but by a surprisingly small margin considering the territory she represented.  Since then, she's been a perrenial candidate for various Boston offices.

Here's an excerpt about Garrison from the Boston Phoenix:

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