Senator John Kerry finally faced some Democratic opposition for his senate seat in his debate with Ed O’Reilly, and it seems like O’Reilly gave him a run for his money.
US Senator John F. Kerry never seemed very eager for this debate, and from the opening moments it was clear why. Edward O’Reilly, an unpolished Gloucester lawyer who is Kerry’s only Democratic challenger in 24 years, came out swinging, throwing jabs about the senator’s six-year-old Iraq war vote and questioning his commitment to serve out another full term in the Senate.
“Will John Kerry give a commitment to stay the six years if he’s elected?” O’Reilly said in the first - and probably only - debate before the state’s Democratic primary on Sept. 16. “And, if he won’t give that commitment . . . will he put up the millions of dollars it will cost the taxpayers of Massachusetts for a special election?”
Kerry, who four years ago was at the political pinnacle as he debated with a sitting president on the international stage, appeared miffed at the question. He told moderator Jon Keller that he thought the debate format forbade the candidates from posing questions.
“I didn’t know we were asking each other questions,” Kerry said. “So, if we can break the rules, that’s one thing, but -”
“He didn’t break the rules,” Keller said. “Go ahead.”
“I’m happy to answer it,” Kerry said. “I’ve said consistently I am only running for one job. I’m not asking for any other job. I’m not looking for any other job. I intend to serve my term. If I’m elected, that’s what I’m doing.”
O’Reilly hammered Kerry on his 2002 vote to authorize the war in Iraq, his lack of influence in the senate, and his lack of financial support for other Democratic candidates. Kerry only denied the charges, and said “I’m proud of the job that I’ve done.”
O’Reilly did fumble the football a bit…
O’Reilly’s lack of experience showed when he stumbled over a question about how he would protect a federal line item for technology funding. He said he would consult with the New England Council on Biotech Industries, an organization that doesn’t exist.
Whoops.
But back the Kerry’s vote to authorize force in Iraq… that was the subject of almost half the debate.
O’Reilly criticized Kerry for not reading the National Intelligence Estimate, a classified compendium of intelligence reports, before voting - an allegation Kerry said after the debate was “just silliness.”
“I did something better than read it - and it really shows Ed’s lack of understanding of what due diligence is in Washington,” Kerry said. “I actually met with the CIA teams. I actually went to the Pentagon and sat down with the secretary of defense.”
It was all Colin Powell’s fault, wasn’t it? What’s worse: voting to authorize the use of force without due diligence; or doing your diligence before voting and then changing your mind years later?
The winner of the September 16th primary faces Republican Jeff Beatty in the general election.
Tags: Jeff Beatty, John Kerry, Jon Keller
September 7th, 2008
Jeremy Jacobs at PolitickerMA reports:
U.S. Sen. John Kerry agreed Friday to debate primary challenger Ed O’Reilly, according the Kerry campaign.
There will be one debate, set to take place on WBZ-TV and it will be hosted the station’s political analyst, Jon Keller Further details are still be finalized.
O’Reilly has made his debate proposal a major part of his campaign, repeatedly charging that Kerry was ducking his debate challenge. The final agreement falls well short of O’Reilly’s original proposal, which called on the candidates to meet in each of the state’s 14 counties, each University of Massachusetts campus and on four television networks.
Tags: John Kerry, Jon Keller
August 22nd, 2008
While Democrats across the country are being taken in by Barack Obama’s message of “hope,” Massachusetts voters have learned relatively quickly that hope is currency not nearly worth its weight in words. Recent polls are showing Deval Patrick with a disapproval rating of 56% — undoubtedly reflecting fallout from his casino plan blunder.
Gov. Deval Patrick rode into office 16 months ago on a wave of hope and optimism, but the public’s patience for change in the politics of Beacon Hill appears to be waning.
A new poll released yesterday shows that Patrick’s approval rating is at an all-time low, with just 41 percent of adults over 18 saying they approve of the job Patrick is doing as governor.
Another 56 percent of responders said they disapprove, just a month after those numbers were reversed with 53 percent approving of Patrick’s work from the corner office.
The poll, sponsored by WBZ-TV and conducted by Survey USA, surveyed 600 adults earlier this month and has a margin of error of 4.1 percent.
While Democrats still have faith in the governor, the poll shows that 60 percent of Independent voters are unhappy with the results they are seeing from the Patrick administration, and even self-identified liberals are evenly split on the governor’s job performance.
Jon Keller notes the downward trend of Deval’s poll numbers, and concludes that he’s unlikely to turn them around.
The second week of April was, by the roller-coaster standards of the Patrick era, a pretty good one for the governor. He won legislative approval for some of his long-sought corporate tax hikes, touted progress on several job-development initiatives, and won plaudits for a widely-covered speech on the economy. But when Survey USA went into the field the weekend of April 11 for its regular tracking of the governor’s job approval rating, the results marked an all-time low.
Here are the numbers, just reported to us by Survey USA today. They show Patrick winning approval from an anemic 41% of registered voters, while an astonishing 56% give thumbs down.
A special survey we commissioned with a smaller sample on April 9th had the spread at 41-49%. But it’s probably better for direct comparison purposes to match these results up with the last 600-adult tracking poll taken in mid-February (before Bookgate).
Back then, Patrick’s approval/disapproval was 47-45%, not great, but not that bad. But now, his disapproval is off the charts, especially among men: 61% of them now disapprove of his work, up from 47% in mid-winter. All age groups are markedly less satisfied with Patrick’s performance now than they were two months ago, none more so than the 35-54 demographic, where his approval has collapsed from 44% to 30% and his disapproval has jumped an eye-popping 18 points to 68%, George W. Bush-like numbers. Democrats are losing patience, too; his 61-31% spread of February has dwindled to 53-44%. In the ideological categories, moderates continue to desert Patrick. And get this: even liberals, who approved of his work by a whopping 70-25% spread back then, are now evenly divided on the topic. And one final note: with the warning that they’re only about 20% of the sample in each survey, a relatively small slice that could skew the numbers somewhat, voters in southeastern Massachusetts (including the Cape) seem to be especially alienated. His rating there was 47-44% in February; now, it’s 31-66%.
I don’t know if he has a chance of seeing his numbers improve in the near future. Deval Patrick seems determined to push forward with his casino plan despite fierce opposition… even from within his own party. Given Deval’s campaign rhetoric about leadership and unity, it is ironic to see that when it comes to working with the legislature, his predecessor Mitt Romney was far more successful at not only reaching out across the aisle, but to actually getting things done.
Tags: approval ratings, Barack Obama, Deval Patrick, Jon Keller
April 27th, 2008
