Should Ogonowski Have Challenged Tsongas Again?

A while back, CQ Politics declared MA-05, the congressional seat now held by Niki Tsongas, as ‘Safe Democrat’ since no GOP challenger has emerged in the race. This is unfortunate, as her time in Congress since barely winning the special election hasn’t exactly been noteworthy, and despite her solid promises that a vote for her was a vote to get us out of Iraq, lo and behold, we’re still there.

A few weeks ago, Jeff Beatty, who is running for the GOP nomination for the U.S. Senate, called on fellow GOP candidate Jim Ogonowski “to think of the interests of the Party and run for Congress.” Beatty offered support for Ogonowski if he chose to challenge Tsongas again.

Looking at the situation now, I believe it may have been wise for Ogonowski to have taken him up on the offer. Congressional approval hasn’t gotten any better since Tsongas skimmed out her victory. In the GOP U.S. Senate primary race, Beatty has done significantly better than Ogonowski in fundraising.

Who has a better chance at defeating John Kerry? I can’t really say, but I would have liked to have seen a situation where we had a possibility of seeing and end to one-party representation from Massachusetts in both the U.S. House and Senate.

Don’t Count on Six More Years of John Kerry

Earlier this week, BostonNow published a story that all but declared Ogonowski’s defeat in his Senate bid to unseat Senator John Kerry. They based their assessment solely on how much money each candidate has in their coffers. Surely, if you look at things in terms of dollars and cents, thing look bleak for Ogonowski, who only has $44,000 in campaign cash on hand compared to $10.1 million for Kerry. But I’ve been saying for some time now that no opponent to John Kerry should be discounted, and the BostonNOW article totally ignores various known facts about Kerry’s vulnerability. For starters, last year a 7News-Suffolk poll found “that 56 percent of Massachusetts registered voters want to give someone else a shot at Kerry’s Senate seat.” Not exactly good news for Kerry. I’m not aware of any polls putting Kerry and Ogonowski head to head… but polls have shown Kerry in serious trouble against the other GOP candidate, Jeff Beatty.

Just 60 days after forming an exploratory committee to defeat John Kerry for the US Senate in 2008, Jeff Beatty is receiving favorable support from voters across Massachusetts. A July poll conducted by the renowned Zogby organization shows Jeff Beatty to be in a virtual tie with the junior senator and former presidential candidate.

Zogby provided respondents with basic biographical information on John Kerry, Jeff Beatty and other Republican candidates and then asked “who would you vote for?” Results in the head-to-head competition were:

• First; Kerry 48 % Beatty 45% (3 point margin ‚Äì error margin 4.1% = a tie)

• Second; Kerry 56 %, Healey 37% (19 point loss)
• Third; Kerry 61%, Card 29% (32 point loss)

Against Jeff Beatty, the incumbent‚Äôs vote percentage plummeted below 50%–with Beatty in a virtual tie for the Senate seat, while Kerry rose significantly when pitted against the other Republican contenders. Results show that Beatty has rapidly become the front runner in the race to defeat John Kerry. The Zogby survey consisted of 41% Democrats, 20% Republicans and 38% unenrolled or independents.

Considering how close the Tsongas-Ogonowski congressional race was, and given Kerry’s clear vulnerability, it’s not unreasonable to assume that Ogonowski would poll just as well against Kerry as Beatty has… and that only means trouble for John Kerry.

Politico: A Ray of Light For GOP

The Politico’s Josh Kraushaar on the MA-05 Special Election:

The working-class towns along Massachusetts’ Merrimack River are an unlikely setting for a potential election shocker that could provide one of the few Republican rays of hope in 2007.

But operatives from both parties acknowledge that Tuesday’s special election match-up between Republican Jim Ogonowski and Democrat Niki Tsongas, to replace retiring Rep. Martin Meehan (D), is unexpectedly close — and that an Ogonowski victory, or even a close call, could give other GOP candidates some important tips on how to win in 2008.

Read the whole thing…

Michael Barone On The MA-05 Special Election

Michael Barone make some interesting observations about the MA-05 special election and the implications of the outcome:

If this election had been held in November 2006, Tsongas would have won by a solid margin. And she may still do that October 16. The SurveyUSA poll result would translate to a 53-to-42 percent Tsongas victory. A closer result would signal that the political environment has changed since November 2006, that the poor job ratings of the Democratic Congress have become more important to voters in House elections than the poor job ratings of the soon-to-depart George W. Bush.

I have written that we are in a period of open-field politics, a period like that of 1990-95, when incumbency became a liability more than an asset, when people crossed party lines back and forth and supported independent candidacies, when old rules of thumb no longer applied. Much of Washington would be stunned if a Republican won a House seat in Massachusetts. If that should happen, that’s not necessarily a forecast of 2008: Voters in special elections know that they’re voting for just one member and that their vote won’t change which party controls the House. But it would signal that we’re in a period of turbulence, as we were in 1990 and 1992, when incumbents of both parties saw their percentages fall. And it would suggest that the issues of taxes and immigration, which didn’t work for Republicans in 2004 and 2006, might work for them in 2008.

If we are in a period where incumbency is a liability, that works out in Ogonowski’s favor. While Tsongas has been relying on party insiders for support, Ogonowski has been reaching out to the voters. In that respect, Tsongas is already acting like an incumbent, and would soon forget the voters of her district when she is in the debt of Nancy Pelosi.

Tsongas Won’t Admit Who Her Opponent Really Is

Nowadays, being a Washington insider doesn’t win you many points in elections. The Democratic majority has brought congressional approval down to historic lows, and people are recognizing that being an insider in Washington D.C. means you are more beholden to the higher ranks of the party than the voters of your district.

So it’s interesting to see that even the Boston Globe noticed Tsongas’s shift in tone and rhetoric during the MA-05 special election campaign.

For weeks, Republican farmer and Air Force veteran Jim Ogonowski has pounded a steady theme against Democrat Niki Tsongas, calling the wife of the late former senator Paul Tsongas a Washington insider who represents politics as usual. For weeks, Niki Tsongas ignored him.

Now, with Ogonowski looking unexpectedly strong in the Fifth Congressional District special election, Tsongas is returning fire.

Tsongas’s campaign described Ogonowski yesterday as part of the “extreme right wing” and asserted that he’s “not who he says he is.” In statements from her campaign office, Tsongas accused him of trying to conceal support from Republicans in Washington, including former White House adviser Karl Rove.

It’s laughable that Tsongas is now trying to align Ogonowski with the so-called “extreme right wing,” and Republicans already in Washington. For starters, Ogonowski has offered plenty of criticism for President Bush and the Republican Party during his campaign, even for Republican leader John Boehner. Ogonowski’s campaign has not brought in any party leaders the way Tsongas has. John Kerry, Deval Patrick, Nancy Pelosi and Bill Clinton have all stumped for Tsongas.

The problem with Tsongas’s campaign, besides the desperate smear tactics, is that she’s running against the Republican Party, President Bush, and the Iraq war. She hasn’t realized (or is willing to admit, that her opponent is Jim Ogonowski – who has been critical of all three.

As a Democrat in Massachusetts, Tsongas knows the easiest thing for her to do is make the campaign about Bush and the war. But, Jim Ogonowski clearly isn’t pawn for Bush or the Republican Party. Tsongas, however has put herself in the debt of the same leaders who have failed our country and have lead Congress during it’s lowest approval in history. This puts her in the position to try to paint Ogonowski as equally indebted to the higher ranks of the Republican Party.

Though, anyone who actually has been paying to the campaign knows that this is not the case.