News Talk for Wednesday June 20th 2007

The 2nd Annual “On the Hill Tavern” 4-mile road race will be held this Sunday, June 24th starting 11am at 499 Broadway - the race benefits the Somerville Youth & Recreation Foundation. For more information call 617-629-5302

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Mayor Joe’s kickoff party last Wednesday evening at the Holiday Inn was probably the largest single gathering in Somerville’s history for a campaign rally…the unofficial count by the front table was just over 600 attendees in total for the night, and it certainly looked it. To one Newstalker that has attended all the Mayoral election campaign parties over the past 40 years - going back to S. Lester - this was definitely the largest and most diverse crowd ever seen. Gov. Deval Patrick gave a fine endorsement of the mayor and in the audience was none other then Bob Kraft, owner of the Patriots - maybe he was scouting for local football talent, we’re not sure.

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So now there looks like there just might be a primary - well maybe if the Mayor and his supposed opponents turn in all the required nomination signatures.  A funny thing in this age of the Internet and online information, you can “Google” just about anyone, so that’s what we did…we “Googled” Mayor Joe, Ms. Suzanne Bremer and Richard Scirocco – and we found some interesting reading – we encourage everyone else to do the same.

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Joe Lynch is out there every day working hard, knocking on doors, he’s been telling us he’s getting a great response from the residents of Ward 5 and he’s personally filling up his nomination papers.

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Ok so now we know the Progressives don’t like this section of the paper, the Queen of the Progressives Senator Pat Jehlan doesn’t like us anymore. She was practically all over one of the Newstalkers at the Mayor’s time (she arrived late) not even saying “Hi”, just lighting right in and saying it wasn’t true she wasn’t asleep in the van on election day, that it was a lie, funny how whenever you say anything about (see News talk May 16 edition) her or the Princess Rebekah, they get all upset - they should remember they’re public officials.  First of all, Pat, we checked - we said “we have it on a reliable source that she was sound asleep in her car, we think she might have been meditating,” so we checked again with some of our other sources and they even said you were asleep - we still say it could have been meditating.  We can understand the confusion.  Funny how the so called Progressives get all upset if someone should say anything about them, but its ok for them to say whatever they want about anyone they want.   Maybe Pat thinks this is Venezuela - where ultra progressive Chavez closed down that TV station.  We’re also wondering now if her pals over at the Farm Team get yelled at for the speak out section.

            
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Happy Birthday to Rick Willette the Director of Operations for the City of Somerville, he spent his birthday this past week up at Laconia enjoying Bike Week 2007 along with lots of other Somerville residents.

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Long time resident and good guy Donald Carriger Sr. was recently in the hospital, he’s not feeling too great, we wish him well and our thoughts and prayers are with him and his family.   

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We heard there was quite a dust up after the last Board of Aldermen meeting when Rebekah “Kid Dynamite” Gewirtz and the “Massachusetts Mauler” Bob Trane got into a war of words in the committee room. It got so out of hand, Rebekah was telling anyone who would listen that Trane was acting “thuggish.” Funny, the hit rap song of yesteryear “Thuggish Ruggish Bone” always reminded us of Bob --- not because of the title or lyrical content but because of the tight harmonizing --- Bob’s always been a fan of crooners. But as usual we digress, we heard Bob called her and apologized the next day --- good for him. Hopefully, it’s behind them and they can both focus their energy on real issues without allowing any petty resentments to fester.

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We think Hugo Chavez may actually be able to win Ward 6 if he came to Somerville and ran for office. What do you think? He would probably have Pat Jehlen’s support.

Comments

[Larry Lefty]

Pat would not only support him for PRESIDENT she would also help him in shutting down your NEWSPAPER. LIBERALS LOVE HUGO!

[Whatever]

Maybe Pat Jehlen would like you better if you spelled her name correctly (every time). But hey, I'm glad you've finally learned to use Google.

[Born Here]

what is the LEGAL capacity of the Holiday Inn?

[Silent Minority]

Interesting show of power for the CurtaKoty organization.

Just a thought

Do you think Joe will revive his true hatred of Mike Capuano and take a run at Cappy?

[Yorktown Street]

Yes, lots of people think the Journal does the community a disservice by offering the Speak Out. "Letters to the editor by illiterates," I have heard it called. Personally, though, I find it amusing.

[Ron Newman]

I think Mike Capuano will easily keep that House seat as long as he wants it. (Though who knows what will happen if the 2010 census loses the state a seat in 2012.)

[PersonDavis]

Since the Speaker of the House of reps in Mass is Sal DeMasi and he gets to decide which seat is dissolved, I think Mike is ok right through that time and beyond as long as Sal stays in power. Meehan's old seat might get diced up though.
I myself would like to see a debate between Joe C. and Mike C. though. That would be fun to watch.

I hope Rebecca and Bob Traney have buried the hatchet.

[Somerspeak]

I was not at the Mayor's re-election kickoff, but since this is only a "rumor/gossip" column, and since one of my neighbors, who did go, says that there were no more than 300 in attendance, mostly to see the Governor,(Kraft's appearance was a bonus, although what value he added remains a mystery) I think the author of the "rumor/gossip" column is exagerating just a little. Six hundred? That's a stretch guys. If the source of the reported number was the Mayor's own people, that would explain why you got the number wrong.

But since this is only a "rumor/gossip" column, can you report on how much money was raised? Even if it is only a rumor.

[cabbie]

"funny how whenever you say anything about (see News talk May 16 edition) her or the Princess Rebekah, they get all upset - they should remember they’re public officials."

Funny, a public official would be upset at the local media saying "anything". Funny that said "anything" isn't in anyway documented and was only ever brought up to make her look bad. I'm sure Pat thinks it's just hilarious. A politician being tired on election day. What a newsflash.

ESsshh. She had the nerve to insist it's not true. Please, buck it up. If you're going to bark expect people to bark back.

Woof Woof.

[Go Figure]

Maybe if 'Becca and (It's) Pat stopped acting like imbeciles the News would stop reporting on them like they're imbeciles. The truth sucks sometimes, but it's still the truth.

[Face the Facts]

This paper attacks Becca every chance it gets. I think it is fear. Those progressives are so scary with all of those facts. Why can't they be more like Fox News?

[unionsquareboy]

First, I did the Googling and I didn't see much except that Scirocco was found guilty of giving away some liquor. Yawn. Two other quick comments:

Interesting show of power for the CurtaKoty organization. Just a thought. Do you think Joe will revive his true hatred of Mike Capuano and take a run at Cappy?

Doubtful, JoeyCake's lost all his stones to face off against Cappy. And, yeah, Cappy would probably kick his ass. His support is solid throughout the district and JoeyCakes has nothing to run on.

Since the Speaker of the House of reps in Mass is Sal DeMasi and he gets to decide which seat is dissolved, I think Mike is ok right through that time and beyond as long as Sal stays in power. Meehan's old seat might get diced up though. I myself would like to see a debate between Joe C. and Mike C. though. That would be fun to watch.

I would like to see the debate, too. The redistricting depends though. A woman is likely to win the 5th special election, and it will probably be Niki Tsongas. If she or the other woman wins, it would be hard for Sal to redistrict her out of the seat. There would be a war inside the Democratic Party and lots of people would be pissed off about it.

[PersonDavis]

unionsquare, your probably correct about the impact of displacing or re-districting the only woman hypothetically speaking in the Mass delegation. But it definitely won't be the 8th district that falls on the sword. Too much political power on Beacon Hill. Maybe Teirney or one of the other outlying districts will get the kibosh, but it won't be Mike's. I see him grabbing Medford and Malden and maybe Revere. As far as a war inside the Democratic Party in Mass. goes, I don't know about that. There's already several going on and everyone here seems to get it together by election day. No one will be left out in the cold I don't think. There will be jobs for everyone in the end.
As far as the Mayor goes, in my opinion, by the time Mike decides to leave the seat if Joe hasn't already moved on to other higher office like Secretary of State or Attorney General or gotten a judgeship appointment by Deval Patrick, the district will have changed so much that the power center will have also changed. Joe gets his share of news coverage and good and bad press, but there are other people who get a lot more and who have access to more money, but I'd like to see Joe make a run at it if it's something he really wants. It would cost by that time 4 or 5 Million dollars I would think. I'm sure Joe can find that money but a lot of it has to come from far far away. Another name to keep in mind is Jarret Barrios. Even though he's leaving politics, he still has a sizeable war chest but I'm not sure if that would be useable for a congressional run. Another one is Mike Sullivan. Don't laugh at that. Paul Tsongas was I think a County Commissioner when he ran for US Senate. A county-wide race is the same as a Congressional race in a lot of ways, except that your higher on the ballot.

[Ron Newman]

Paul Tsongas was a Congressman when he ran for Senate. However, I think he was a county commissioner before that. (Middlesex no longer has a county commission.)

[PersonDavis]

Thanks for that correction Newman. I knew he was a CC at one point in the past and my point was that it is possible to run succesfully for Congress from a county seat. The other two CC's that ran with him were Ralph and Counihan if memory serves me well.

[Larry Lefty]

Cappy's seat is safe unless a Gay Black, American flag burning Communist from Cambridge decides to run against him. Then all of the "progressives" will turn on the Capster.