In a major embarrassment to Republican leaders in Massachusetts and in the U.S. Senate, Jim Ogonowski, the party’s anointed candidate to challenge Democratic Senator John F. Kerry, failed by a razor-thin margin today to qualify for the GOP primary ballot.
With Ogonowski’s stunning blunder, the only GOP name on the primary ballot will be Jeff Beatty, a little-known security expert from Harwich.
According to Secretary of State William F. Galvin’s office, Ogonowski’s campaign delivered just 9,970 certified voter signatures to its election division today just before the final deadline, 30 short of the 10,000 he needed.
His only options now are to seek relief in the courts by saying some local officials lost his signatures, as he claimed late today, or to mount a write-in campaign for the September primary.
This leaves MA GOPers in an awkward spot: Do they support Ogonowski’s faint hopes of making the ballot, or do they start to rally around the other choice, Jeff Beatty?
This cycle has been an absolute litany of fuck-ups for the GOP.
now tell Kerry to cough up all his Senate money to the DSCC.
Rasmussen polled this race last week and here are the results:
http://www.rasmussenreports.co…
Kerry (D) – 63
Ogonowski (R) – 29
Kerry (D) – 63
Beatty (R) – 25
Ogonowski just spared himself the embarrassment.
No matter who the GOP runs against Kerry, they are going to be crushed in a landslide.
I personally have been rooting for Beatty in the primary anyhow, so it doesnt hurt my feelings so much.
Sheesh, you’d think he’d be able to get on the ballot…
are there even that many republicans in mass?
Maybe someone should start a John Ensign Deathwatch.
I read that as “misses the boat”, which somehow made a funnier picture in my head.
:(, I actually wanted to see Ogonowski run.
The key stat for the day is probably the number of US House seats left unopposed from the 10 seat Democratic delegation. I’m looking for a number between five and eight. The state GOP site lists three House candidates but then again they also list two Senate candidates.
And yes, we have more that will go uncontested in New York.
Har de har har har! Nah, it didn’t matter much, but it’s a perfect demonstration of the fecklessness of Mass Repubs. Those of us who live here in the Ultimate Blue laughed at the media reaction when Ogon ‘almost defeated’ Nik Tsongus last fall. It reflected their total miunderstanding of the situation. Ogon is a non-entity and proved it by this gaffe.
This kind of incompetence rather precludes being taken seriously in future.
of this is that his “little known opponent”, Beatty, managed to get 17,000 certified signatures! And yet the annointed challenger of the state and national GOP couldn’t even get 10,000!!!