Capuano endorses Galluccio and more musings on that race
Interesting news out of Somerville. According to The Somerville News (and NOT their gossip-soaked NewsTalk section), Congressman Michael Capuano has endorsed Cambridge City Councilor Anthony Galluccio in the race for the Middlesex, Suffolk and Essex District Senate seat. Actually, I suppose this should be classified as a re-endorsement of Galluccio:
Capuano re-evaluated the endorsement when incumbent Jarrett T. Barrios entered the race after ending his candidacy for Middlesex County District Attorney. Nevertheless, Capuano has decided to continue his support of Galluccio, said Allison Mills, press secretary for Capuano.
Obviously it is troublesome for an state-level incumbent when their U.S. Congress of the same party endorses the challenger and I suppose it raises an interesting dilemma for Barrios. That is, how does he convince people -- many of whom made alternative arrangements under the assumption he was out -- to come back to his fold despite previous commitments?
For me, it's really a no-brainer. Although I have some gripes about Barrios which I've mentioned on this blog before, the fact is he's generally reliable, and a solid vote you can count on to fight for progressive causes in the State House. Rather than the dilemma I described above plaguing Barrios, I think that in a modified way it's really more of a problem for Galluccio.
When you mount a primary challenge against an incumbent, there should be a pretty legitimate reason. In this case, Barrios has done nothing criminal or otherwise ethically suspect, he has not sponsored or supported any legislation that is in stark contrast to the views of most of his constituents and if anything his turn towards law-and-order politics has made him more similar to his moderate challenger. Even Galluccio himself, when Barrios was still running for D.A., lauded the incumbent in front of a Progressive Democrats of Cambridge meeting for his legislative success. The City Councilor can't even go after the Senator for the classic "career politician" critique because I believe they've both been in public life about the same time So the question for Galluccio is, why are you still in this race? What do you have the offer the voters that Barrios is lacking?I while thinking about this last night, I decided that the only semi-legit reason Galluccio could give has to do with opportunism. That is, given the fact that until recently Barrios was running for D.A., it could seem like his heart is in a different place and that maybe he's just using the Senate seat as a stepping stone.
Ok, that does give reason for pause and honestly I do believe Barrios has higher ambitions (I know one Somervillian who thinks he wants to stage a progressive coup as the first Gay-Latino Governor in the country), but so does Galluccio. With such logic Galluccio wouldn't deserve to have been the highest vote-getter in last year's Cambridge City Council race, because we all knew he was running for Senate this year!
So I'm stuck. What possible reasons could Galluccio have for challenging an experienced, effective incumbent?
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