Blowback (2).
By Jim Conley • May 5th, 2008 • Email This Post to a Friend •
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I’ve never quite understood how this works, but apparently there’s a movement afoot on the part of Gil Hoy supporters to “bullet” their votes. I don’t know if the message being sent is in support of Hoy or out of anger towards the TAB for running last Thursday’s hit piece on badge flashing.
[An aside: I thought it was a cheap shot when the TAB hit Debbie Goldberg with the same charge when choosing not to endorse her in the Lieutenant Governor's race [see previous post]. I don’t see the difference between that and the countless police association stickers (strategically placed) that I see around Washington Street — same goal, different tactic. And, boy, if abusing your position as one of Brookline’s police commissioners is a fireable offense, tune in after the election.]
So the Hoy polloi will only mark their ballots for Gil. I guess the fear is that people will vote the TAB ticket - Dick Benka and Nancy with an Asterisk Daly.
I don’t know, but my sense is that the TAB story and the endorsement are seen more as objects of chortled ridicule than having a serious effect on the election. Hoy has always polled well and Daly barely won her first time up (and then because she appeared to be Hoy’s running mate). That’s a tough dynamic to change.
Stranger things have happened, though.
Jim Conley is publisher of On Brookline.
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And I shall bullet my write in (”None of the Above”) since none of the above has seriously and publicly considered puttng on the table whether Representative Town Meeting is still appropriate for our Town in the 21st century. Even though Dick Benka has the great resume, how can he buck the insiders in Brookline politics? (In fact he may hinself be an insider based upon 27 years as a TMM.) As one-fifth of the Executive Branch, what can he accomplish unless he goes in the same direction as the other four? If Hoy is reelected, he might buddy-up with Benka to challenge the other three, two of whom come up for reelection next year. Do I hear a cabal forming, or is that just gas?
HANDICAPPING CONCESSIONS
It seems quite clear that Dick Benka is on top on Brookline’s three-way for two Selectmen seats. (Benka is so confident of victory that he has ordered a three-year supply of mustache wax that will stand up to the withering Tuesday night klieg lights.) So we can expect a concession speech from either Chair Nancy Daly or Selectman Gil Hoy, one of whom will be unsuccessful in her/his efforts to be reelected. How might the ledes of their concession speeches read?
Nancy Daly: “KISS MY ASTERISK GOODBYE!”
Gil Hoy: “I’VE BEEN BADGE-red WITH THE HELP OF THE TAB!”
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