Political News and Analysis for Independent Massachusetts Voters
Martha Coakley
Martha Coakley has a problem with selective prosecution.
Jim McKenna really presses her on her lack of effectiveness on illegal immigration and public corruption in this debate. He is much stronger in this appearance than he was their last debate on NECN’s Broadside.
We’ve got the debate video, and the background to help you understand some of the exchanges in the debate.
More video and analysis after the jump.
Tags: Attorney General, Jim Broade, Jim McKenna, Jon Keller, martha coakley, Massachusetts
 Student Immigration Movement on State House steps |
A Special Report: Tax returns and annual reports past due
AFSCME, SEUI the Boston Teachers Union/AFT, Mass Equality, New World Foundation major donors
The Student Immigration Movement, a Boston based non-profit and advocacy group for the federal immigration DREAM Act and its parent organization, Neighbor to Neighbor, have failed to file the required financial disclosure forms with the office of State Attorney General Martha Coakley.
Martha Coakley
Martha Coakley has been bitten by her own hubris again – her campaign is limited to spending $650,000.
Thinking that she would run for Attorney General unopposed, Martha Coakley opted for public campaign financing. She received $75,000 of public campaign funds but is now limited to spending just $650,000 to run for a statewide office.
Coakley famously lost her race against Scott Brown for the Senate seat formerly held by Ted Kennedy. It was supposed to be an easy victory for Coakley. But Coakley took the race for granted. She ran a weak campaign, and appeared aloof and entitled.
Tags: Jim McKenna, martha coakley, Massachusetts
Jim McKenna
It’s looking like Jim McKenna will have enough write-in votes to be on the ballot for Attorney General in November. McKenna needs 10,000 votes to get on the ballot. Complete results are not out yet, but with about 10% of towns reporting it looks like McKenna already has 5,922 votes.
McKenna’s web site is has a big banner up on it:
WE DID IT
It is Big! I Mean Really Big!
We didn’t just make it – We Crushed it!
Record-Breaking – Historical – Undisputable!
Will be fun for all of us to watch over next couple of days as Massachusetts media and the Coakley Machine finally discovers it, verifies it, then verifies it again…Martha Coakley has an opponent
and his name is Jim McKenna.Thank You all Very Much -
You made this happen!
Tags: Attorney General, Jim McKenna, martha coakley, Massachusetts
McKenna Critical of Coakley over Public Corruption and Cape Wind Contract Details
Hector Montalvo has posted an interesting interview with Jim McKenna, the Republican write-in Candidate running against Martha Coakley for Attorney General.
It’s worth watching the whole interview. Jim hit Martha Coakley hard on two issues.
In the years while Coakely has been Attorney General, she has not been aggressive in fighting public corruption. The most visible issue has been the patronage scandal at Probation. For years it has been an open secret that certain key legislators, like Thomas Petrolati, Robert DeLeo and others, were using the Probation Department to give jobs to friends, family and political supporters.
Martha Coakley hasn’t done anything about it. Chief Justice Robert Mulligan finally had to intervene himself, suspend the Probation Commissioner, John O’Brien, and appoint his own investigator Paul Ware. One of the attorney generals primary functions is to prosesute public corruption.
Tags: Attorney General, Jim McKenna, martha coakley, Massachusetts
Jim McKenna
Martha Coakley is currently running unopposed for Attorney General. That is not because she is incredibly popular – and it represents a missed opportunity to have a real race for AG in November.
In a surprising move, the Boston Globe has today endorsed Jim McKenna for Attorney General. The Globe agrees that having a viable Republican candidate for AG is good for Democracy:
No office as important as AG should go unchallenged; giving even the most committed public servants a free pass at election time is a recipe for excesses and abuses of power.
So on Tuesday, Republican voters should do a favor to their party and the greater cause of electoral competition and write in a candidate for attorney general. If a candidate were to receive 10,000 votes — a tall order — he or she would be on the ballot in November. Two Republicans are waging write-in campaigns, and the more forward-looking choice would be Millbury attorney James McKenna, a former prosecutor and GOP party activist in central Massachusetts.
Tags: Attorney General, Jim McKenna, Massachusetts
Thomas Petrolati
The Globe on Sunday has a very important article about Rep. Thomas Petrolati’s attempts to thwart the investigation into the patronage scandal at the probation department.
Petrolati is at the center of some of the most egregious patronage abuses. His wife Kathleen is a top manager at Probation. A former aide, Andre Pereira, and the husband of his current aide, Colleen Ryan all have Probation jobs that pay more than $74,000. Scores of financial supporters have also received jobs at the Probation Department. And Petrolati is a close friend of Probation Commissioner John “Jack” O’Brien, who was suspended in May after the Globe revealed a pattern of political favoritism in hiring.
Tags: Cynthia Creem, Eugene O'Flaherty, John O'Brien, martha coakley, Massachusetts, Paul Ware, robert deleo, Steven Baddour, Therese Murray, Thomas Petrolati
Jim McKenna
Stickers now available to write in James McKenna for Attorney General
50,000 sticker packs (each containing 2 Stickers) are now available to voters who would prefer to use a sticker versus manually writing in James McKenna for Attorney General during the Tuesday, September 14th primary election. Mr. McKenna announced his candidacy on August 1st and there has been a long waiting list of supporters anticipating the stickers to pass out to family and colleagues.
Tags: Attorney General, Jim McKenna, Massachusetts
| Candidate | Media | Finance | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| » Jim McKenna (R) |   | write-in | |
| » Martha Coakley (D) |    | incumbent |
Jim McKenna needs to get 10,000 write-in votes in the primary to get on the ballot against Martha Coakley in the general election. Find out how.
|
Tags: Attorney General, Jim McKenna, martha coakley, Massachusetts
Martha Coakley
One of the interesting numbers in the recent Suffolk University poll, that is not much talked about, is Coakley’s surprisingly high unfavorability numbers.
Q7. Is your opinion of Martha Coakley generally favorable or generally unfavorable?
Never heard …………………….. 1%
Favorable ………………………. 40%
Unfavorable ……………………. 52%
Heard of/Undecided …………… 6%
This is a pretty bad number for someone who was within a few percentage points of winning a senatorship. One thing that is especially bad for Coakley is that just 1% of the respondents had never heard of Coakley. Not surprising after the massive amount of campaign advertising in her recent Senate race. It’s difficult for politicians to improve unfavorability numbers – and especially hard for a prosecutor – unless they get a big case that is out in front of the public. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Attorney General, martha coakley
Rob McCarthy running against Rep. John Tierney for the 6th Congressional District 
Deval Patrick and Insider Deals with National Grid 
Massachusetts 2010 Gubernatorial Results (Town by Town): Patrick Wins Sean Bielat Crushes Barney Frank in Debate on WGBH's Greater Boston 
3 of 8 Governor's Council Seats Open Links Massachusetts 2010 Statewide Election Results: Coakley, Grossman, Galvin, Bump 
Former State Rep. Christopher Asselin is out of Prison and Running for Representative Authors Montgomery Thomas: My Reflection on the 2010 MA Elections 
Latest News