Monday, November 12, 2012
If appointed, a special election would be held to fill Kerry's seat.
President Obama is considering appointing Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry as the Secretary of Defense, according to the Washington Post. Cabinet changeups are standard fare at the start of a second presidential term. Kerry, who is believed to want the Secretary of State job, would replace current Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, according to the Post. If appointed, Kerry would have to resign from the Senate and a special statewide election would have to be held to fill his seat. However, appointing Kerry to either seat could have political implications — it could mean the risk of losing Kerry's Senate seat in Massachusetts to Republicans, according to the New York Times. Obama not only would have to decide whether to risk Kerry's …
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Voters made decisions on car repairs, assisted suicide and medical marijuana in the statewide election.
Question 1: Right to Repair Voters approved the “Right to Repair” ballot question, which would give consumers more choices when fixing a car in today's election. According to numbers on boston.com, 85 percent of voters approved the question, with 51 percent of the state reporting at 10:15 p.m. The initiative requires automakers to make computer software codes for repairs more accessible to independent repair shops and car owners by 2015. But in July, state legislators devised a compromise that would give carmakers until 2018 to comply with the new law, according to a Boston Globe report. By approving Question 1, voters trumped that compromise and enacted the “Right to Repair” act as written on the ballot. “Voters sent a clear message to …
Marilyn Pettito Devaney won with 75 percent of the vote in the district that covers more than 30 communities.
[Results updated at 9:35 a.m. on Nov. 7] Voters returned Watertown’s Marilyn Pettito Devaney to an eighth term on the Governor’s Council, Tuesday, supporting her by a wide margin in the race against Newton’s Thomas Sheff. With 95 percent of the 270 precincts counted, Pettito Devaney received nearly 74percent of the votes, according to results collected by Patch and Boston.com. Pettito Devaney, a former Watertown Town Councilor, received 230,222 votes, and Sheff, who had run for mayor in Newton in 2005, received 80,891 votes. Pettito Devaney defeated two challengers in the Democratic primary in September before facing Sheff, who ran as an un-enrolled candidate. The Third District of the Governor’s Council includes 32 communities, from …
Democrat Elizabeth Warren beat incumbent candidate Scott Brown in the Massachusetts U.S. Senate race.
Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren has beaten incumbent Republican candidate Scott Brown for a seat on the U.S. Senate, according to the Associated Press. Warren is won by a margin of eight percentage points, 54 percent to 46 percent, making her the first female senator elected in Massachusetts. An estatic Warren addressed a crowd of hundreds of excited supporters at the Copley Fairmont Plaza hotel in Boston on Tuesday night. "We did what everyone thought was impossible," she said. "We taught a scrappy, first-time candidate how to win." "You took on the powerful Wall Street banks and let them know that you want a Senator out there fighting for the middle class all of the time," she said. "And despite the odds, you elected the first …
Retiring Barney Frank will be succeeded by scion of Kennedy political dynasty.
Joe Kennedy III will be a new U.S. Congressman from Massachusetts. At around 9:30 p.m., the Associated Press called the race for 32-year old Kennedy, who lives in Brookline, as he was beating by a 2-1 margin Norfolk Republican Sean Bielat in the race to represent the redrawn Fourth Congressional District. Rep. Barney Frank, a media celebrity Tuesday night at Kennedy's celebration party at the Newton Marriott Hotel, is retiring after serving the Fourth District since 1981. Yes, the Kennedys are a famous political family, but Joe III especially follows family tradition with this particular win: his father, Joe Kennedy II, served as Congressman from Massachusetts (in the 8th Congressional District) from 1987-1999. And his great-uncle, who …
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Vote in our poll by sharing your thoughts in the comments field below.
A Washington Post/ABC poll released this week showed that 80 percent of voters feel President Obama has done a good job dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Even New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie – a staunch supporter of Mitt Romney – praised Obama's response to the storm, which devastated parts of New Jersey and New York and caused serious damage in many other states, including Massachusetts. Obama also received the endorsement of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Thursday, with Bloomberg citing Obama's handling of Hurricane Sandy as one of the main reasons he decided to support the president. Meanwhile, Romney's previous pledge to abolish FEMA hasn't helped him in the wake of the storm. What do you think? Will Hurricane …
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Who do you think has the momentum coming into these final days of the election campaign?
Democrat Elizabeth Warren is up by five points over incumbent Republican Sen. Scott Brown in the latest WBUR/MassINC poll of the U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts. That's a near-total reversal of the last WBUR poll, which on Oct. 9 (right after the first presidential debate) had Brown up by four points. In fact, Warren has been trending upward in most recent polling. The New York Times' FiveThirtyEight blog has Warren up by four in an average of recent polls. The blog, which uses advanced statistical modeling akin to baseball sabermetrics (think Moneyball) gives Warren an 89 percent chance of winning the election. But Brown's got some significant energy on his side as well. He's been barnstorming the state with political luminaries like …
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Barack Obama and Mitt Romney squared off last night in the final presidential debate. Here's how Massachusetts Republicans and Democrats reacted.
Massachusetts Republicans and Democrats both expressed confidence in their candidates after the final presidential debate, with Republicans citing Gov. Mitt Romney projecting an image of a "capable Commander-in-Chief" and Democrats citing President Barack Obama's line about the military having "fewer horses and bayonets" as standout moments: that's the major finding of the Red and Blue Commonwealth flash polls sent out to local politicos immediately after the debate ended on Monday night. Obama and Romney faced off Monday night at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla., with CBS's Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer moderating a debate that focused on foreign policy, but regularly delved back into domestic policy differences between the …
Monday, October 22, 2012
Foreign policy was the topic at this last debate between Obama and Romney. Which candidate's views resonated with you?
The US economy managed to be a dominant presence in the final presidential debate Monday night, even in a debate focused on foreign policy. The tone of the debate between Pres. Barack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney was calmer than the last meeting, as topics included the impact of a soaring US budget deficit on American strength and security as well as Syria, Libya, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and more. Both men were articulate about their stands. But whose views spoke the most to you? Who do you trust with 'getting the 3 a.m. phone call'? Who won this final debate? Tell us in the comments below.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Wellesley residents who want to vote in the 2012 presidential election and other federal and state races have until Wednesday, Oct. 17 to register. Here's how, with links to mail-in voter registration forms and how to request an absentee ballot.
Wellesley residents who want to vote in the 2012 presidential election and other federal and state races have five weeks left until the Massachusetts voter registration deadline. The registration deadline is Wednesday, Oct 17. Typically, the Town Clerk's office at Town Hall is open from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. on the voter registration deadline day for in-person registrations. Residents can also download a mail-in voter registration form on the Secretary of the Commonwealth's website. Once that form is filled out and signed, it must be mailed to the Wellesley Town Clerk's and postmarked by Wednesday, Oct. 17 for you to be eligible to vote. Massachusetts also allows voters to vote by absentee ballot, according to the Secretary of the …
M C Stringfellow
7:16 pm on Wednesday, November 14, 2012
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