MA-SEN: Ogo Off the Ballot?

Ogonowski may be the best thing to happen to politics since Oliver Cromwell dismissed the Long Parliament. However, doesn't it raise a few red flags that a guy who has been preparing for this Senate run ever since he lost in that close shave election to Tsongas can't even get a First Down?

He understood the rules going in. Why was his team not ready for the ball game? The fact remains, he lost his race to Nikki Tsongas. This is what I usually say to my friends who want to place the superb Mike Steele with John McCain.

It helps to know how to win first.

This is horrible.  If he doesnt make the ballot it is a bad day in MA.  Kerry is known in that state as someone who never leaves Boston.  He is no Ted Kennedy who is known across the state as someone who actually travels outside of Boston.  Ogo could have given Kerry a real run for his money.

Great post! This was setting up to be a really interesting race -- I've been covering this on my blog for a few weeks. Not sure what Ogonowski's been playing at either - on his campaign blog, one of the two posts is about him collecting 20,000 signatures (not really sure what happened). Either way, it's pretty embarrassing for guys like Romney who endorsed Ogonowski and threw a few fundraisers for him. For the record, I love the Ogonowski ads, they're great, i love the message...but the general consensus of the pundits seems to defy the actual situation. Ogonowski is touted as Mr Grassroots, yet Beatty is the stronger candidate amongst the rank and file. Like you said, a good message doesn't count for much without a good volunteer organization.

I suppose the most disappointing thing about all of this is that it makes the Mass. GOP look like a bit of a joke...the best guy to challenge Kerry can't even get his name on the ballot! Ouch!

Hillary's base here wasn't just working class white people, but working class and low-information Democratic voters in general.

There are huge pockets of immigrant communities in areas like Lowell, Worcester, and South Boston, and Clinton drew much of their support here in the primaries.  Obama's base in Massachusetts was more upscale whites (your typical Northeast liberal elites) but their is a significant segment of the working class in this state that is not likely to vote for McCain, despite his stance on immigration, and even less for Ogonowski.

There is a lot of misinformation out on the internets about this story.  Some even lists Jim as an airline pilot which he never was. So here's how the signature process works in Massachusetts and why I feel confident that Jim will have over 10,000 signatures at the end of the day.

Campaigns have about 2 months to gather the raw signatures necessary for ballot access.  It is adviseable to garner twice as many signatures as necessary to withstand the inevitable non-certifiable signatures.

Signatures for a candidate are only certifiable if they come from voters enrolled in the candidates party or unenrolled voters what we here in Massachusetts call independents.

The signatures are turned in to town and city halls for verification of the signatures.  During that process names that are either illegible, not of the requisite party registration, or are note enrolled as a voter at all are disqualified.  The town clerks are supposed to use an on-line system from the Secretary of the Commonwealth's office to register the signatures in a central location.  This is the system that shows 9918 signatures. 

The town clerks have until a specified date, in this case May 27, 2008 at 5pm to certify the signatures.  The law states they must certify it does not state they must enter the signatures into the electronic system to my knowledge.  Routinely the signature count in the system is lower than the actual number of signatures verified. It was so in 2002 on a congressional campaign I worked on.

Then one week after the town clerks are supposed to finish signature certification the nomination papers are due at the Secretary of the Commonwealth's office.  During that time a candidate or his team may contest that uncertified signatures are valid, and often will win the challenges upon second looks.

For two reasons I am confident that Jim Ogonowski will gain over the 10,000 signatures required for ballot access.

1) the fact that there are signatures from towns that did not use the Secretary of the Commonwealth's system for certification.  I have been assured by the campaign as was the Boston Globe that the number will bring them over the threshold.

2) the campaign has been challenging uncounted signatures at town and city halls statewide and have been adding to their count. A count that is not being updated in the electronic system.

For those reasons I am confident that Jim Ogonowski will have ballot access.  Do I wish the process would have been easier, yes.  But he'll be on the ballot in short order and this will be behind him.