Ballot, primary, one each
Sep. 16th, 2008 12:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
edschweppeOnce again, the (non-Presidential) primary election season is upon us in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. I did my civic duty around 8AM, and was the 26th voter at my precinct.
Remarkably, the Republican Party couldn't even get one person to run against Niki Tsongas for US Representative, even though this will be her first general election campaign for the seat. She won a special election last year by a less-than-crushing 51-46% margin. Actually, on second thought, that's not remarkable, considering how irrelevant the Republican Party is in Massachusetts. Our current governor is a Democrat, but the last four were Republicans, including Mitt "I wanna be President!" Romney, and none of them did much in the way of local party building.
Meanwhile, the Boston Herald reports that most of the money raised so far by the outfit trying to repeal the state income tax is coming from rich, out-of-state Libertarian types:
Oookay.
Remarkably, the Republican Party couldn't even get one person to run against Niki Tsongas for US Representative, even though this will be her first general election campaign for the seat. She won a special election last year by a less-than-crushing 51-46% margin. Actually, on second thought, that's not remarkable, considering how irrelevant the Republican Party is in Massachusetts. Our current governor is a Democrat, but the last four were Republicans, including Mitt "I wanna be President!" Romney, and none of them did much in the way of local party building.
Meanwhile, the Boston Herald reports that most of the money raised so far by the outfit trying to repeal the state income tax is coming from rich, out-of-state Libertarian types:
The push to scrap the state income tax - billed as a grassroots movement - is heavily bankrolled by an odd-ball collection of libertarians who don’t even pay taxes in Massachusetts, including a crackpot who’s likened Homeland Security to the "Gestapo" and a "Biblical capitalist" who thinks paper money should be eliminated.
The Committee for Small Government - the self-described "grass roots organization" backing the Question 1 ballot initiative to abolish the state’s income tax - collected almost 60 percent, or $211,000, of its $364,000 total from out-of-state donors, a Herald review shows.
Oookay.