Donnelly hides in his hole

So, I checked the paper this morning hoping that newly-announced mayoral anti-candidate Tom Donnelly would be in it, presenting all his brilliant ideas about how he'll do things if anyone's stupid enough to vote for him.

Alas, I was disappointed.

Donnelly on Tuesday said Wong painted a "rosy picture" during the last mayoral race, while he gave a more sobering prediction of financial hardships the city would face over the next two years.

"The disparity is in what was promised," said Donnelly, after the Councilor-at-large debate at Fitchburg State College Tuesday night.

Donnelly did not return phone calls for a more extensive interview by press time Wednesday.

That's all we get. I suppose when you're as terrible a campaigner as Donnelly is, it's best to avoid interviews.

But we do have a little bit, so let's unpack it. Here's what Donnelly is basically saying:

During the last election, Lisa Wong gave people hope for great things, and hasn't been able to deliver on every single thing. I, on the other hand, was a gloomy gus who never even tried to inspire people. Therefore, you should vote for me!

Inspiring! Since the current mayor wasn't able to deliver on absolutely everything she hoped for (which of course is all her fault, and has nothing to do with the city council, economic downturn, etc.), people should vote for Donnelly, who promises absolutely nothing. That way they won't be disappointed when he delivers nothing!

Yay?

Oh, there's also this:

Transparency will be the focus of Donnelly's administration, if he is elected, he said Tuesday.

Is there even anything to respond to there? Transparency is what everyone running for office promises, especially if they have nothing else to offer.

Just how stupid does Donnelly think the people of Fitchburg are, anyway? Judging from the comments on Sentinel articles, most people who aren't rabid anti-Wong loonies have in no way forgotten what the guy's all about, or that he helped create the problems Wong has been trying to fix for the last two years. They also see through the whole "I'll swoop in late and avoid any actual campaigning" gambit.

His supporters are pretty much entirely limited to the nuts. Here's a typical example:

good for tom wong sucks and has ruined the city-we are number 11 at fu

Oh no! Not number 11 at fu! We need to get to work improving our fu ranking!

Those are your supporters, Tom. There aren't very many of them, and they're not very coherent. You are officially the anti-Wong candidate, nothing more.

And that's not a good thing to be.

Tom Donnelly running for mayor!

The Fitchburg mayoral race has been really boring this year. Instead of crazy people like Ted DeSalvatore and townie losers like Tom Donnelly, we had crazy quitter Rachel Rosenfeld for a disappointingly short while, and now have Fuzzy Voisine "challenging" the mayor.

But Fuzzy's heart is clearly not in it. He didn't even show up to the debate, and his little recorded message on FATV was just an embarrassment. He was never even a remote danger to Wong's incumbency.

Now things have changed. It's not just Wong vs Fuzzy anymore. Rather, Tom Donnelly is back!

With encouragement from many friends and residents, Thomas Donnelly has decided to launch a write-in campaign for mayor for this year’s general election on Nov. 3.

Donnelly originally decided not to run after mounting an unsuccessful bid for mayor in 2007, feeling that the people made it clear then that they did not support him enough to gove him their vote.

Yep, Tom's back! And he's running a write-in campaign. With like a week to go. I imagine that he's hoping people will have forgetten what a massive douchebag he is and vote for him based on pure anti-Wong sentiment.

Actually, I don't need to imagine. He basically stated as much:

Many people changed their mind, however, as Mayor Lisa Wong’s term progressed, according to Donnelly.

“After people saw the way things have been going on in the city, they were saying that ‘I wish I voted for you’,” said Donnelly.

This is the political equivalent of seeing a few bumper stickers that say "Don't Blame Me, I Voted for the Other Guy" and deciding that you'll ride that tiny wave of discontent to victory.

So, what to make of all this? I have a few thoughts.

First off, I don't really consider Donnelly to pose a significant threat to Wong. He probably poses more of a threat than Fuzzy, but that's not saying much. He's also getting into the race extraordinarily late, and won't be on the ballot. He doesn't have enough time to present any compelling ideas, yet has to convince people to go out of their way to write him in.

Basically, his only hope is to ride purely on anti-Wong sentiment, which he'll be splitting with Fuzzy. Is there enough of this sentiment to give him a chance? I seriously doubt it, but you never know.

How about his strengths? Well, the truth of the matter is that Tom Donnelly has never presented any compelling ideas. He ran last time on the "vote for me because I'm an old white guy who has experience" platform, which he can't do this time around. But his lack of ideas does mean that this is the perfect time for him to get into the race. He can say any bullshit he wants, the bootlick newspaper will print it, and there's little time for others to rebut it.

As far as I can tell, Donnelly doesn't have a website (which seems par for the course this time around, annoyingly). He may or may not have an organization behind him to work on his sticker campaign, which will require a lot more work than if he were on the ballot. He hasn't yet put forward any reasons why people should vote for him, beyond the fact that some people don't like Lisa Wong. Really, he's more of an anti-candidate than a candidate. He's the one who bitter old townies will vote for because he'll tell them he's going to turn on their streetlights.

On the plus side, Donnelly getting into the race (or at least pulling up next to it) will hopefully motivate more people to go vote. Before, it would have been easy for the average citizen to skip the election, because Wong was essentially unopposed (sorry Fuzzy). Now there's a real reason to get out there and vote. The rabid anti-Wong whiners will no doubt be out to support Donnelly, so the pro-Wong masses will hopefully be similarly motivated to show up. While they're there voting for Lisa, they'll hopefully also vote in a few good city councilors, and not the bunch of losers who came out at the top of the primary.

So, there we have it. We're in both the early and late stages of Donnelly's campaign. Let's see how crazy he can get!

Monster Truck Martini Rally!

Last evening I had the fortune of visiting Cafe DeStare on Main Street. It's quite nice! The super-talented "Scott Beddia Trio" (oddly composed of five people) was playing, the Red Sox game was on, there were sexy ladies, it was a nice place!

It's also the place that Lisa Wong praised as bringing some new life to Main St. in that fluffy Globe article about her.

Donnelly, of course, doesn't seem to care for it, and was quoted in the article as saying this:

"All this vision of wine bars is very cute, but that's not going to be the salvation of the city."

Hmm...

Okay, I agree, bars are not "the salvation of the city," even if they're nice like this one. Still, the rest of that article suggests that Donnelly is opposed to "wine bars" like DeStare (though actually it's a martini bar, but whatever).

So why was he (and his wife, and his very fetching daughter, and probably some sons or something, and maybe someone else associated with him) there last night?

More importantly, what the fuck is up with his giant monster truck that was illegally parked across the street from the bar? Witness the crappy cell-phone photo of it!



That's probably the best picture I could get of it. You can't make it out in the photo, but the back end (above the rear wheel) says something like "The Mad Fisherman," which is frankly quite confusing. Should I start calling Donnelly "The Mad Fisherman" now?

That's a rhetorical question. Of course I'm going to start calling him that!

A friend who saw the truck on a separate occasion (today, apparently) described it like this: "It’s like a bad campaign idea and a mid-life crisis rolled into one." That's possibly the most perfect description ever!

Here's another bad picture of the Mad Fisherman-mobile!



In this picture you can actually see the red DeStare sign across the street. Plus you can see the minivan-thing also illegally parked behind it (though it's dwarfed by Donnelly's overcompensation-mobile).

You see, the Mad Fisherman himself didn't appear to drive the bigass truck. That job must have been taken by one of his sharply-dressed followers. I'm not positive, but I suspect the minivan thing was his. Because, you know, it's like 60 feet from that spot to a giant free parking lot and that's too far for an important mayoral candidate to walk!

Anyway, Donnelly didn't really interact with anyone in the bar that he didn't already know. Which seems to be par for the course with the guy. On the other hand, neither did I!

But I'm not running for mayor.

Regardless, I look forward to Donnelly's new campaign slogan: "The Mad Fisherman will kick your ass into fiscal solvency with his bitchin' monster truck! Fuck yeah!!!"

I'd also like to thank him for making himself so easy to ridicule. Thanks Tom!

More Like May-snore-al Debate!

Proving that my friends are way cooler than anyone else's friends, I got together with some of them last night to watch the mayoral debate on FATV. Awesome!

Now, I'm actually not a big fan of debates. Truth doesn't much matter in a debate. You don't win by telling the truth (just ask Ron Paul), you win by having the most skill at debating. Debating is a very specialized skill, and has nothing to do with honesty. Personally, I'd rather see the candidates all submit specific multi-page position papers a couple of months before the election and be forced to defend them to a committee of fact-checkers and people who ask tough questions. But whatever.

On the other hand, the skills used in a political debate are some of the same skills that are valuable in a mayor. So it's not like it's totally pointless for deciding who'd be the best mayor. It's just totally pointless if you're trying to use it to examine the issues. It's about communication skills and creating the right perception, not good ideas. Communication skills and creating the right perception are important in a mayor though, so let's examine the boring debate!

Rather than pretend like the issues have relevance in this format, I'll just go through the candidates alphabetically by last name and give my perceptions from this debate:

Ronald Dionne:

Remember when James Stockdale was in the vice-presidential debates as Ross Perot's running mate? He seemed like a confused old man who was totally out of his element. That's who Ron Dionne brought to mind last night.

Don't get me wrong, Dionne seems like he's probably a pretty nice guy. He's been a truck driver in the past, and I bet he's fun to hang out with on a long trip.

But he didn't bring anything to the debate. He didn't really seem like he belonged there, or knew anything. And he kept getting confused about things. I expected him to bolt for the door at one point.

If there was an overall "loser" in the debate, it was probably Dionne.


Ted Desalvatore:

It's an old cultural bias that liars are "shifty-eyed". I don't know if that's true, but Ted may just be the most shifty-eyed person I've ever seen! Not only did he not look into the camera once during the entire debate, he actually went so far as to swivel back and forth in his chair!

Presumably he was talking to the tiny audience in the studio, but it came across really badly to anyone watching on tv.

I also think he believes that when you become mayor of Fitchburg you somehow become omnipotent and can do things like tell judges what to do. He did specify that he wouldn't be literally boxing with them (seriously!), but it's generally a bad idea to tell judges how to do their job. Anyway, my understanding is that they're not appointed by the mayor and I doubt they give two shits about what he has to say.

One fun thing he did say was pointed out over at Fitchburg Follies. It dealt specifically with a Prop 2 1/2 override for school budget stuff, and the quote is:

"I would be out there trying to sell the right decision, whatever the right decision would be."

Way to be informed!

He also thought that all it takes to manage a $95 million budget is "common sense." Oh my.

Of course, all that is getting dangerously close to an issue and as I said issues are meaningless in this format.

Anyway, DeSalvatore sucks on camera and came across really badly. Maybe a little bit better than Dionne, but he still ran third. Which I guess leaves two potential winners! Who will it be?

Tom Donnelly:

Nope, not the winner (I bet you can't guess who was!).

He never really seemed very comfortable on camera. All hunched-up and weird. Also, he attacked Lisa Wong out of the blue a few times, making himself the only candidate to really stoop to that.

A friend pointed out to me that Donnelly's the only one of the four candidates with the funds and likelihood to have done opinion polling. Does attacking Wong (and nobody else) mean that he fears her the most? Beats me, but it's possible! He certainly didn't seem too concerned about Ted.

He also spent a lot of time basically saying he'd have other people do his job, trying to put the blame for things the city council did on other people, and taking credit for things that Wong did. Weird.

He did at least look at the camera and basically act like somebody who might be a sort of bargain-basement mayor. Though it would require the town giving up a bit of dignity.

Overall, he just came across as sort of a dick though.

Lisa Wong:

Yeah, she won. Easily.

While Donnelly gave the impression that he might be mayor-ish, Wong gave the impression that she already has the mayor thing in the bag. She was good on camera, articulate, and actually made an attempt to present specific solutions to things.

Really, she was head and shoulders above the other three. Also, she's clearly much smarter and better-informed than the other three, which is pretty sad when you consider two of them are city councilors. She did manage not to come across as a snooty smart person though, which is probably good.

So yeah, Wong won.

And that's that for my mayoral debate wrap-up thing.

On a related matter, I notice there are two polls going on that ask who won the debate. One is over at Save Fitchburg, where the insane legions of Ted supporters have showed up to vote for him and pretend he didn't look like a cat watching a string during the whole thing. Still, he's just three votes ahead of Wong at this point (the others candidates are way down).

The other--much better--poll is at Hello Fitchburg. It's a better representation, I'd argue, since the DeSalvatore groupies don't generally try to stuff that one.

Why not go take both? Let your voice be heard!

[Update 9/18/07: Hey, there's even a third one at Fitchburg's Voice. It matches pretty well with the Hello Fitchburg one, and of course the Save Fitchburg one is still just gibberish that has DeSalvatore winning.]

Signs Point to Evil Cult of Lizard People Targeting DeSalvatore!

I woke up this morning wondering if anything newsworthy has happened lately in local politics. Perhaps there had been some unpleasant revelations about mayoral candidates or something. So, obviously I went to the Sentinel & Enterprise website to find out.

Oh my god, there's a giant DeSalvatore ad on the front page! Also, a really stupid article about how he thinks fairies and goblins are stealing his magic beans people are stealing his campaign signs and his dog is telling him what to do the DPW is unfairly taking his illegally-placed signs down.

To wit:

Mayoral candidate Ted DeSalvatore said about 150 of his signs have been torn down or vandalized in what he believes is an unfair attack by the city and detractors of his campaign.

"There is a small group of individuals who are concerned about losing a particular type of control they have within the city and I represent someone who they don't like," DeSalvatore said. "I don't know who they are or what their motivation is, but I know there are people who have gone out of their way to vandalize my signs."

Wrap your head around that for a second.

First he says there's a "small group of individuals" involved, then he says he doesn't know who's responsible. First he says they're concerned about losing some sort of control, then he says he doesn't know what their motivation is.

What the fuck? You can't say something in one sentence and then directly contradict it in the very next one! If you don't know, just say you fucking don't know! Don't make paranoid shit up and then try to throw a disclaimer on the end! Argh!

Not only that, but what's the deal with the Illuminati this group of made-up conspirators? Who the hell is "concerned about losing a particular type of control they have within the city"? That just sounds extra crazy and paranoid.

Most of the people I know who oppose Ted have no power in the city. Then again, they're also not out there tearing down signs. Maybe the Mothman whoever is tearing down the signs doesn't even care about Ted. Maybe they're just sick of seeing so many fucking signs everywhere. Or maybe, you know, Ted has alienated so many people that people just can't help themselves.

I found this quote interesting too:

"There's a small but effective group that has been working to keep me specifically out (of the campaign) because I'm not part of the system," said DeSalvatore, who has only been a councilor for two years.

Not sure who this refers to. Maybe I'm one of them! If so, I'm glad to know I'm effective! Now, I've never torn down a single sign. Nor do I know anyone else who has. But whatever.

Of course, the people who oppose Ted (by no means a small group, but rather just a large part of the population) don't do it because he's "not part of the system." For one thing, he's a fucking city councilor! He's absolutely part of the system, and the system sucks.

Rather, most people oppose him because he suffers from paranoid delusions, alienates everyone he comes in contact with, would destroy the town if he were elected, leads racially-charged marches, hurls racial epithets, bullies disabled veterans, and many, many other reasons.

Another fun bit:

Patterson said the DeSalvatore campaign has produced about 700 signs so far and DeSalvatore said about 150 of the signs have been taken down.

Not all of the DeSalvatore signs were vandalized. The councilor said about 40 of the signs were taken down by Department of Public Works officials.

DPW Commissioner Denis Meunier said city officials will collect any sign or poster that's posted in violation of the city code.

Holy crap that's a lot of signs. But extra holy crap that's forty signs he placed illegally!

I could understand one or two. People make mistakes, boundaries may be unclear, etc. With 700 signs, maybe I could even understand ten being placed badly. But forty? That's not a mistake anymore, that's just total disregard for the law.

Donnelly weighed in with a somewhat odd comment:

"It's a fine line between political freedom of speech and there being an obnoxious number of signs," Donnelly said. "But the one with the most flagrant number of signs is Ted (DeSalvatore). There are others who are getting their signs picked up too. But some people crying because they can't do what they want, it's all part of the campaign."

You can almost feel him wanting to say "Ted's a dick, he should quit it with the sign bullshit already" but restraining himself from doing so. Good self-restraint!

Lisa Wong's also mentioned, here's her whole bit:

Lisa Wong, a third mayoral candidate, said her campaign has had some issues with vandalized signs, but she's focused more heavily on door-to-door campaigning than putting up signs.

"I don't want to comment on other candidacies because I'm focusing on my own," Wong said. "I think candidates need to talk about the issues and that's what I'm doing."

How negative! Oh wait, she's not. Sorry, Save Fitchburg mouthbreathers!

So yeah, that's that. Good thing there's no other news worth reporting. Thanks, Sentinel!

Now Donnelly's Got an Op-Ed!

Man, Donnelly is all over the place these days!

In keeping with their four-part series, today the Fitchburg Pride has an opinion piece by Tom Donnelly. Find it here.

I'll confess right off, it's much harder to write stuff about Donnelly, Dionne, and Wong than it is to write stuff about DeSalvatore. They're much less crazy, and don't have his propensity for saying mindbogglingly stupid things. Those things are easy to write about, because they're interesting.

Which is one thing I'll give Ted. Everyone else is super boring compared to him. What with their sound ideas and lack of any discernible mental disorders... Dull!

Anyway, Donnelly wrote an Op-Ed. It's boring and sane, but I'll do my best to make fun of it anyway. It's what I do...

Fitchburg has been my home for over 45 years. My wife Joanne and I have raised our family and operated Donnelly Property Management, a successful business providing quality residential housing in various Fitchburg neighborhoods, for over 25 years. I graduated from St. Bernard's High School and received a bachelor's of science in secondary education from Fitchburg State College in 1972.

Honestly, this is one of my biggest concerns about Donnelly. As far as I can tell, the man's never left town. Some may see that as a strength ("He knows Fitchburg!), but I just think it's weird.

High school here, college here, adult life here. Obviously he likes Fitchburg, but what the hell? Does anybody really love their hometown that much that they don't want to ever leave it? Not even for college? To experience new things? Meet new people?

Meh, whatever.

Donnelly does the usual candidate thing. Going over his history and qualifications and whatnot. Then he gets into the issues a little bit.

Public safety and law enforcement go hand-inhand [sic] with maintaining safe neighborhoods for our citizens and our children. Like many urban communities Fitchburg is challenged by criminal elements disrupting the rule of law for their own illegal purposes. As mayor, I will support the capture and prosecution of these individuals to the fullest extent. Where federal jurisdiction exists, I support prosecuting criminals in federal court where longer sentences are available.

"Their own illegal purposes"??? That's a weird thing to say, Tom.

I've disrupted the rule of law before (as has everyone), and it wasn't for "illegal purposes". No, my purposes were entirely legal!

Truthfully, you could stab someone in the eye and still have a legal purpose. Maybe you wanted to see if eyes bleed red or if that gross almost-clear eye goo is all that comes out. That's legal to wonder about. I'm wondering about that right now, and it's perfectly legal for me to do so.

Also, I'm no legal scholar but I'm pretty sure that when there's federal jurisdiction, the Feds just do what they want. They don't really need your permission.

Donnelly continues:

Capturing and punishing criminals is not enough in any urban city, including Fitchburg. We must also act to prevent crimes before they occur. This can be achieved with comprehensive planning, including placing more officers on the street and an effective "neighborhood policing" effort emphasizing prevention as well as arrest and prosecution. Police officers working in neighborhoods can reach out to residents, building trust and gaining valuable information to prevent crimes before they occur.

Fucker. Your almost-nuanced understanding of how to deal with crime is inconvenient to me! And your redundant "urban city" phrase is not funny enough to address beyond this sentence!

Of course, Donnelly is right about the crime thing, and this is where he should be focusing. Prevention works much better than punishment. He would be better off focusing less on the police and more on community involvement, but the basic idea is a sound one.

He goes on to detail some stuff about finances. Still boring.

You know, maybe that's part of the problem. Most of the sane mayoral candidates are pretty damn boring. Because politics and reasonable ideas and stuff like that is all pretty boring.

So here are some ideas for Tom to be less boring and spice up the campaign!

• Start dressing like a pirate, complete with a parrot on your shoulder. But don't talk like a pirate, or people will think you're crazy.
• Pretend you're an albino, and anytime you step out into the sun start screaming. This also works if you pretend you're a vampire.
• Wear a giant foam cowboy hat. Refuse to explain why.
• Legalize (and regulate) prostitution. It's stupid that it's illegal and taxing it would bring lots of money to town. Also, it would make a lot of people freak out.
• Ditto for marijuana.
• Tell people that you have a third nipple. If you don't actually have a third nipple, get one.
• Make campaign signs that are like those "magic eye" pictures where you have to stare all crazy-eyed at them to see the image.

That's all I got.

Boring.

Donnelly's a blogger now!

Mayoral candidate Tom Donnelly has sunk to my level!

That is to say, he wrote a blog post. It's over at the Fitchburg Voice blog, and you can read it at this link.

Here's some of the blogtastic blogging Tom blogged:

This is the first time I have written on a Blog, and this campaign has been a learning experience about the role of the internet in local politics.

I have enjoyed working with my campaign volunteers in developing our campaign web
site http://www.donnellyformayor.com/ and I have read with interest some of the local Blogs which have been discussing the mayoral election. There is no question that the internet will play a more important role in politics in the next few years.

Ooh! Donnelly actually reads blogs! That's... actually not that surprising.

There are those who say blogs won't shape the election. I actually agree with that in some ways, since most voters don't read blogs and couldn't care less what they say. There's another side to things though...

Both the candidates and many "regular citizens" who are politically interested actually do read some of these ramblings. DeSalvatore obviously does, or he wouldn't have a statement on his website telling people not to listen to blogs. I'm quite confident Lisa Wong does as well, and Donnelly has just publicly lost his blogging virginity. Dionne I think mostly sticks to reading telegraphs from the Crimean War.

Still, three out of four!

The point of a blog, of course, is not to shape events. It's to shape discussions. Personally, I wasn't comfortable that the only political analysis in town used to come from the Sentinel's opinion pages and the people who post to Save Fitchburg. Which is why I started this blog.

If you look at the link list on the right of this page, you'll see several other blogs that have started more recently and also have their own viewpoints to present. Generally these are viewpoints that weren't being well-represented anywhere else. The more the merrier! To paraphrase Jello Biafra: "Don't hate the media, become the media!"

Hopefully some of the discussions on the local blogs at least make the candidates think a bit more carefully about these issues. They may or may not agree with any particular point, but at least they're thinking. And more importantly, they know what their constituents are thinking about. If the discussion were controlled by just a couple of outlets it wouldn't come close to representing the majority of citizens. It still doesn't, but the more people who speak up the better we can be represented. If the candidates never know about your concerns they'll never be able to help with them.

Unfortunately, it's only a matter of time before some of the commenters at Save Fitchburg start claiming that Donnelly has hurt himself by appearing on ReallyRachel's site. This is because those commenters aren't very bright, and also really dislike Rachel. I'm pretty sure most people who will be voting don't know her or particularly care.

Anyway, saying Donnelly would be hurt by this would be like saying that Democrats won't vote for a candidate if they appear on FOX News. Which is stupid. Just because you hate the medium doesn't mean you'll hate everyone who appears on it. Similarly, what obviously matters here is what Donnelly says. Not who runs the site where he says it.

That was a long digression. How bloggarific!

Donnelly's blog post itself is not all that blogtacular. Just a brief rundown of his background and so forth, plus some plugs for his website (which as previously noted isn't too bad). But it's nice to have him out there contributing to the discussion. At the time of this writing there are no comments on the post, so get with it and go ask him something!

All the candidates would do well to make themselves available in this way. So nicely done, Tom.



Disclaimer: I actually hate any word that has "blog-" stuck on the front. Like "blogtacular". My use of such words in this post does not constitute an endorsement of them.

Why the mayor matters

Those of you who've read me for awhile may know that I don't really read Save Fitchburg too often. Frankly it's just too dry for me. I can get the facts anywhere, what's interesting is analysis of those facts.

Well, I was feeling masochistic today and checked it out anyway. It was nice to find Jason's Where are we at? post, which attempted to evaluate where the current mayoral candidates stood after Mylott dropped out of the race. A reasonable enough read which I find myself pretty much in agreement with.

That post, however, was followed up with a post by "Rupert Knickerbocker" entitled Where are we at? Nowwhere! [sic] which tried to argue that it really doesn't matter who's mayor because:

For all practical purposes, the office of Mayor of Fitchburg is bordering on the point of irrelevancy. No one who has experienced and observed the changes in politics and government over the past 30 years in Massachusetts can mount an argument to the contrary. Local political power is dead-and has been for at least 20 years.

Okay, let's leave aside for a moment the fact that Mr. Knickerbocker has perhaps the most arrogant and annoying writing style I've ever seen (and I've read Daily Kos!), and focus on his arguments. After all, there may be a good point behind the condescension.

First:

Political and governmental power and influence flows from the purse-and Fitchburg has no real purse to speak of since Fitchburg, as every municipality in the Commonwealth, relies on the generosity of aid and assistance from Beacon Hill-and in the event you have failed to notice-Fitchburg has zero clout or influence on Beacon Hill.

This is the most glaring flaw with his argument. When you view the mayor's relevancy as nothing more than a measure of his/her budget you miss the point entirely.

While fiscal stability is obviously important (and both Donnelly and Wong have addressed it extensively), it's hardly the only thing that the mayor is responsible for. Yes, most of his/her duties will require financing, but not all of them. As an example, the perception of the town by those considering a move here (or even a visit) is something the mayor can influence with little more than his/her public statements.

In other words, you can have someone like Ted "We need to focus on what’s bad" DeSalvatore sabotaging perception of the town with statements like that, or you can have an elected official that knows how to make the town attractive to others.

Of course, public perception is also related to things like crime rates and the economy, both of which are in turn influenced by finances (among many other things). Crime rates have been decreasing, but you'd never know it to listen to some of the candidates. That gets back to public statements. Some people might actually check the numbers, but if they hear the mayor going on about how awful crime is in Fitchburg they could easily think twice about coming here.

As for the economy, getting aid from the state is of course nice. But the mayor's job is to properly manage what s/he has to work with. Some mayors can arguably do that better than others. Wong personally has a Master's degree in economics. Donnelly wants to establish a "Financial Advisory Team" and appoint a CFO for the town. DeSalvatore umm... "will bring an end to irresponsible spending". Nice idea, but the question is who's got the best plan for doing that? Obviously all candidates are not made alike.

Knickerbocker goes on to state how none of the candidates could ever possibly make a connection with Governor Patrick's office, meaning no state aid for us.

He's probably right about DeSalvatore. After all, when your campaign manager gave $500 to Romney's campaign you may not find a lot in common with Patrick.

Donnelly and Wong are much less certain. Knickerbocker wrote them off based on... well... nothing really. Based on the same evidence I say they at least have a chance.

It's a matter of them making the proper moves. It may not be easy, but to write it off as impossible is just defeatist. Wong may even have a slight advantage just by virtue of being a young Asian woman. Like it or not, image matters in politics and an administration that focused so much on "hope" could well find an interest in supporting an idealistic young (female, minority) mayor.

Basically, by Knickerbocker's criteria it wouldn't matter if we elected the finest political mind of the century or someone straight out of a mental institution. Does anybody in their right mind really believe that wouldn't make a difference?

It matters what the mayor chooses to do with the town's budget. It matters what tone the mayor sets for the town. It matters that the mayor represents the interests of all citizens. It matters that good decisions are made and bad ones avoided. A whole lot of things matter besides how much money we can get from the state.

Not all candidates are created equal. It doesn't matter how often you assert that people need to "realize the obvious" or pretend that people aren't "consider[ing] political reality" (man I fucking hate this guy's writing style!), the fact is that the candidates are vastly different. We're going to be choosing whether we elect a mayor who can understand the problems and work to fix them in a way that benefits the town or whether we elect one who makes things worse.

Yes, it matters. A lot.




ps You may have noticed I didn't mention Dionne at all in this post. Unfortunately, the guy's not done much to make himself relevant so I just don't see much reason to factor him in.

Donnelly has a website too!

Good news, people who find my reviews of mayoral candidate websites mildly amusing! Tom Donnelly has joined the fray!

Let's take a journey through donnellyformayor.com...


First off, big points to Mr. Donnelly for bravely using the word "for" in his URL instead of making it "donnelly4mayor.com". Smart move!

Not picking a stupid domain name offsets the points lost for having half a mile of mysterious blank space at the bottom of each page. What's up with that, Tom? Are you trying to hide the hit counter at the very bottom? Because we can just scroll down, you know.

Now is the point where I'd normally count the pages on the site and compare it to the other candidates. Donnelly certainly looks like the winner if you consider his navigation bar, but here we encounter the dark underbelly of deceit at the heart of this site! There are a whopping 13 navigation buttons, but a bunch of them are basically the same damn thing.

Contact Info, Contributions, Feedback, Help Tom, Site Problem?, and Stay in Touch all fall under the general category of "contact me". Sure, they're mildly different, but they could have all been on the same page with no problem so I'm only counting them as one page. Donnelly still leads the pack on sheer website size, but man that's a lot of contact pages! Hell, even the banner at the top of every page has contact info on it. On the plus side, this does suggest that Donnelly really really loves people to contact him, which is sort of cute.

The front page of the site has a friendly welcome in which he mentions "fiscal stability" and crime reduction twice. One suspects that this may be what his campaign will focus on. He also has contact information in the body of the page. Someone give the guy a call already, I'm starting to think he might be lonely.

Let me take a moment to digress here. What the hell is up with people not proofreading their websites? Is it really that hard to just read the thing over after you've made it? Then you can avoid minor but stupid things like:

please visit my campaign headquarters at 713 Main Street at [sic] call the headquarters at 978-342-8590

You end up looking stupid when your campaign website has typos, grammatical errors, and crazy punctuation and capitalization. Spell-check doesn't cut it!

But back to the site...

The Bio page is pretty decent, if a bit dry. It doesn't have the bizarre gaps we see in some other candidates' biographies, so I guess he's not trying to hide much. Although halfway through the page the format changes from going chronologically from top to bottom to the reverse. Very disorienting if you're trying to read it while drunk (which I'm not, but I assume others will be).

There's also a nice picture of his family, which looks less creepy than some pictures of this sort. Unfortunately it's over-compressed, which makes his daughter's eyes look like they're glowing demonically.
Moving on, the Issues page is the best I've seen so far. It addresses a lot of issues, includes some specifics, and is light on the crazy. Crime prevention and fiscal stability predictably get top billing.

A bit on "City Government Reorganization":

As someone who has navigated the halls of city government for years, I am aware of how frustrating it can be to communicate and find the answer to simple questions.

I will as Mayor immediately upgrade our telephone system, work to improve our computer technology and make all forms available on-line to better serve citizens.

Aha! So that's why there are so many ways to contact him!

He also kisses elderly ass:

Our senior citizens are a source of wisdom and inspiration for all of us. We must continue to develop programs and plans to address the needs of this growing population, especially in the areas of transportation, housing, health, public safety and recreation.

That's not unreasonable, of course. Sucking up to the elderly has rarely hurt a candidate, and I don't think there's been a lot of talk about them in general. I'm just jealous, because as a white male between the ages of 18 and 34 nobody sucks up to me except every advertiser in the country.

Overall, the issues page is really pretty decent. At least on par with Lisa Wong's, and probably a bit better. Well done!

There's a Links page, which is as boring as one would expect. That's all about that.

Moving on to the Photo Gallery! It's less entertaining than Ted DeSalvatore's photo gallery, but that's mostly because it's a real photo gallery and not a crazy-ass collection of photos of garbage (literally). There are two photos I particularly enjoy though.

First is this incredibly subtle one entitled "Tom going door to door.":Apparently the title "Tom standing next to a flag" was deemed too obvious.

My other favorite is the one of his campaign announcement. It's big and badly framed, so I'm just cropping out one section. Just look at the excitement in the crowd!

There's also a Press Release page, but all press releases are boring. They're also linked from the Issues page, so it's another redundant link!

That's about all, so what's the verdict?

In my opinion, this is the best of the mayoral campaign websites to appear so far. Good "Issues" page, decent background info, nothing too crazy, and innumerable pathways to get in contact with him if you want to. It loses a little bit for not being proofread adequately, but is still miles better than DeSalvatore on that account (as well as just about everything else). Wong's site is a bit more streamlined and grammatically immaculate, but doesn't quite have the same depth of information available. Dan Mylott's site is of course now a moot point since he's dropped out of the race.

You're left, Ronald Dionne! Make with the website!

Mayoral candidate websites are fun!

As a public service (and because I'm bored at work), I hereby bring you a critique of the websites of the mayoral candidates. This will be a short preview, because I couldn't find websites for three of the five announced candidates. If anybody knows where they are (if they even exist) please pass them along. In the meantime, enjoy!

• Mayor Dan Mylott - www.mylott.com:
  
  
  Well, it's almost a website. It has a picture of the mayor and a bunch of signs. It also has old news that he's running for mayor, and a slick babelfish translation button at the bottom so you can try to translate it from French to German (doesn't work), or read the page in what I assume would be badly mangled Japanese.
  
  Here's his catchy slogan to illustrate:
  
  Sweet...
  
  Oddly, that's it. There are no active links on the page at all. Nothing about issues. No list of qualifications. Nothing.
  
  Well, unless you dig into the actual html, where you can find the old links commented out. It appears this website is just recycled from the Mayor's 2001 campaign. As evidence, here's the image beneath Dan's picture on the front page:
  
  Compare to the image in the same spot on every other page:
  
  Now, there's nothing wrong with updating an old campaign website for your current campaign, but sheesh Dan, at least put something on the new site!
  
  For a trip down memory lane, here are the old pages no longer linked to:
  News & Events
  "Where Dan Stands"
  "Dan's Biography"
  More news, apparently
  Old gallery of funny pictures
  
  Now, I'm sure that Mayor Mylott could at least update his Biography. Plus I'm willing to bet he might still stand for something or other. Maybe all that information is out in the media, but it's beyond me why he's not making his own case. C'mon, Mr. Mayor, give us something new!


• Lisa Wong - www.votelisawong.com:
  
  
  
  Lisa Wong's website when it first came online was embarrassing. A single page of mostly white space with a weird-ass slogan and very little of anything else on it. Mylott's page above was superior in comparison, which is pretty sad.
  
  Happily, they've switched places. Where once Mylott had a real site that turned into one page, Wong's one page has turned into a real (four page!) website. The new site is in place now and it's much better. It still has its quirks (it would probably be good to rename the main page to something other than "Page 1" for instance), but it's at least got some substance to it now. For instance, there's this awesome picture of her and her brothers preparing for a formal-dress game of "Red Rover":
  
  
  
  Aside from the charming family photos, there's actually a pretty in-depth Issues page. I won't bother quoting it here, but overall it's a pretty decent list of what Wong hopes to do as mayor. As such, it may be more of a "plans" page than an "issues" page, but at least it's not an annoying "What Lisa Stands For" page.
  
  I'm also going to go out on a limb and bet that Lisa actually made this website herself. Why? Because the title of the "meet Lisa" page is actually "ABOUT ME". Aha!
  
  This isn't a bad thing, though. There are zero cases of "it's" being used when "its" should have been, nor are there problems with "insured" versus "ensured". This automatically makes Wong a better writer than 95% of the people on the internet. Which is obviously a qualification you want in a mayor.
  


• Ted DeSalvatore - not really...:
  
  
  I don't know if Ted DeSalvatore has a real website hidden away somewhere. After all he's a computer guy right? Or if my suspicions are correct and this is his LinkedIn profile, a "Computer Service & Support Training Specialist". Either way, a dude who should have a website.
  
  But no, once again I've linked to the hilariously incomplete Team to Elect DeSalvatore's contact form. Incidentally, if you're an obnoxious blogger who perpetually makes fun of Ted they probably won't want to hear from you, even if you try to be nice.
  
  Regardless, it's not really Ted's site so it doesn't count in the grand total.
  
  UPDATE 7/18/07: He's got one now! Review is here
  


• Ronald Dionne - ?:
  No website I could find, but I don't think anyone gives him much chance anyway. He could better his chances with a bit of self promotion on the web, perhaps. But then people might have to give him more of a chance.


• Tom Donnelly - ?:
  I couldn't find a website for him either. Probably he's just too big a pussy to make one.
  
  UPDATE 8/3/07: Not so! Review is here

There you have it, your handy "Progressive Fitchburg Guide to Mayoral Campaign Websites, Featuring the Unicow". Now back to work.

Tran is obsessed, Donnelly is a pussy

I've been bored shitless with Fitchburg politics lately. There's only so much pointless bickering and vapid proclamations from people running for office that I can take before needing a break.

But one thing seems to get me back in the mood to ramble, and that's Dean Tran's insane focus on sex offenders.

As I've blogged about before, Tran was instrumental in pushing the law that now says level 2 and 3 sex offenders can't live within 1,000 feet of things like schools and playgrounds. I criticized it at the time as being "nearly impossible to enforce", among other problems.

Guess what, seems like they're having trouble enforcing it! Go figure!

Per a recent Sentinel article:

Not one sex offender has paid a citation for living within 1,000 feet of a school, park or daycare center, more than eight months after city councilors unanimously passed the residency restriction ordinance, city officials said this week.

[...]

Some councilors suggested this week that the difficulty in moving forward with both of Tran’s proposals shows such legislation is easy to vote for, but too difficult to implement.

The other proposal of Tran's mentioned here is of course his brilliant idea to put the names of level 2 and 3 sex offenders on water bills, because there's nothing people enjoy more than paying their bills while thinking about sex crimes. It's two great tastes that go great together, as they say.

I think Tran has watched too much Fox 25 news or something, because he seems to have sex offenders on his mind far more than anyone really ought to. He did offer this lame defense of his bill:

Tran defended his petitions, saying that those who are against these ordinances offer nothing in their place.

“There’s no stakes higher than losing a child in the city, and I’d rather be proactive then reacting to a situation such as this,” Tran said.

Umm, Mr. Tran... call me crazy but I'm pretty sure this is reactive and not proactive. These are people who already committed a crime. You're just really keen on shouting their names around after the fact. Perhaps you've convinced yourself that putting names on water bills is the way to keep them from re-offending, but since there's a pretty low recidivism rate among sex offenders anyway maybe you could focus on preventing these crimes from happening in the first fucking place. You know, with things like treatment of those who are at risk but haven't committed a crime, or giving kids more safe havens and activities in the community. Just a thought.

Also, about not offering anything in their place... If I propose a bill to have skywriters decorate the sky above Leominster with insulting slogans (fuck those assholes and their fiscal solvency!) and everyone says "no, that's a dumb idea" they're not obligated to present something similar in its place.

Anyway, Tran's lost to the horrors of tabloid news, but at least mayoral candidate Thomas Donnelly has the right idea. Too bad he's only developed a spine recently:

Councilor at-large and mayoral candidate Thomas Donnelly slammed the ordinance as “feel-good legislation.”

Donnelly said even the smallest amount of effort or tax money to support these ordinances should be considered too much.

Donnelly said that he couldn’t have voted against the residency petition last September because, “I tried questioning it last time, and I was crucified.”

Okay, I agree it's feel-good legislation. I agree that tax money going to support these ideas is a bad idea. Like Donnelly, I've felt this way for quite awhile. But unlike Donnelly, I didn't vote in support of the very fucking thing I'm currently criticizing. Because I'm not a giant pussy.

Maybe Donnelly would indeed have been crucified then, but at least he'd have shown some guts and taken a stand on something he believed. He should be crucified now for voting for his own political expediency rather than principle or for the good of the city.

Mr. Donnelly, if you get elected mayor you'll have to stand up to situations where you could get "crucified" if you do something unpopular. For Christ's sake I hope you have the balls to ignore that peril and do the right thing whether or not it's popular.

As always, Crazy Ted DeSalvatore got a few words in too. They're typical of him in that they're directly contradicted by fact.

Ward 4 Councilor and mayoral candidate Ted DeSalvatore said he thinks the laws have a big effect in the long term in persuading sex offenders to move somewhere else.

[...]

“Does it stop child abuse? No,” DeSalvatore said. “Does it create a new atmosphere of consequences? I think so.”

What consequences would those be, Ted? Oh yeah, the unenforceable ones... Yeah, I'm sure those are super-effective.

Man am I glad we've got more mayoral candidates than just a giant pussy and a terminally-deluded fucktard. We've also got a mayor who doesn't seem to grasp basic math, a guy I don't know much about who probably won't win, and umm... an economist. Wong looks better all the time.

Incidentally, it's actually worth reading the Sentinel article in full here. It's much better reporting than you generally get from the Sentinel, and even presents the viewpoints of someone who actually knows what she's talking about!

This is getting tiresome.

Candidates announcing they're running for things just isn't that exciting.

Donnelly's officially in the mayoral race, having pulled papers yesterday.

He had a few things to say, but has yet to really present a platform. He does think the town needs a CFO, which given our recent bond rating issue makes sense.

That's about the only idea presented in the Sentinel piece though, aside from a vague (and somewhat naive) statement that places that can't stand on their own feet shouldn't necessarily get federal grant money to help them. Not sure what to think about that, but the thought requires more fleshing out before it can be either accepted or rejected.

Whatever the case, he should make haste on presenting a damn platform!

Dean Tran is also running for re-election to City Council. Like every other damn candidate for everything he thinks we need business growth.

He's also proud of his sex-offender law, which I already discussed back in October. Aside from his unhealthy obsession with sex offenders (which is hardly uncommon in politics these days), Tran seems like a pretty decent councilor. So good luck to him I guess.

On a non-election related note, I stumbled across the Sentinel's Locals reflect on four years of war article and was struck by this remarkably honest but geographically delusional quote:

Leominster resident Antonio DiGeronimo, 92, said he thinks the war is necessary.

"We have to protect our oil," he said.

Holy fuck.

Here's another one

Well, we have another mayoral candidate. Or will shortly, anyway.

According to a whopping four paragraphs in the Sentinel, city councilor Thomas Donnelly is indeed going to run for mayor. He hasn't pulled papers for it just yet, but has confirmed that he plans to.

That's it. That just told you absolutely everything of significance in the Sentinel piece. Gee, I wonder who the local press is going to back...

Anyway, I don't know a whole hell of a lot about Donnelly, but from what I can gather he seems like a pretty decent guy. He opposes Dean Tran's dumbass idea to put sex offender names on water bills, which means he has at least half a brain.

Once he announces a platform (supposed to happen in "the coming weeks") there will be something to talk about. For now just thank your lucky stars there's a viable alternative to Mylott and DeSalvatore.

Oh, and if you're in the mood go over to the Fitchburg Pride Poll and give him a vote. He's already got half the votes of the ballot-stuffing DeSalvatore team. Even if you don't support him, it'd be nice just to even things up.

(PS If you're a geek like me and use the Firefox NoScript extension, set it to temporarily allow fitchburgpride.com or the JavaScript-based poll won't show up for you.)