Saturday, October 18th, hundreds of residents "spotted" the duo knocking on doors in Roxbury and Dorchester. Is that Sonia whatever-her-name-is? And is that MC Spice? The conversation is sparked, and the pitch to get support at the polls is made. Residents are wowed to have Ms. Diaz at their front door showing her normality and human side. Most were especially glad to see an old friend of the community supporting the Democratic nominee for state senate.
In case you missed it, Yvonne Abraham yesterday had an interesting piece that raises the question of whose campaign is really for sale: Sonia Chang-Diaz, who took $500 from some woman in Cambridge, or Dianne Wilkerson, who took $7,000 from the management company at the Roxse Homes project (from which Wilkerson rents her campaign office)?
House Speaker DiMasi to endorse Sonia Chang-Diaz in 2nd Suffolk state-senate race.
Councilor Turner tells PoltickerMA that he doubts Sonia Chang-Diaz is really Latina and that her support really comes from white women who can't stand the idea that a black man could get into the White House instead of Hillary Clinton.
Needless to say, Turner is backing incumbent Dianne Wilkerson in her sticker campaign, calling her "a treasured resource" the 2nd Suffolk District - or rather, real blacks and Latinos in the district - can't afford to give up.
No word yet if she will continue her "Chang-Diaz is a white devil controlled by Cambridge honkies" strategy, however.
Ross Levanto will be posting Twitter updates from today's recount of those 2nd Suffolk precincts.
I am volunteering for Sonia Chang-Diaz as a monitor during the recount Saturday at City Hall.
I plan to post updates via my Twitter account during the day, updating as much as I can.
PolitickerMA reports that should the state Senator lose her recount, she'll run a sticker campaign in November:
"If it not successful," Wilkerson said referring to the recount, "I am prepared to run as a Democrat in a sticker write in campaign on the ballot in November."
If the convicted tax evader does lose the recount, she can't run as a Democrat, of course. Just ask Joe Lieberman.
Is anyone surprised? Wilkerson and Chang-Diaz have sought paperwork for a re-count.
Interesting to see how Wilkerson can master that recount paperwork, but not actually filing for elections or campaign finance reporting (twice.)
PolitickerMA has both stories:
Chris Lovett, meanwhile, files an election-night report that would seem to indicate Wilkerson was still in a fighting mood, claiming that Chang-Diaz won't represent the overwhelmingly black precincts in their 2nd Suffolk district:
... "I think what [the primary outcome] proves is that you could be a state senator without representing a good core of this community," said Wilkerson, "and that makes me sick."
Unless she wages a write-in campaign in November against Sonia Chang-Diaz - who unofficial results show is the winner in their rematch for the 2nd Suffolk state senate seat.
Click on the link for other Boston results in today's Democratic primaries, including: In the 5th Suffolk (Dorchester and Roxbury) state rep's race, Marie St. Fleur easily beat back longtime politico Roy Owens, while in the 6th Suffolk (Roxbury, JP and Roslindale), incumbent Willie Mae Allen showed Faustina Gabriel what's what. Over in the 10th Suffolk (West Roxbury and South Brookline), it was incumbent Mike Rush in a cakewalk over Pamela Julian.
State Senate candidate Sonia Chang-Diaz came to Beacon Hill this morning, attending Hill House's annual pancake breakfast at the Firehouse on Mt. Vernon Street. Voters were excited to see her there, and it's pretty clear many across the 2nd Suffolk district are following the race.
Today's Boston Globe endorsed Sonia Chang-Diaz in the Mass. 2nd Suffolk State Senate race. The election is Tuesday, September 16. From the endorsement:
Chang-Diaz has demonstrated solid knowledge of the issues facing the district ... she understands the familes in the 2nd Suffolk and elsewhere are starved for better educational opportunities.
The Boston Globe actually covers a Boston political race:
A nice review of the 2nd Suffolk State Senate race. The primary vote (which will be the only vote that matters) is on September 16.
Editor's Note: I have noted I am voting for Sonia Chang-Diaz in this race.
A nice review of the 2nd Suffolk Senate race aired on WCVB-TV last night.
The primary between Sonia Chang-Diaz and Dianne Wilkerson is scheduled for September 16.
Full disclosure: I am supporting Chang-Diaz.
While many of us were following breaking developments regarding Senator Wilkerson's finances this past weekend, the Boston Phoenix published a nice state-of-the 2nd Suffolk Senate race overview in its current edition.
Full disclosure: I recently posted an endorsement of Sonia Chang-Diaz in this race.
Some interesting take-aways from the story:
Mike Ball surveys some of the issues in the repeat race between incumbent state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson and challenger Sonia Chang-Diaz.
The Globe reports on state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson's desire to avoid another embarrassment like two years ago, when she, oops, forgot to file her nomination petitions on time. The paper writes:
This year, Wilkerson qualified for the primary ballot with a whopping 3,000 signatures, 10 times the amount she needed.
Not quite. As Linda Rodriguez at the South End News reports, Wilkerson actually only qualified with 428 signatures, just one more than her opponent, Sonia Chang-Diaz. This doesn't mean the remainder of her 3,000 signatures were bad, necessarily, just that elections officials stopped looking after a certain point.
What one could call the opening round in the race between State Senator Dianne Wilkerson (D- 2nd Suffolk) and her Democratic challenger, Sonia Chang-Diaz, takes place tonight.
Boston Democratic Ward Committees are hosting a forum featuring the two candidates. After the forum, Boston's Ward 5 Democratic Committee is taking an endorsement vote. It might be only June, but this race has begun.
Here's an email I received regarding the event from the Boston Ward 5 Democratic Committee Chairman (NOTE: I am a member of the Boston Ward 5 Democratic Committtee):
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