The Bonfire of the Regulars...

The winners and losers from yesterday's 4th Middlesex special election are a diverse lot.
Burlington representative Charles Murphy made more than a few friends south of his hometown, however his chief henchmen in Arlington, former selectman Charlie Lyons proved incapable of delivering on his alleged promise of a thousand votes. The whole Murphy vesus Marzilli thing pretty much got blown out of the water last night, Murphy lack of a ground game outside Burlington pretty much sealed his fate in a fight between Jim's liberals and Ken's firemen.

Kenneth Donnelly despite his poor debate performance and unpolished style was able to project a great deal of strength at the precinct level in Arlington, normally the preserve of last night's winner, state representative Jim Marzilli. He did this by pitching every off duty police officer & firefighter into the fray and collecting big donations from out of state unions. Notably, Donnelly made it a point to drop by the Arlington Sons of Italy last night and loudly proclaimed his endorsement of Marzilli raising the distinct possibility that the former fire-fighter might get into the state rep's race if Marzilli wins special election in December. This was a serious topic of conversation last night at the Sons of Italy. Another Donnelly candidacy though depends on how much money he has left over from this campaign (a good state rep's challenge in Arlington costs upwards to $55,000 last time I checked)and whether or not his public sector union base has the stomach for an another special election in Arlington.
Donnelly might do better next fall if Marzilli wins next month and Speaker DiMasi then declines to call a special election. That way, Donnelly can rebuild his finances, rest his "volunteers", and concentrate on electing Marzilli thus to prove his bona-fides to the liberal base in Arlington. This might also be the best way for Donnelly's key backers; selectperson Diane Mahon and George Laite to recoup their losses, if they can't retain a state senate seat maybe they can do some business in the general court.
Meanwhile, last time I checked, Woburn rep Pat Natale has not conceded the election to Marzilli...but that was as of 11pm last night, he might have come to his senses since then. Hard to say what benefits Pat derived from this campaign otherwise, he made wild accusations and made a desperate last minute bid for anti-illegal immigrant pop which did him just exactly no good at all. There was talk a month ago that Natale wanted to use this campaign to test the waters for a statewide run, based on what I saw, Pat should rethink this notion in detail.

Overall, Marzilli won because there was a split and a bad one in his local opposition, normally 30 to 40% of the Arlington vote is against him, but with Murphy & Donnelly contending for the same cadres this left Jim free to run his numbers up in the progressive precincts in Lexington and Arlington. The name of the game last night was voter-ID and Marzilli won it.

Anyway congratulations to Jim, he worked hard, he reaped the benefit.
Now on to the general election.