The Firefighter Township or Money Doesn't Talk so much as it Shrieks

Well, as predicted, Ken Donnelly bludgeoned his way to victory last night in the 4th Middlesex democratic state senate primary.
And why?
Because 45,000 USD however carefully deployed and well intentioned can't beat 100,000 USD and a nigh limitless pool of off duty fireghter-volunteers.
Ken Donnelly debates poorly to indifferently but thanks to the above factors he runs hard on election day...and what the hell it worked.
Other factors played into last night's victory as well.
About 4,000 of Jim Marzilli's politically homeless base broke for Donnelly in the weary wicked end but only after a summer of the most abject beggary and wheedling from the Donnelly campaign.
The candidate and the rump of Jim Marzilli's high command simply did a better more effectively financed job of cajoling the state senator's core cohorts.
The studied "neutrality" of many local politicians also played a factor, Lexington Representative Jay Kaufman for example finally climbed down off the fence an hour after the polls closed to all but weep with joy when he introduced Donnelly at his victory last night.
Word on the street is, some of the public sector unions leaned on Rep. Kaufman to steer clear of the fight...but that is but a rumor my friends.
Of sturdier stuff is Arlington's own Representative Sean "I vote for Everyone" Garballey who was statesman-like in his absence from Donnelly's victory party last night. Word is, he was out celebrating his own primary victory over exactly no one at all.

The lessons learned from this primary aren't too complicated, some of them are strangely sad to be honest:
The sun has set on the fabled buzzcuts from Arlington, they've made two attempts to bust out of their redoubt in Town Hall and have been decisively rebuffed both times.
This is in part because they do not go into coalitions very easily. For example, popular Arlington selectperson Annie LaCourt's favor if not her endorsement might have been fetched by the Hurd campaign but for the buzzcut's insistence on challenging LaCourt's re-election last year.
Their base is also aging rapidly out of the game the term "old Arlington family" now refers to actual retirees in many cases.
Moreover if you want to win in the 4th Middlesex, you need professional campaign management, you might without it but you need the stones of a burglar, the stamina of a Jamaican donkey and throat of William Jennings Bryan.
You can see the problem easily if you are a popular selectman from Arlington with low name recognition outside of town and limited funds.

As for Ken Donnelly he has won and won convincingly but his long term prospects remain clouded.
He can fundraise like a sumbitch and summon fire-battalions of volunteers but he is still a dodgy script dependent public speaker. To win this fight he practically had to promise the liberals free hookers and the biblical seven phat years of prosperity...delivering on all of it is impossible, delivering on a little will be daunting enough.
Moreover he lost Arlington his home town by six hundred votes last night, he ran amok everywhere else but Arlington has the highest democratic turnout in the district...to do even that well he needed the help and support of the Mahon machine at Town Hall. This raises some long term electoral questions in the mind of humble Elias.

And as always, there are ruffled feathers on the other side, wise democrats should attend to this with some patience and sympathy.
Lord knows we all know what it is like to lose.