Election Reflections

Now that the dust has settled from the election on Tuesday, I have had time to reflect on the campaign(s) as a whole. I’d like to share those reflections with you.

I think the most telling aspect of Cape campaigns is that Sarah Peake, Demetrius Atsalis, Matt Patrick, Dan Wolf and I ran straight forward, clean campaigns on the issues and without misleading voters. Our opponents, however, showed their true colors, if not early on, then in the last weekend of the campaign with what can only be described as extremely negative and misleading mailings. The timing of those mailings was such that there was no opportunity for us to adequately respond to the intentionally misleading information.  Political lies are lies non-the-less.

In the beginning of the campaign, my opponent, Patrick Foran hinted at his character by cyber squatting on (stealing) my web domain name. I didn’t bring that up during the campaign though it was an indication of his character. I didn’t bring up during the campaign that the company he is president of was investigated and fined by the Attorney General’s office for, “misleading” clients. Apparently he didn’t learn from the $135,000 fine and refunding of more than $80,000 in premiums to customers because, during debates he made it perfectly clear that he was willing to mislead voters on essentially every issue (except, perhaps, ballot question 2) in an attempt to garner their votes.  

Examples of his misleading:

·         He mentioned how frequently I vote with the Speaker of the House – but ignored the reasons behind the votes.  He also failed to say that I voted with Minority (Republican) leadership 47% of the time (which also reflects how often the Speaker and the Minority leader agreed). 

·         Foran also posted on one of his websites that in the two weeks prior to October 27 (the date of the posting), that I received $30,000 “in special interest money from outside of the district in an attempt to influence the outcome of this race.” My campaign finance reports show that this, too, was false.

·         He indicated he would never vote for an unbalanced budget, implying that I had. Though he claimed to understand the budgeting process (having been on the Yarmouth Finance Committee), he apparently doesn’t know that in the six years I have been a legislator, we have had six balanced budgets.

·         He claimed that I voted for pension reform that gave me a loophole to use my service as a paid selectman to increase my pension. He didn’t indicate that the position of selectman is a paid position and that Selectmen must pay into the pension system. He also failed to mention that, because Massachusetts has a state retirement system, when a state, county or municipal employee reaches ten years of service, they lose a major portion of their Social Security. At the end of the first year of my tenure as a legislator, I was notified by the retirement board that I had reached my ten year mark whether or not I “claimed” my time as a selectman. I was then locked into the state retirement system whether I liked it or not. As for voting in a loophole, the provision he references was already in the statute and was used by Tom George to boost his retirement by the thirty or so years he was a town moderator. In fact, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has decided on a few occasions that the legislature cannot change the pension system for those already in it. No loophole was added during my tenure as state representative.

·         He stated that I have previously said I would not use all of my paid time as selectman for my pension. I have never made any such statement. In fact, when Dick Neitz ran for this position, he too unsuccessfully attempted to use misleading information about the pension system.

·         He claimed that, because I was endorsed by the teacher’s union, SEIU, Mass Nurses and others, I was more interested in their causes than in you. He failed to mention that school teachers, nurses, and SEIU members live in our communities of Brewster, Dennis and Yarmouth and that they are your neighbors and friends, and are my constituents. Those friends and neighbors of ours work in our towns, at DY and Nauset, at Cape Cod Hospital, doctor’s offices and every nursing home on the Cape.

I ran a radio ad in the last weekend of the campaign that had the lines, “Aren’t you tired of hearing outrageous and misleading claims by candidates looking for your vote” and, “if my opponent is willing to mislead you to get your vote, what do you think he will do if he gets elected.” Though I didn’t know at the time I made the ad that there would be the last minute negative blitz by my opponent, that ad turned out to be very timely.

Candidates who intentionally mislead you to get your vote start out by disrespecting you. They will continue to disrespect you if they get elected. I am proud to have run an honest and straight forward campaign and look forward to the day that an opponent I might have does the same.

The people of the First Barnstable District and of Cape Cod can be assured that their representatives who were re-elected are honest with them and found no reason to mislead them to get their votes. It is my hope that voters on the Cape will continue to support candidates who respect them by being truthful and forthright.