New Mailers from Sciortino and Trane

[teele-sq.livejournal.com]

I figured I'd post the new fliers I got in the mail from the two campaigns. People are still commenting on the last one, so if you'd like to see it, it's visible here.

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Comments

[ron_newman]

Substance versus vapidity.

[teele-sq.livejournal.com]

I only posted the front of Trane's mailer because I love the look on his face.

[ron_newman]

What's on the back?

[jovianconsensus.livejournal.com]

Yeah but he has a cartoon train next to his name!

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

I suggest this column: http://www.wickedlocal.com/somerville/news/lifestyle/columnists/x256659598/Brociner-The-big-lie

Feel free to add a link to it above.

[teele-sq.livejournal.com]

it's not loading anything other than a system error for me.

[ron_newman]

Link works fine. It's a whole opinion column about this race and why people should vote for Sciortino.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

The site seems to be having issues -- I'm getting that error intermittently on a lot of links.

[rikchik.livejournal.com]

I'm getting a system error with that link: here's a google cache. http://74.125.95.104/search?q=cache:-Mg5ErK0itkJ:www.wickedlocal.com/somerville/news/lifestyle/columnists/x256659598/Brociner-The-big-lie+http://www.wickedlocal.com/somerville/news/lifestyle/columnists/x256659598/Brociner-The-big-lie&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a

[somertricky.livejournal.com]

Trane seems to have accepted about $4500 in contributions from people connected to his brother's telecommunications firm. There's a post from a Joe Beckmann on Bob's blog (accessible through the Journal website) identifying particulars of an earlier deal of les freres Trane with the city.

Trane also has contributions from a boatload of city and county employees.

Also, for you conspiracy theorists: Trane also got a $300 contribution from a mail clerk for the Mass. House of Representatives, in the State House. Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm....

[marylu.livejournal.com]

Joe, is that you?!

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

So, now we know what Trane -won't- do. What -will- he do with all that time he's not accepting contributions to his political campaign? Put more government materials online? I mean that's great to have, but isn't that what interns are for?

I guess I am biased, though, as a member of some of those special interest groups (I ride the T, want to have health insurance, etc.).

accessible information about government

[cos]

We do actually have a problem with access to government information online or in general, that won't get fixed until we elect more committed reformers to the state house. Thing is, Carl is one of those committed reformers. Despite what he says, Trane's history suggests to me that he wouldn't be.

For some examples of the problems, try these:

1. Think of an issue that's important to you that you know was voted on in the past couple of years. Try to find out how each member of the state legislature voted on it, without relying on outside sources such as newspaper web sites (or the wonderful Mass Scorecard.

2. Find out what the election results were, by precinct, for the 2004 Democratic primary in which Carl first got elected.

As someone who frequently looks for such information online, I'm very frustrated with some portions of our state government (including the secretary of state's office and the House) about how hard (or in some cases impossible) they make it to find this information online in a useful form.

P.S. Carl Sciortino, before he first ran for state house, was one of the people who made the Mass Scorecard happen. So you can see he's got a history in making government information accessible.

[derekp.livejournal.com]

Does Carl have any response to the attacks from Trane? I'm specifically interested in why 62% of his donations are from out of the district. Is this fancy accounting on Trane's part? Is it something that's actually pretty common?

And what's the full story on bullet point #1?

[somertricky.livejournal.com]

Trane better be careful if he's going to throw around accusations of accepting money from "outside the district".

I'd be happy to examine Bob's donation with an extremely fine-toothed comb, but if you throw out his $16,000 loan to his campaign, Trane took in just shy of twenty grand ($19,615).

Of this amount, 23% alone came from people connected to his brother's firm, which is not located in the district.

Looks like another three grand or so from city employees, not all who live in his district, and more from county employees, who may or may not live here.

I'd be more than happy to fully itemize later. Trane supporters shouldn't be throwing stones, here.

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As far as the donation from Finneran, Ciampa was one of one of his stooges in the legislature, and Finneran financed Ciampa through the primary election. After the primary election, Finneran summarily (and quickly) dispensed a bundle of money to the victors for the general election.

I'd bet if he knew Ciampa was going to run as a write-in in the general election, he would have given the money to Vinnie.

[cos]

In state rep races that actually matter, yes, it's pretty common. State rep districts are pretty small.

I think it's a non-issue.

I gave Carl $100, and I live in Cambridge. I lived in Somerville for more than 7 years, I know Carl, I think he's done the state a tremendous amount good and it's very important the he be re-elected, and c'mon, I'm in Central Square - does that make me an outside interloper? I'm in Somerville several times a week and more of my friends live there than in Cambridge.

Carl has a lot of very committed supporters, who know what he does in the legislature and want to see him re-elected. If you're a state rep that does a very good job, you gather some attention, and therefore supporters, from a wider area than just your state rep district.

Note also that "outside the district" also probably includes contributions from organizations like MassEquality and SEIU. MassEquality's office address is in Boston, not Somerville or Medford, but it doesn't look good to directly criticize Carl for getting money from them because they align pretty well with the desires of voters in the district.

[ocschwar.livejournal.com]

Is it too late to put a nonbinding referendum on the ballot saying "it is the sense of the people that Bob Trane is a horse's ass"?

[abilouise.livejournal.com]

that would be a landslide victory, I think.

[jamiesquared.livejournal.com]

Im so tired of getting mailers. We get one for me, one for my husband plus whatever gets left on our doorstop. Last week I got so many repeats all addressed to me. Waste of paper.

waste of paper

[teele-sq.livejournal.com]

Agreed. I got three of the Trane mailers this time, one addressed to me (I voted for Heller in the alderman race and I've donated money to Sciotino's campaign), and two addressed to people I've never heard of before, presumably prior tenants.

I've never voted for a paper-waster and I don't intend to start now.

[derekp.livejournal.com]

I was a little pissed that Carl's supporters left a flyer propped between my front door handle and the front door frame while I was away on vacation for two weeks. I had gone through the trouble of stopping the mail so as not to draw attention to the fact that I wasn't home with a giant pile of mail, and Carl's people go and basically advertise that I wasn't.

Funny that ...

[winterhill.livejournal.com]

I live in Ward 4 and have received nothing. No mailers, no calls, no knocks on the door. Am I to understand that neither candidate wants my vote?

[makoshark.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting this.

Candidates Respond well some of them

[smrto.livejournal.com]

South Medford Residents Together or SMRTO.ORG had put together voter questions for the candidates running for State Representative. Each were emailed on August 18th asking that they respond back by August 27th so it could be posted a couple weeks before the election.

Rep Sciortino responded and his answers were emailed to all SMRTO member and were posted to the Website on August 28th.
Alderman Trane did not respond.

The Sciortino questionnaire was emailed to his office when all SMRTO members were notified via email on August 28th.
We received a delivery receipt from Bob Trane email, but no Response. Alderman Trane's Campaign was emailed again on September 9, 2008, this time through his website, asking why he didn't respond to any of our request, again no response.

You Decide.

[jjaquinta.livejournal.com]

Thanks for scanning in the mailers. We didn't get either! I guess we're well known Sciortino supporters. We both voted for him this morning. :-)