Our friend Liz Mair of GOPProgress.com fills us in on an interesting election coming up in "Kennedy County" south of the Granite State (er, we’re lookin’ like Kennedy Country here in NH, now that I think about it). In this week’s column for the New York Sun, Liz reports on the upcoming October election to replace retiring Massachusetts US Congressman Marty Meehan. (Term limits? He was in favor of ’em before he was against ’em) Writes Liz,
[I]t turns out the Bay State is not quite as liberal as we assume, and a Democratic victory isn’t certain.
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Meet Jim Ogonowski. He’s either the gutsiest man in Massachusetts or the most foolish, depending on your perspective. Mr. Ogonowski is the presumptive Republican nominee for Mr. Meehan’s seat — and, it turns out, something more than a certain loser.
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Jim Ogonowski after the 9/11 attacks
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While Republicans have traditionally had a tough time of it in the home state of Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and Michael Dukakis, Mr. Ogonowski is not just your average Republican. For starters, he’s got a compelling story that makes him more Rudy Giuliani than Bill Frist: Mr. Ogonowski is an Air Force lieutenant colonel whose brother just happened to be the pilot of the American Airlines plane that hijackers flew into the World Trade Center on 9/11.
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Morbid though that is, it gives him a certain celebrity status, an element of interest that just may surpass that of Paul Tsongas’s widow — and a reason for more liberal Massachusetts voters to take a closer-than-usual look at him.
Click here to read the whole story. It will be interesting to watch a local election for a seat in DC somewhat detached from the George W. Bush problem.
