Candidate Touted as Kerry Challenger Bumped from Ballot

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Source: CQ Politics

Candidate Touted as Kerry Challenger Bumped from Ballot
By Jessica Benton Cooney, CQ Staff
Massachusetts Republican Jim Ogonowski’s near-upset in a House special election last October emboldened him to reach for an even bigger challenge this year: a bid for the Republican nomination to take on four-term Democratic Sen. John Kerry . But state officials ruled earlier this week that Ogonowski fell just short of the 10,000 petition signatures he needed to qualify for the Sept. 16 primary ballot, and he released a statement late Friday afternoon that he would not challenge that decision.

“For a variety of reasons, we did not meet the signature requirements. And at this time, I have decided not to pursue this endeavor,” Ogonowski stated. “I provide a sincere thank you to those that stood by me. I am sorry that we did not succeed. I ask for patience as my family and I move forward.”

Ogonowski’s concession leaves Jeff Beatty as the only Republican pursuing a longshot challenge to Kerry. Beatty has an interesting resume — he is an anti-terrorism consultant with a background in the Army, the FBI and the CIA — but he lost by 64 percent to 29 percent as the Republican challenger to 10th District Democratic Rep. Bill Delahunt in 2006.


Read more: http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000002890931

[BlueManDude]

1. More MA GOP follies.

[Doctor_J]

2. "Anti-terrorism consultant"

So a big chunk of the half-trillion dollar Iraq Pork Barrel has made it to this Beatty's bank account. How much you wanna bet he runs on a "curb government spending" platform. Every last Repuke is a lying, hypocritical piece of shit.

[benddem]

10. His schtick is "cut taxes" he's

a repug.

[MidwestTransplant]

3. saved himself form a major thumpin'

[Warren Stupidity]

4. Ogonowski’s near-upset: 6% LOSS in a conservative district.

The spin on Ogonowski's failure to beat Tsongas in a well funded media assisted 'independent outside' campaign is another example of the steady fecal stream from the bullshit media system.

"As Jonathan wrote yesterday, Republicans jumped on Niki Tsongas's 6-point victory over Republican Jim Ogonowski in Tuesday's MA-05 special election as an opportunity to tout the supposed vulnerability of Democrats nationwide in 2008, claiming a moral victory for their candidate despite the fact that a 6 point win for a Democrat in one of the more conservative districts in Massachusetts -- in fact one that Mitt Romney won with 55% of the vote -- is actually a decent showing."
http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/10/18/19712/250

The 24/7 bullshit is a constant in our lives.

[Fearless]

5. Ahh, I just love it when they fall flat on their asses.

[Zachstar]

6. This is going to be an extremely easy win for Kerry

[Sydnie]

8. I'm not so sure this time

I attended the state convention yesterday and he has a democratic challenger, Ed O'Reilly, that got 23% of the votes for sponsorship. He needed 15% to be allowed on the ballot and he made that number easily.

Kerry will probably win, but it won't be a cake walk this time.

I found Ed O'Reilly to be an angry candidate. He was a passable public speaker but not in Kerry's league there either, although I thought a good deal of his passion was due to not fully understanding what power a Senator actually has and what a Senator can actually do. I was put off when he was mentioning no bid contracts and cited "Blackrock" instead of Blackwater as an example. I was left with the impression that he had been fed statistics, but didn't have a firm grasp on what he was actually attempting to talk about.

[Joe Bacon]

7. Is Inspector Clouseau running the GOP campaign this year?????????

And I see that the Montana GOP nominated a GREEN PARTY member to challenge Max Baucus??????

The clowns running the GOP make Dr Evil look like a mastermind!

[sakabatou]

9. Sucks to be you, Jim