Gabriel Gomez, the ex-Navy Seal, private equity man, and telegenic son of Colombian immigrants, steps into the spotlight as Massachusetts Republicans’ dream come true. He represents the best attempt yet for both the national and state parties to retool their image for the next generation, especially in the Northeast, and engage in some much needed outreach to Latino and other minority voters.
The question is, can Gomez and the party take advantage of this perfect opportunity?
Fox News Latino has already proclaimed him the first Latino senator from Massachusetts and Gomez likely will energize many Latinos with his compelling immigrant backstory. His Boston Marathon experience — he finished the course a few minutes before the bombings — is bound to figure in promoting his national security credentials. Voters tend to go gaga over military superstars and Gomez is straight from central casting. Being a successful businessman is also a plus.
Gomez trounced the stolid Michael Sullivan and irrepressible Dan Winslow, but now he has his work cut out for him. That work begins within his own party. In his election night acceptance speech, Gomez hauled out all the platitudes one might expect from the consummate outsider who criticizes inside the Beltway business-as-usual and would be willing to reach across the aisle to work with Democrats. Except reaching across the aisle isn’t something most Republican senators have been willing to do.
The Boston Herald’s Joe Battenfeld counsels conservatives to get over themselves and get with Gomez. But it’s not clear that every Republican wants to get behind a candidate who comes across as one of those feisty moderate New England Republicans the Tea Party thought it had stamped out.
Can the GOP’s most strident elements avoid taking pot shots at Gomez because he backed President Obama in 2008, sought an appointment to the US Senate from Gov. Deval Patrick, considers abortion a settled issue, and favors a path to citizenship for undocumented people? At a minimum, the GOP would do well to avoid another round of mind-boggling gaffes about Latinos and other minorities.
Like or not, Gomez also has a Mitt Romneyesque-private equity problem. He has already been labeled “Mitt Romney Jr.” He lives in a $2.1 million mansion in Cohasset and has four children in private school. Little is known about his business career so far. He has a contingent of former Romney 2012 operatives on his campaign team, who presumably have learned a thing or two about how not to package a wealthy candidate. Nevertheless, he’ll require some consistent demonstration of Average Joe sensibilities to win over voters of more modest means. And he’ll have to develop some debating skills.
In another era, Gomez would be well-placed to pull off an upset. He still very well may be. The well-worn theme of relative unknown versus seasoned political veteran expecting to glide into Washington has already played out in the Bay State. Scott Brown and Martha Coakley can tell you all about how that turned out.
Despite his reliably blue credentials on climate change and other environmental issues important to Bay State voters, Ed Markey is vulnerable. The Democrat has been in Washington forever and a day and doesn’t inspire a great deal of enthusiasm in any quarter. Markey may be spoiling for a fight and he’s going to get one. With Gomez losing no time going on the offensive, he has labeled Markey a “poster boy for term limits,” Democrats are already feeling spooked by the ghosts of barn coats past.
The abysmal springtime primary voter turnout demonstrates that Markey’s biggest problem could be the slip into summer lethargy as most people begin to focus on their summer getaways rather than yet another Senate race. Despite Markey’s copious amounts of cash, Democrats will have to dig deep in the Elizabeth Warren playbook to paint Gomez, a man with no political record, as a Scott Brown-wanabee who will be in thrall to the awesome power of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
The Democratic Party knows that Bay State voters aren’t afraid to elect a Republican. So they are going to move heaven and earth and more than a few sun-starved voters to the polls to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
–GABRIELLE GURLEY
MARATHON BOMBINGS
President Obama defended the FBI’s intelligence gathering operation while also endorsing a wide-ranging examination of ways to better monitor potential homegrown terrorist plots.
The father of a local teenager wrongly identified as a Marathon bomber by the New York Post is lawyering up. He tells the Washington Post his son can’t sleep at night and isn’t going to school anymore.
A New York Times/CBS News poll finds strong public support for surveillance in public spaces.
BEACON HILL
Former Probation boss John O’Brien pleads not guilty in his federal bribery and racketeering case.
MUNICIPAL MATTERS
Boston city inspectors have charged the owner of an Allston house where a Boston University student died in a fire with operating an illegal rooming house.
The Fall River Herald News obtained a recording of a meeting of the elected Somerset Playground and Recreation Commission, in which members talk openly about getting jobs for family and friends and suggest employees play solitaire on their computers instead of reading books so it looks like they’re busy to members of the public.
MGM casino gets Springfield’s backing, CommonWealth reports. Here is the Globe account of the news.
A voter-approved study committee has determined Hingham could operate its privately owned water system without affecting user rates but the panel is now trying to determine if the estimated $184 million pricetag to buy the system is feasible.
NATIONAL POLITICS/WASHINGTON
The US Supreme Court upholds a Virginia law that allowed the state to deny public records requests from people living out of state, Governing reports.
Los Angeles builds mini-parks to drive away sex offenders, Governing reports.
Do state takeovers of struggling cities and school districts make a positive difference?
President Obama sides with Guantanamo Bay protesters, Time reports.
A Virginia golf course is offering a 30 percent discount on greens fees for federal workers furloughed by sequester cuts.
New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte is in the middle of a fierce tug-of-war over gun control. Ayotte’s approval ratings took a serious dive after she voted against expanded federal background checks.
ELECTIONS
Political professor punditry: Mo Cunningham from UMass Boston and Peter Ubertaccio from Stonehill College take stock of the US Senate primary results in this new CommonWealth magazine “Face to Face” video.
In the special election Democratic primary for the First Suffolk Senate seat, it was Dorchester state Rep. Linda Dorcena Forry over South Boston state Rep. Nick Collins in a squeaker. The biggest loser might prove to be the AP, which had to pull back a projection made early in the evening that Collins had won. Herald columnist Peter Gelzinis fields an angry phone call from a Collins partisan claiming that the third candidate in the race, Southie native Maureen Dahill, had “cost this town.” Gelzinis, on the other hand, holds up Dahill’s candidacy as a welcome sign that “Southie is not exactly the political monolith it once was.”
The National Review says freshman Sen. Ted Cruz, the truly severely conservative Republican from Texas, is quietly exploring a 2016 presidential bid.
CHARITIES
World Help, an international Christian relief organization, revised its reported revenue figure to the IRS from $239 million last year to just $17 million after inquiries from the Chronicle of Philanthropy raised questions over how much the group received in medical donations.
HEALTH CARE
The FDA approves a compromise on the Plan B pill, making it available for any woman over the age of 15, NPR reports (via WBUR).
ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT
NOAA Regional Administrator John Bullard pushes ahead with strict limits on cod and yellowtail, the Gloucester Times reports.
Footprint Power begins the process of seeking local approvals for its proposed Salem-based natural gas plant and also begins the search for new funding, the Salem News reports.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
A former assistant clerk magistrate in New Bedford District Court was given probation after she pled guilty to charges of dismissing a criminal case against a friend and forging a judge’s signature to make the decision appear legitimate.
MEDIA
The Globe posts circulation gains, while the Herald continues to drop, the Globe reports. Media Nation goes deep on the numbers. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal post gains, while average daily circulation nationwide dipped slightly, USA Today reports.