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Who Are the Candidates for Congress
Tom Duggan
(06/05/07)
The race for Marty Meehan’s seat in Congress is
heating up in the Merrimack Valley as the five Democrat
candidates vying to replace him are campaigning
throughout the district, while at the same time trying to
educate the public about the special election to be held
on September 4th.
A veterans group called Citizens for Civic Courage
sponsored a candidate forum at the Chelmsford Police
Station. Each of the Democrat candidates attended; the
Republican candidate Jim Ogonowski did not show up.
The candidates:
 Niki Tsongas:
She is the widow of former Senator Paul Tsongas, who was
a legend in the Lowell area and throughout the Fifth
District. According to all of the internal polling data,
Niki Tsongas is considered the front runner in this race
because of obvious name recognition and the endorsement
of former Congressman Marty Meehan. According to her
website, Tsongas has a law degree from Boston University
and started Lowell’s first all-female law practice.
She is currently the Dean of External Affairs at
Middlesex Community College - the largest community
college in the Commonwealth.
In 2001, Niki was appointed by Congressman Marty Meehan
to head up a foundation to provide educational funding
for the children of the victims of the 9/11 tragedy. And
she’s been a member of numerous corporate and
non-profit boards because of her strong belief that
business must be constructively engaged in the fight for
social and environmental justice.
Barry Finegold: Finegold is the state
representative from Andover and represents Andover,
Lawrence and Tewksbury in the state Legislature. Finegold is considered more
moderate than most of the candidates in this race. He was
elected to the Andover Board of Selectmen at age 24, and
then to the Massachusetts House of Representatives
at age 25. In 1999, Finegold won the Kennedy School Fenn
Award for Political Leadership for his work in bringing
together legislators and officials from New Hampshire and
Massachusetts to address the traffic problems on I-93.
His efforts led to the opening of the breakdown lane
during rush hours, which greatly reduced congestion
during peak commuting hours.
Finegold graduated from the Massachusetts School of Law
in Andover and was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in
1998. He is presently a partner with the law firm of
Dalton & Finegold, LLP. Finegold also holds a masters
in public administration from the John F. Kennedy School
of Government at Harvard University. To date, Finegold
looks like he has the best chance to pull off an upset
against front runner Niki Tsongas as he has raised more
money than any other candidate, and has distinguished
himself from the rest of the pack with his opposition to
surrendering in Iraq.
 Eileen
Donoghue: Donoghue is currently a member of the
Lowell City Council. She was elected in 1996 and was
elected mayor in 1998. Donoghue recently took a
‘vote of no confidence’ in City Manager John
Cox (along with five other councilors), leading to his
departure from city service and angering many Cox
supporters.
According to Donoghue’s website, she holds bachelor
of arts degree in individualized concentration from the
University of Massachusetts, where she studied both law
and Spanish. She studied for a period of time at the
University of Puerto Rico in Rio Piedras, and is fluent
in Spanish. She went on to receive her juris doctor at
Suffolk University Law School in Boston in 1979. Donoghue
has been in private practice since 1979, and in 1991
opened her own law practice in the city of Lowell.
Donoghue is polling in third or fourth place (depending
on which internal polls you look at) because of lack of
name recognition and an inability (so far) to distinguish
herself from the other candidates. She also has a cash
flow problem and is fighting an uphill battle to win her
home town with Niki Tsongas in the race and being one of
two women in the race is also working against her. She
does have big name support from several local politicos
but as history has shown, endorsements matter very little
when name recognition is lacking throughout the district.
Jamie Eldridge: Eldridge is a state
representative and was elected to the Legislature in
2002. He represents Acton, Boxborough, Shirley, Harvard,  Lancaster, and Lunenburg.
Eldridge has a JD from Boston College Law School and a BA
from Johns Hopkins University.
According to his website, Eldridge is a community
economic development (CED) public interest lawyer, served
with Merrimack Valley Legal Services (2001-2002), was the
campaign manager for state Senator (and state
Representative) Pam Resor in 1998 & 2000, was a
legislative aide for state Senator Bob Durand in 1997,
and campaign manager for Durand in 1996. He was also a
litigation assistant for the prominent law firm of Hale
and Dorr, LLP, from 1995 to 1997.
Eldridge is clearly the most liberal of all the
candidates, calling for our troops to surrender in Iraq
and demanding the immediate withdrawal of all our
servicemen from that country. He has very little name
recognition in the district, has raised very little money
(in comparison to the other candidates), and touts
himself as the only legislator to win as a clean
elections candidate (running his campaign with the
taxpayers’ money). Eldridge has a pre-9/11
philosophy, saying that the War on Terror must be fought
as a “law enforcement” measure rather than a
military one, and has called letting the terrorists in
Guantanamo Bay go free.
 Jim Miceli is
a state representative from Wilmington and was elected in
1977. He represents Tewksbury and Wilmington in the
Legislature and holds a B.A. and B.S. from Northeastern
University. Miceli has raised very little money for this
race compared to the other candidates, but Jim Miceli is
a very wealthy man and could pump thousands of dollars
into his own campaign whenever he needs it.
This would normally make any candidate formidable as he
could increase his name recognition very quickly when the
race goes down the wire. But Miceli has a serious problem
in this race, he is a conservative in the most liberal
state in the country. He opposes gay marriage and is pro
life, the only candidate for Congress to hold such
conservative views. He also supports President Bush and
the war in Iraq, opposing a timetable for troop
withdrawal, something that will undoubtedly hurt him with
the anti-Bush electorate in Massachusetts Fifth District.
Miceli is a no nonsense politician who calls it like he
sees it, and is less polished than the other candidates
in this race.
Miceli was a member of the Wilmington Planning Board from
1963 to 1966, elected to the Wilmington Board of
Selectmen and served twice as chairman. He has also
serves on the MBTA Advisory Board, the Middlesex County
Advisory Board (co-chairman), and The Massachusetts
Federation of Planning Boards (region 5A chairman).
Whomever you choose to vote for on September 4th, please
do your homework and pay attention to the positions and
the rhetoric put forth by all the candidates.
Finegold
Backs Three State Solution in Iraq
Opening Remarks during Candidate forum in
Chelmsford, sponsored by “Citizens for Civic
Change”
Jamie Eldridge: “Let me just say
that I never thought I would be part of a generation that
would be involved in a war that was caused by lies and
deceptions that cost thousands of American lives and tens
of thousands of lives of foreign nationals. I
opposed the war in Iraq in the beginning because it
wasn’t in America’s security interest. It has
cost thousands of lives and created destabilization in
the Middle East. Sadly, too many Democrats in
Congress supported giving President Bush the power to
invade Iraq which I firmly opposed. President Bush lied
to the American public and to Congress to bring us into
the war. I firmly opposed that. And I firmly believe that
as your next congressman I will work very hard to stop
the war in Iraq, to bring our troops home immediately and
I am going to join the efforts of the “out Iraq
caucus” and Congressman Jim McGovern’s bill to
bring our troops home within ninety days.”
 Niki
Tsongas: “The most important issue facing
the country today is the war in Iraq. We have prosecuted
a war without a strategy. Exposed our servicemen and
women to danger without adequate armor and equipment, and
several of the wounded to unsanitary and understaffed
medical facilities like Walter Reed. This is wrong and it
has to change. I support a timetable for withdrawal of
troops from Iraq. It is time to define the final
mission for our troops and we need a political solution
for the region. We also need to honor and respect
our veterans with proper care and benefits. I have been
told it takes six months or more for veterans with
serious injuries to qualify for disability. This is
wrong. I am the proud product of a military family.
My father, an Air Force colonel, survived the bombing of
Pearl Harbor and spent his career in the military. When
my dad came home from WW II, Congress passed the GI Bill.
That’s the kind of support our veterans
deserve.”
Barry Finegold: My name is Barry
Finegold and the most pressing issue facing this country
is the war in Iraq, Like many of you, I have many friends
 who are
serving over there. I thank them for their service to our
country and I think of them often. The Bush
administration’s handling of this war has been a
dismal failure. They lied about the intelligence that led
us to this war; they did not properly plan for this war,
They did not provide our troops what they needed for this
war, and now have no strategy for ending this war. I want
to get out of Iraq as soon as possible. I want to do it
in a responsible way which minimizes American and Iraqi
casualties, staves off more civil war and gives us a
chance for peace. What we need is bold ideas and big
solutions. Senator Biden’s three-state solution has
the best chance of doing that. We have learned from
history that this can work. We’ve had a decade of
peace in the former Yugoslavia. But getting out of Iraq
isn’t enough. We need to have a homeland offense and
we need to end our dependence on foreign oil.”
Eileen Donoghue: It is really fitting
that the most important issue facing this nation is the
very fist major debate in this race. It is not only
important to the 5th District, it’s important to
this nation and the world. We all agree that the war in
Iraq is a dismal failure. We have to end the war and get
out of Iraq and bring our troops home. Now, recent weeks
have shown that the Bush administration lacks the
leadership and lacks the courage to abide by a timetable.
It is now time for Congress to step up and show
leadership, set a timetable, get us out of Iraq. It is
going to take months. We cannot afford to jeopardize any
more lives in Iraq. That is what is happening. Once we
bring those troops home, it is imperative, imperative
that our government provide for veterans. Provide those
necessary services in medical coverage, education and
jobs. This is the duty of Congress and this is the duty I
intend to assume once elected.
Jim Miceli: First and foremost I think
establishing a timetable for leaving the country is sheer
lunacy, absolute lunacy to telegraph to your enemy the
date you’re leaving. Number two, I think we are
seeing the results of the Congress trying to establish a
timetable and the president refusing to sign the bill and
we are at a stage right now where I think there will be a
negotiation. And I think we all want to get out of that
war. However, there is a way to get out of it and a way
not to get out of it. I think by Congress and the
president working towards establishing a date that is a
good meeting of the minds, doing it the right way, will
make a lot more sense than setting a date and
telegraphing it to your enemies. And I think what has
been done, when you have one of the leaders of the
Democrats getting up and saying we’ve lost the war
is the worst possible message you can send to those young
men and women who are fighting over there in Iraq.”
On Impeaching President Bush:
All of the Democrat candidates said they would not favor
impeaching President Bush. Niki Tsongas said that she
believes that as bad as he is, she does not favor
impeachment, rather, she would like to see the Democrat
party focus all its attention on getting a Democrat
elected to the White house in 2008. Finegold, Miceli and
Donoghue agreed.
But Jamie Eldridge seemed to favor impeachment
stating “I think what Congress needs to do
now, and what i would do if elected, is begin to have the
hearings, and get the testimony out about what this
president has done; which is lied to the American public
and Congress to bring us into the war in Iraq, he has
violated federal law by wire tapping Americans against
federal statute (editors note, this a charge that
has never been substantiated in any court) and he has
used the political process within the U.S. Attorney
General’s office to fire different attorney generals
in different states just because they didn’t play
hard ball with Carl Rove and President Bush. These are
serious offenses, I thin they warrant impeachment but my
focus is having hearings and getting the evidence out and
moving forward. This was very helpful in the impeachment
of president Nixon.”
The war on Terror:
Niki Tsongas said she wants to implement the
recommendations of the 9/11 commission and invest in our
first responders locally. She also said she wants to
invest more resources in Afghanistan where “the real
war on terror is” and of course, pulling out of
Iraq. Representative Finegold, and Eileen Donoghue agreed
that concentrating on Afghanistan was important but
Finegold said that homeland security and tighter border
security (the only candidate to do so) was paramount to
winning the war on terror. Finegold also said he supports
improving relations with Pakistan’s president
Musharruf and focusing more on Afghanistan and improving
intelligence. Jim Miceli said he believes fighting the
war in Iraq is helping us win the war on terror pointing
out that “there have had no major incidents since
9/11 and anyone that thinks there is no relationship
there has another thing coming. We are fighting Al Quaida
over there so we do not have to fight them over here. If
we withdraw from that country, I do believe we will start
to see more terrorism here (in the U.S.) than we have
ever seen in the past. Eldridge, however, said to fight
the war on terror “we need to apply a law
enforcement approach. We need to apply diplomacy. Imagine
if we had better relations with other countries
throughout this world. Imagine how many terrorists we
would catch instead of instead of doing unilateral
invasions and attacks on other countries.”
On Allowing ROTC to recruit on college
Campuses:
With the exception of Representative Eldridge, all of the
candidates said they support ROTC recruitment on college
campuses. Eldridge said he opposes military recruiters
because of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
Policy” implemented by president Clinton, whereby
gays are thrown out of the military if they expose their
sexuality to the military brass.
Each of the candidates opposed closing Guantanamo Bay
Terrorist prison in Cuba except for Eldridge who said
that he had proof that our troops were torturing innocent
people in the camp. “I had an opportunity to see a
presentation at the Unitarian church in Carlisle and
witnessed the presentation by an attorney who represents
the detainees (terrorists) there. I have seen the
pictures of people being tortured there. We’ve all
seen the pictures of Abu Ghrab. We need to ban the
outsourcing of torture, we need to close Guantanamo Bay I
think the proof is there that torture has happened.”
The primary election is September 4th. For breaking news
updates on all the candidates visit the Valley Patriot
website at www.valleypatriot.com
Editor’s Note: Republican Tom Tierney entered the
race after the debate and will challenge Jim Ogonowski on
primary day.
Tom Duggan is the president of Valley Patriot,
Inc., a former Lawrence School Committeeman, and hosts
the Paying Attention! Radio Program on WCAP, 980AM, every
Saturday afternoon from noon-2pm. You can email your
comments to Tdugjr@aol.com
.
*Send your questions comments to ValleyPatriot@aol.com
The June 2007 Edition of
the Valley Patriot
The Valley Patriot is a Monthly
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All Contents (C) 2007, Valley Patriot, Inc.
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