Romney rallies GOP candidates
By Michael Kunzelman / News Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 26, 2004

BOSTON -- A rocket scientist from Newton. A Cuban immigrant and economics professor from Framingham. An oil burner technician from Natick.

Those are just a few of the day jobs held by the 131 Republicans who are running for seats in the state Legislature this fall, the GOP's largest slate of legislative candidates since 1990.

More than 100 of those candidates joined Gov. Mitt Romney on stage at a Boston hotel yesterday to formally kick off the 2004 election season.

Since the 2002 election, the Republican governor has mounted an aggressive campaign to recruit candidates to challenge Democratic incumbents and has helped raise more than $3 million since January 2003 to back their campaigns.

Romney hopes to chip away at the Democratic Party's dominance of the Legislature. Republicans hold 22 of 160 House seats and seven of 40 Senate seats.

"If you want to have real change and real reform, you have to have real competition," Romney said. "It's time for us to bring to Massachusetts a strong two-party system with two voices in our Legislature."

Meanwhile, 186 Democrats are running for legislative seats this fall, according to Massachusetts Democratic Party Chairman Phil Johnston.

"We're not fearful about this," Johnston said of Romney's recruiting drive, "but we're not taking any chances."

Johnston also accused Romney of specifically targeting women who serve in the Senate, including state Sens. Susan Fargo, D-Lincoln, and Pamela Resor, D-Acton.

"It seems to me to be extremely regrettable that Mitt Romney is raising a lot of money to beat terrific legislators like Sue Fargo," said Johnston, who was flanked by Fargo at a press briefing outside the State House.

Resor has two Republican opponents -- Westborough businessman Rod Jane and Marlborough City Councilor Arthur Vigeant -- while Chelmsford businessman John Thibault is running against Fargo.

"I really don't know whether they think women are more vulnerable," Resor said. "My understanding is that they looked at (2002) election results and picked districts where the governor pulled a strong vote -- and he did do well in my district."

Jane scoffed at Johnston's allegation that Resor is a prime GOP target because she is a woman.

"We're targeting Democrats," he said. "I have three daughters and a wife. I totally reject the idea that we would be targeting women."

Vigeant called it "nonsense."

"She's targeted because we need a stronger Legislature," he said.

This fall, the GOP is backing candidates in 124 of 200 House and Senate districts. And the total number of Republican candidates grew from 78 in 2002 to 131 this year.

"There's no illusion," Romney said. "It's not going to be easy. It's not going to happen overnight."

Unlike in 2002, few MetroWest incumbent senators and state representatives have a free ride to re-election this year.

The list of GOP candidates includes Greer Swiston, a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who worked as a software engineer for a jet propulsion laboratory in California before she moved to Newton 13 years ago.

Swiston, who is trying to unseat state Rep. Kay Khan, D-Newton, downplayed the challenge of mounting a Republican campaign in a Democratic stronghold like Newton.

"The political machine in Newton is so strong, it's adversarial to any new person on the block. That's not the way it should be," she said. "I believe people are interested in seeing new perspectives. They're tired of games being played."

Natick Republican John Lambert, a technician for Medway Oil, is running against state Rep. David Linsky, D-Natick. Lambert ran for the seat four years ago, but lost the GOP primary.

"For too long, we've kind of stayed with the status quo and ignored the will of the people," Lambert said. "It's time we started listening to what they have to say."

Nicholas Sanchez, a native of Cuba who now teaches economics at Holy Cross, is challenging state Rep. Deborah Blumer, D-Framingham.

"One thing I find discouraging is that Gov. Romney has vetoed over 300 bills and he has been overridden between 95 and 99 percent of the time. That needs to be changed to get a true two-party system," Sanchez said.

Although the Republican Party says 131 GOP candidates are running, only 128 of them have qualified for the ballot, according to Secretary of State William Galvin's office.

Yesterday was the deadline for candidates to file nomination papers and certified signatures with Galvin's office. When the deadline passed at 5 p.m., Hopedale Republican Steve Sousa and Waltham Republican Dara Pourghasemi had not qualified for the ballot.

Dominick Ianno, executive director of the Massachusetts Republican Party, said Pourghasemi was unenrolled and hadn't been registered as a Republican long enough to qualify for the ballot. But Ianno said the Waltham resident will run against state Rep. Peter Koutoujian, D-Waltham, as a so-called "sticker," or write-in, candidate.

The GOP lists Sousa as an opponent to state Rep. Marie Parente, D-Milford, but Sousa did not file nomination papers or signatures with Galvin's office. Efforts to reach Sousa were unsuccessful yesterday evening.