Monday, June 12, 2006

Most Congressional Seats Unopposed

It appears that our Congressional delegation here in Massachusetts is going mostly unopposed this year. CQPolitics from Congressional Quarterly has the story here:

Republicans are fielding candidates in just three of the 10 districts: the 6th, where businessman Rick Barton is taking on five-term Democratic Rep. John F. Tierney; the 9th, where Jack E. Robinson III, a landslide loser to Kennedy in the 2000 Senate race, will oppose two-term Rep. Stephen F. Lynch; and the 10th, where businessman Jeff Beatty is taking on five-term Democratic Rep. Bill Delahunt.

Lynch is the only incumbent who is facing a primary challenger. He is expected to easily defeat Phil Dunkelbarger, who owns a seafood trading and export company.
I knew about challenges to Tierney and Delahuntt this year, but I had no idea that they were bringing Jack E. Robinson back out of the woodwork. Robinson was last seen losing to Secretary of State Bill Galvin in 2002. He is perhaps best known in Massachusetts for crashing his car during a live radio interview during his loss in 2000 to Senator Kennedy. The state party eventually withdrew their support from Robinson and he ended up barely even beating Libertarian candidate Carla Howell with 13% of the vote to her 12%.