Last week's Bay Windows had a short profile on the 14th Worcester race (second item) with a particular focus on which candidate is in line for support from MassEquality.
MassEquality Political Director Matt McTighe says that the organization has reached out to all of the candidates to suss out their positions on the marriage issue. [Jim] O'Day is a strong supporter and says he'd vote against a pending amendment to ban marriage equality. "I think the world would be a whole lot better place if we learned to accept one another for what our differences are and to just put our best foot forward and accept people because they’re human beings," O'Day explains. "We should all be able to make our own personal decisions. I believe it's a civil rights issue. I'm against people’s civil rights being violated."The piece goes on to discuss the race's dynamics, with Palmieri, a Worcester City Councilor, leading the money race with $35,000 in his campaign account and O'Day capturing the endorsements of Mass Alliance, Neighbor to Neighbor and more recently the Progressive Democrats of Massachusetts. The candidates face off in the Democratic primary one month from today -- March 20th, and the winner will face Democrat-turned-Independent Joseph Cariglia in the general election on April 17th.
[Philip] Palmieri, says McTighe, also supports marriage equality. [Paul] Shea and [Tammy] Vescera? Not so much, apparently. McTighe says the candidates have declined to state their positions on the issue. With the exception of O'Day, none of the primary candidates responded to Bay Windows requests to discuss their campaigns. Reached on his cell phone, Shea, for instance, seemed incredulous to the point of annoyance that a Boston-based paper would be inquiring about a race in Worcester; when he was told that Bay Windows was a gay paper that covered races across the state, he replied, "I have no comments."
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