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[This Just In]

TALKING POLITICS
Debating the Ninth

BY SETH GITELL

The first thing you noticed at the debate among Ninth Congressional District candidates Tuesday night at Old South Church was the signs, wielded in front of the church by a slew of supporters of both Senator Stephen Lynch and Senator Brian Joyce. Trouble was, if you forgot your glasses, you couldn’t tell which signs went with which candidate: both campaigns selected near-identical white lettering on a blue field with a red stripe. Okay, Lynch’s signs also had a small distinguishing star.

But if potential voters had trouble telling the two Irish Catholic candidates apart several weeks ago, that’s presumably no longer the case. Joyce is the candidate getting knocked around for changing his position on abortion. (One committed protester carried a poster of a fetus and shouted into the church, “Repent, Brian, repent!”) Lynch is the candidate suffering the death of a thousand cuts in the dailies — with stories about student-loan defaults, tax liens, and arrests. At the least, these flaps have created some space in the race, an opening Senator Marc Pacheco of Taunton attempted to exploit Monday with his announcement of a $37,000 campaign budget for media advertising — an announcement aimed more at reporters than at voters. Former state senator Joseph Timilty, a veteran of political-campaign fights against Kevin White in the 1970s, went so far as to take the debate podium Tuesday night in a move intended to say, if nothing else, “I still got game.” Timilty’s potential candidacy is based on the absence of a progressive candidate in the race. His closing statement said as much: “Who is going to be the progressive voice to represent you in Congress?”

There were no knockout punches in the debate, and nobody seemed head and shoulders above the field. Joyce presented himself as the most literary of the candidates, citing four books during the course of the debate; when asked about transportation policy, he made reference to Robert Caro’s biography of Robert Moses. Lynch appeared surprised when Boston Herald columnist Wayne Woodlief asked him about his financial woes — a move the Lynch team saw as deviating from the debate format. Lynch answered the question with a nod to his recent “financial difficulties.” Yet it was Pacheco, scheduled to speak after Lynch, who seemed to score points by vowing to stick to issues like education, health care, and economic development. “These are the issues that I’m going to focus on,” he said, “issues that have a direct impact on the citizens.”

Pacheco also handled deftly a question about including “minority voters” in the campaign. “As someone who lives in the southern part of the district, someone of Portuguese descent who works very closely with the Cape Verdean community and the Latino community, I am working very closely with a multicultural, multi-ethnic group of folks,” he said.

When the candidates were prompted by Woodlief to address their positions on abortion, Lynch took the opportunity to bring up gay rights. He said he supported domestic-partnership legislation but added, “There are some radical, left-wing gay groups that I don’t agree with,” referring to efforts to distribute condoms in public schools. (Earlier in the day, Joyce had presided over a Joint Committee on Public Service hearing on domestic partnership. Joyce notably expressed support for the measure’s advocates and won praise from, among others, Senator Cheryl Jacques of Needham for his handling of the issue.)

So less than a month after the death of Congressman Joe Moakley, the candidates who seemed so similar are finally diverging. Joyce has tried to appeal to the left while fighting, in his words, the stereotype that he is “a white Irish-Catholic father of five who lives in the suburbs.” Lynch has also made gestures to the left, stressing, for example, his advocacy of amnesty for foreign workers. Pacheco, if he can raise the money necessary for big-time television advertising, appears poised to distinguish himself with his Senate record. Finally, if Timilty actually gets in the race — still with fire in his belly — he just may give the youngsters a run for their money.

Wednesday’s dailies showed at least one advance for the Lynch camp. Lynch sat down with the Globe to address his financial difficulties and promised to pay his defaulted student loan; he also provided both major dailies with news of previous arrests — which will not be particularly damaging. The puzzling thing is why Lynch didn’t do this when he first learned the Globe was going with a story on his tax trouble. If Lynch had treated this the way the Clintons handled their 1997 campaign-finance troubles — drowning reporters in a sea of information — he might have avoided some unnecessary damage. Now, he’s certainly not in the strong position he was when Kennedy first dropped out of the race, but he’s not out of it either.

It will be a battle from here on out. Lynch, however, seemed to say it all when he concluded an interview with WBZ-TV by remarking, “I miss Max Kennedy.”

Issue Date: June 28 - July 5, 2001