Powered by Google
Home
Listings
Editors' Picks
News
Music
Movies
Food
Life
Arts + Books
Rec Room
Moonsigns
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Personals
Adult Personals
Classifieds
Adult Classifieds
- - - - - - - - - - - -
stuff@night
FNX Radio
Band Guide
MassWeb Printing
- - - - - - - - - - - -
About Us
Contact Us
Advertise With Us
Work For Us
Newsletter
RSS Feeds
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Webmaster
Archives



sponsored links
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
PassionShop.com
Sex Toys - Adult  DVDs - Sexy  Lingerie


   
  E-Mail This Article to a Friend

THE SHERIFF’S RACE
Debatable issues
BY ADAM REILLY

It was clear three months ago that the contest between Democratic incumbent Suffolk County sheriff Andrea Cabral and her Democratic challenger, Boston City Councilor Steve Murphy, would be acrimonious (see "No Love Lost," News and Features, May 7). In the weeks since Murphy officially announced his candidacy, Republican hopeful Shawn Jenkins failed to obtain the requisite number of signatures to run, making next month’s Democratic primary the de facto election for the post. And the tension between the Cabral and Murphy camps — already palpable in the campaign’s early stages — actually seems to have increased.

One major bone of contention: the Cabral campaign’s assertion that Murphy has repeatedly backed out of his commitments to debate the current sheriff. This week, Cabral campaign manager Matt O’Malley ticked off a list of debates — all slated for tape-delay broadcast — which he says Murphy has missed: one, in May, for the WHDH-TV program Urban Update; another, in July, for WGBH-TV’s Greater Boston; a third, also last month, again for Urban Update.

"He’s adept at tossing these bombs and these falsehoods and these innuendoes from the sidelines, and in negative mailings," O’Malley says of Murphy. "But he refuses to be in a situation where he can be confronted on what he’s saying."

Not so, insists Dan Cence, Murphy’s campaign manager. Cence takes the blame for the second Urban Update cancellation, which he says resulted from an "internal scheduling error." (According to O’Malley, Cabral was sitting in the WHDH-TV studios — fully prepared to tape — when a producer told her Murphy had canceled the previous evening.) As for Greater Boston and the first Urban Update debate, Cence maintains that both events were tentative, and that the dates the producers offered the Murphy campaign simply didn’t work. Cence also points out that the Urban Update tête-à-tête has been rescheduled for taping on August 27 and broadcast on September 5 — the same air date slated for the taping the Murphy campaign missed last month — and that another debate, on Boston Neighborhood Network’s Talk of the Neighborhoods, is coming up as well.

"This shows a pattern," Cence says of O’Malley’s charges. "Councilor Murphy has consistently offered a referendum on the record of the current administration in the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department. Andrea Cabral has consistently made negative and personal attacks on Steve Murphy."

So who’s telling the truth? Inquiries to Urban Update went unreturned prior to the Phoenix’s deadline. But John Carroll, the executive producer of Greater Boston, says O’Malley’s version of what happened at WGBH isn’t quite right. "Early in the summer, we contacted both candidates from both campaigns and floated some dates," Carroll says. "Murphy got back to us and said these dates — mainly in early July and mid July — don’t work for me, but I could probably do it more toward the end of August.... What it comes down to is, no date was ever set and no date was ever confirmed. Nobody ever canceled a debate because there was no debate to cancel."

Will Murphy debate Cabral prior to the election? "Absolutely," Cence insists.

Time will tell. But it’s clearly in Murphy’s interest to have minimal on-screen interaction with his opponent. Cabral honed her rhetorical skills as a prosecutor, and is an extremely compelling speaker; Murphy, though genial, is far from Cabral’s oratorical equal. In terms of sheer entertainment, though, a Cabral-Murphy debate could be one of this year’s political highlights. Circle September 5 on your calendar.


Issue Date: August 6 - 12, 2004
Back to the News & Features table of contents
  E-Mail This Article to a Friend
 









about the phoenix |  advertising info |  Webmaster |  work for us
Copyright © 2005 Phoenix Media/Communications Group