Only 21 Shopping Days Till the Primaries!

You may read in the papers that the Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin expects low turnout for the Democratic primary on September 19, but damn it, Bostonist is still excited. We've told you before about the three democratic candidates for governor, but did you know there's a whole raft of other nominations up for grabs in both parties? Oh yes indeed!

Although the Republicans have but one candidate for governor, the ever-predictable Kerry Healey, they still get to have a primary on September 19. Among the exciting candidatures up for grabs will be the role of sacrificial lamb in the race for Senator against Ted Kennedy (Ken Chase and Kevin Scott vie for that honor), and a whole bunch of state representative and senator spots. Of course, the Republicans would need to pick up 33 seats in the House and eight in the Senate just to deny the Democrats their automatic veto-override power, so don't expect a lot of coverage of those races in the coming weeks. Naturally, the Democrats have lots of contenders to join the legislative super-majorities, but we've neither time nor inclination to learn all about them. If you're curious, Wikipedia has a delightfully exhaustive page covering elections in the Commonwealth.

As far as the Democratic gubernatorial race goes, it's been a lot of same-old same-old these days. Chris Gabrieli is still there, spending money like a madman in a successful effort to get one state senator to switch his endorsement from Reilly to Gabrieli. He also wrote a bold op-ed piece for today's Globe, suggesting the radical notion that elected leaders ought to be held accountable (well, in fariness, he outlines a plan to reduce the income tax, which Patrick has said he doesn't plan to do). Tom Reilly is focusing on the Big Dig in a big way, along with other Attorney-General-esque endeavors, hoping to make voters forget about his campaign's woeful start. And the smart money is on Deval Patrick to win the primary because his supporters are thought to be the most committed, and it's the committed folks who vote in primaries.

If all that makes the primaries sound less than exciting, what can we say? Politics isn't always as saucy as Bostonist would like - especially when the juiciest scandals involve unpaid taxes and late mortgage payments. Still, as always, we urge you to go out and vote, both in the primary and in the general election. If for no other reason, do it to disprove Bill Galvin's prediction of low turnout. Given that he's shoo-in to win in the primary (against John C. Bonifaz) and the general election (against Jill Stein), it wouldn't hurt him to be dead wrong about something.

Photo: Eric Chester, candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from the first district (central and western Mass.) doesn't face a primary battle because he is the sole choice of the Socialist Party. In addition to looking fittingly like Karl Marx, he has more chance of unseating incumbent Democrat John Olver than the Republicans, since they have no candidate running for the seat.