"Key Senate race brings Romney to Cape"

By Marc Parry
Cape Cod Times (October 22, 2004)

Gov. Mitt Romney campaigned here yesterday to help state Senate candidate Gail Lese in her bid to beat a Democrat whose seat the governor views as one of the most vulnerable in the commonwealth.

Less than two weeks before Election Day, the Republican governor joined Lese and state representative candidate Ann Canedy in Hyannis for a hand-pumping jaunt down Main Street.

The walk ended in a 10-minute rally on the Village Green.

The race to represent the Cape and Islands district pits Lese, a physician, against incumbent two-term state Sen. Robert O'Leary.

"This is a more vulnerable seat than most," Romney told the Cape Cod Times editorial board yesterday, "in part because the balance between Republicans and Democrats on the Cape is closer than let's say a lot of the other races around the commonwealth, where we're so far behind in registration it's not within striking distance."

In this battleground race, Lese isn't the only candidate to tap a high-wattage politician for support. Sen. Edward Kennedy, who rarely hosts state legislative fund-raisers, hosted one in September for O'Leary.

Kennedy and U.S. Rep. William Delahunt also sent a letter to Democratic donors deriding Lese as a "wealthy carpetbagger airlifted suddenly onto Cape Cod" by Romney.

Romney yesterday said he didn't recall recruiting Lese - who has said she moved to the Cape to raise a family, not run for office - though he readily acknowledged encouraging her candidacy.

He defended his aggressive efforts on behalf of GOP candidates as critical to preventing the "extinction" of the state's Republican party.

"I'm trying a different tactic," he said. "Recruit 'em. Raise money for 'em. Make campaign commercials.

Romney praised Lese's experience as a doctor and a former fund manager at Fidelity. He said the first-time candidate has "no ties to special interests."

A half-dozen O'Leary supporters protested the rally.

They demonstrated, they said, in response to a flyer alleging that an O'Leary proposal that would let people purchase needles in drug stores without a prescription would lead to dirty syringes on local beaches.

The flyer, paid for by the state Republican Party, juxtaposes a woman and child playing patty-cake on the beach with five giant syringes.

Also yesterday, Romney appeared in Marstons Mills to announce $1.4 million in state and federal funds to build 30 new homes.

Twenty-three of the homes will be for low- and moderate-income families.

(Published: October 22, 2004)

Paid for by Lese for State Senate
Copyright 2004