The O'Reilly factor: Kerry challenger kindles Amherst connections

By Mary Carey
Staff Writer

Published on February 22, 2008

Challenging a longtime senator with the name recognition of John Kerry is a plucky thing for Democrat Ed O'Reilly to do.

It's perhaps a good thing that O'Reilly, a Gloucester attorney, has got a plucky campaign staff - and western Massachusetts headquarters in Amherst.

No stranger to town, O'Reilly, a 1975 graduate of the University of Massachusetts, will be back in Amherst Feb. 28 at the Black Sheep Deli and Bakery on 79 Main St. and at his alma mater at 7:30 p.m. in the Campus Center.

On Tuesday, his campaign coordinator Peter Vickery was busy getting nomination papers out to O'Reilly supporters. They will need to collect at least 10,000 signatures by early May to ensure O'Reilly's name appears on the Sept. 16 state primary ballot.

And that's just one of the requirements to get a candidate's name on the statewide ballot. O'Reilly will also need the endorsement of 15 percent of Massachusetts Democratic Party delegates to the party's convention on June 7 in Lowell.

"Massachusetts is very parochial that way," Democratic activist Tim Carpenter, of Northampton, who had stopped at the headquarters for a visit, said of the tough criteria for getting on the ballot.

Carpenter was former presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich's deputy campaign manager four years ago and co-founded Progressive Democrats of America, a national organization that has made headway in building support to impeach the president and vice president. The Nation magazine writer John Nichols named Carpenter "Most Valuable Activist" of the year in 2007.

O'Reilly did well in Carpenter's Northampton precinct in the Democratic caucus held earlier this month, Carpenter said, and the candidate was more popular than Kerry with Amherst Democrats at their caucus, Vickery said.

Vickery doesn't have a count yet of how many delegates O'Reilly has, but his campaign is trending in the right direction, he said. "We have a good sense of where we're strong - western Massachusetts, the Cape and Gloucester area."

O'Reilly is a former Watertown firefighter and commercial lobsterman who patterns himself after the late Robert F. Kennedy. O'Reilly has said he decided to challenge Kerry after becoming disillusioned with his 2002 Senate vote authorizing President Bush to wage war in Iraq.

Members of the Progressive Democrats are vying to be delegates to the state convention, Carpenter said. "The main goal is to beat Kerry."

On Monday, Carpenter's concerns were more immediate, though. His cell phone was on its last legs and a technician in Northampton told him it would die before Carpenter could transfer the 300 phone numbers to a new phone.

Carpenter stood to lose more than just his phone and a few telephone numbers.

When members of Congress ask Carpenter if his group has a headquarters, he points to his cell phone and says, "This is it."

"It's got Howard Dean's home phone number on it," Carpenter said of the Democratic National Committee chairman.

"He's got every number of the 'vast leftwing conspiracy on it,'" joked O'Reilly supporter Leo Maley, of Amherst, who had dropped in from his own headquarters at nearby Bruegger's Bakery. He said the wireless access and coffee are both good.

"People are focusing on Wisconsin," where there was a presidential primary election Tuesday. "We were focusing on 'Save the phone,'" Maley said.

It was Carpenter's lucky day, because Ed Kopec, at Family Wireless, across the street from O'Reilly headquarters, was able to transfer Carpenter's phone address book to his new phone.

Mary Carey can be reached at mary.carey@att.net.