Sal's Seat and Susan Passoni

I had the chance to meet (briefly) with Susan Passoni at a meeting in Watertown on Wednesday night with a glbt organization that I'm involved with. She brought with her a whole cadre of team members and stayed for most of the meeting, leaving her campaign manager behind for the entire time. She is a very intriguing choice to take Sal DiMasi's former seat.

Sco, over at .08 Acres, interviewed Passoni back when she ran for City Councilor in '07, where she performed exceptionally well in the very neighborhoods she's running in now, coming pretty close to winning. Obviously, that's a little outdated and for a different race, but there's still some details about issues that are important to her - and what kind of a legislator she'd be (in a word: progressive). There's also some interesting comments on a BMG diary posted a few weeks ago by Cos, though mostly on the horse-racing aspects of the campaign and less on issues.

What I find most intriguing of all is who's getting involved in her campaign: a lot of very talented, smart progressives, people like Dan Cohen, Sonia Chang-Diaz's chief strategist and pollster. A lot of the progressive volunteers and campaign workers in the area that I'm friendly with were active during her city council run two years ago and fans of Passoni today. At the very least I'm intrigued. Any readers in the district or who know her have any thoughts or opinions? Toss them in the comments.

I'll be trying to book her for LeftAhead, or maybe even in front of my video camera for an interview. (Why on Earth I didn't think to ask her campaign manager tonight, don't ask. Clearly, my brain wasn't working at full capacity.)

PS. Here's her website. It's very bare right now and, given the fact that this is a special election taking place on May 19th, I wouldn't expect it to get much better. I've run a special election campaign for state rep in that time span -- it's crazy.