Interesting Local Candidates From Around Massachusetts

Elections will be popping up all around Massachusetts in the days ahead. At Ryan's Take, I don't normally make endorsements in elections I can't vote in -- and nothing will change this time around. However, I do find a few candidates particularly interesting and hope people will give a them a second look at if they're in right city.

Boston

• The Flaherty/Yoon ticket is a much-needed fresh pick for the city of Boston. Menino has had 16 years to fix fundamental issues and failed. All three of these candidates were on LeftAhead.com and performed well, but I thought Flaherty performed best.
  
• Three of the at-large city council seats seem to be decided, but Andrew Kennealley and Ayanna Pressley are battling it out for #4. Both were on LeftAhead and seemed interesting and thoughtful, but I was particularly impressed with Ayanna. Mike Ball was unimpressed with her earlier in the campaign, but even he thought she sharpened up in time for our podcast, though I suspect he'd be with Kenneally in the end.
  

Lynn

• There are lots of good Young Dems in this race -- is there a changing of the guard? Over in Ward 5, I have a personal friend running from Senator McGee's office, Brendan Crighton, but I'm pretty confident he's getting in. Dan Cahill's another young dem -- and he's running as an incumbent at-large candidate who I'm pretty sure will win again, too. Running for the final at-large city council seat is Eugene Schneeberg, who I was thoroughly impressed with after having a 20-30 minute chat at a recent meeting. He has some geniunely good ideas on solving, or at least mitigating, youth violence in the city -- and has the credibility to back it up. That alone should get him elected, but he brings other factors to the table. If you're from Lynn, at least take a look at him.
• The Lynn Mayoral race is a fascinating one. Major tragedy rocked the city when Mayor Chip Clancy's chief rival, Pat McManus, unexpectedly died. He was the former Mayor who had served for the longest stretch in Lynn ever -- tied with Chip Clancy. After Pat died, Judy Flanagan Kennedy jumped into the election out of no where and, despite only having 6 weeks to run and being outspent by 10:1, she won the preliminary election by a couple hundred votes. It was a shocker. Because I'm no fan of Clancy, I was even tempted to help out his new competitor -- until I found out she's Republican. Sorry, GOP, I won't work for your backbench. I have never apologized for my partisanship, but I won't bat a tear if she manages to defeat Chip.
  

Lowell

• There are so many good blogs in Lowell, I don't want to comment on this election. But on the off-chance that someone from Lowell reads this blog who doesn't read LeftinLowel or Dick Howe's excellent site, etc., please, please, please vote for *anyone* but Michael Hayden, the incumbent school committee member of the Lowell Tech School Committee. I have little opinion on the other races, but he just spews bile and has irrational problems with racial issues (he actually wanted to remove all Spanish-language 'in case of fire, go this way' emergency signs, because they weren't in English!). The link I put down for you shows pictures of his old website, which is 100% about how he detests "illegals." Regardless of how people feel about the immigration issue, surely we can all agree that a school committee campaign shouldn't just be about illegal immigration, right?

Anyone else have some interesting candidates to look at from other cities or towns? Send me an email and I'll take a look at them. Describe to me in 100 words or less why they're worthy of an extra look and perhaps I'll give them one on this site for you.