Congressman Ed Markey (D. MA) spoke out about his concerns with the NSA surveillance program:
http://www.masslive.com/...
Markey, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in the June 25 special election, has been a leader in Congress on privacy issues. Markey said in a statement released Friday, "As we look for the guilty needle, we can't invade the privacy of those in the innocent haystack. I have serious concerns about this program, and will continue my work to protect the privacy of individuals from excessive requests for wireless records and information."
Markey co-chairs the bipartisan Congressional Privacy Caucus. He has been involved with investigating the large numbers of law enforcement requests for wireless records, including sweeping requests in which carriers provide phone numbers of all cell users that connect with a tower during a period of time. Markey has contended that the privacy concerns of innocent people should not be overlooked in these requests.
Markey’s office has pointed to Markey’s votes on a variety of surveillance-related bills in which Markey voiced privacy concerns. Markey voted against a 2007 reform of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that allow the government to wiretap communications to or from a foreign country without a court warrant. He opposed a 2008 bill that would have shielded telecommunications companies from lawsuits related to government’s warrantless wiretaps on phone lines.
Markey voted for the Patriot Act in 2001, a bill giving government broader authority to investigate foreign and domestic terrorism, but against reauthorizations of the Patriot Act in 2010 and 2011, and against making it permanent. His spokesman said Markey opposed giving the government overly broad power to investigate private records without consistent oversight and public debate.
Markey’s opponent, Republican private equity investor Gabriel Gomez, said Thursday that he did not yet know enough about the programs to comment. - The Republicn
By the way, Markey has some more big name guests attending his fundraiser next week:
http://www.boston.com/...
Vice President Joe Biden is planning to headline a fundraiser next week for Representative Edward J. Markey, as Democrats continue to try and inject funds into his US Senate campaign in the final stretch of the Massachusetts special election.
Former Vice President Al Gore and Vicki Kennedy, the widow of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, are also both planning to attend the fundraiser in Washington on Tuesday evening.
About 150 people are expected at the fundraiser, which will raise money for both Markey and the Massachusetts Democratic Party, according to the Markey campaign.
Markey, who has been mocked by his Republican opponent Gabriel Gomez for his close ties to the Washington establishment, will not be at his own fundraiser. He will instead be in Springfield that night, debating Gomez for the second time.
The fundraiser is being held the night before President Obama travels up to Boston for a fundraiser for Markey, which comes several weeks after First Lady Michelle Obama did the same.
Markey on Friday scrapped plans to attend a fundraiser on Sunday at the Beverly Hills home of entertainment magnate Haim Saban and his wife, Cheryl. He had been facing criticism for choosing to leave for the West Coast to raise money so close to the June 25 special election.
The fundraiser on Tuesday night will not be the first time Markey and Gore -- two politicians passionate about technology and the environment -- have been linked. Republicans mocked Markey when he touted a bill that he co-authored, the 1996 Telecommunications Act, and said it helped lay the groundwork for future technology companies like Google, Facebook, and YouTube to succeed. - Boston Globe, 6/7/13
And that's not the only good news Markey received:
http://www.masslive.com/...
A new poll conducted by the University of Massachusetts at Amherst is concluding that Democratic Congressman Edward Markey holds an 11-point lead over Republican Gabriel Gomez in the special U.S. Senate election.
The survey of 357 likely voters conducted by YouGov America between May 30- June 4 placed Markey at 51 percent and Gomez at 40 percent among likely voters. Among the 500 registered voters polled, the margin narrowed by only one point, 47-37 percent, with the longtime congressman still holding the advantage.
The poll also concluded that only 75 percent of those who say they voted for Republican Scott Brown in the 2010 special U.S. Senate election plan to vote for Gomez. And among likely voters who say they didn't vote in the 2010 race following the death of Democratic U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy, Markey leads 82 percent to 16 percent.
“With just a couple of weeks left in this campaign, there appears to be little chance of another surprise like we had when Scott Brown upset Martha Coakley in 2010,” said Brian Schaffner, chair of the political science department at UMass Amherst and director of the UMass Poll in a statement. “It is always difficult to predict turnout in a special election like this one, but no matter what assumptions we make about who is likely to vote, Markey holds a consistent lead in our poll.”
Raymond La Raja, associate director of the UMass Poll, said that he thinks “Time is against Gomez. Without a major gaffe by Markey soon, it is becoming very difficult to see a path to victory for Gomez." - The Republican, 6/6/13
By the way, another infamous GOP scumbag is trying to help Gabriel Gomez's (R. MA) campaign by attacking Markey:
http://bostonherald.com/...
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani took aim at U.S. Rep. Edward J. Markey’s attempts to hit Republican Senate candidate Gabriel Gomez on abortion, saying the Malden Democrat is recycling an age-old liberal trick to scare women voters.
“This is like dejà vu all over again for the last 30 years. This is the Democratic thing they throw up there when they are losing the election,” said Giuliani, who campaigned for Gomez in Boston yesterday. “Is that an issue in the campaign? We’ve got much bigger issues like the economy, like the state of our national defense, like what happened in Benghazi.”
Markey slammed Gomez’s stance on abortion during a debate Wednesday night after Gomez said he didn’t see a problem with asking women to wait 24 hours before having an abortion. Gomez clarified yesterday, saying he wouldn’t vote for a law requiring the 24-hour waiting period. - Boston Herald, 6/7/13
Gomez's campaign is getting desperate, especially since a key demographic is turning on Gomez:
http://www.wbur.org/...
A new poll suggests women are souring on Republican Gabriel Gomez in the Massachusetts U.S. Senate race.
The survey, which gives U.S. Rep. Edward Markey an overall lead of 47-39 on Gomez, is the third conducted by Democratic-affiliated Public Policy Polling.
Markey, a Democrat, has watched that overall margin grow only slightly over the course of the three polls — from four points, to seven points, to eight.
But Markey’s edge with women has expanded more significantly — from 10 to 16 points — in the last month.
And women voters have a far lower opinion of Gomez than they did just five weeks ago, according to the PPP surveys.
In a May 1-2 poll, just after Gomez won the GOP primary, 41 percent of women said they had a favorable opinion of the Republican, compared to 24 percent who said they had an unfavorable opinion.
That 17-point advantage shrunk to a 10-point edge in a May 13-15 poll. And in the new PPP survey of 560 likely voters, conducted June 3-4, only 35 percent of women had a favorable view of Gomez, compared to 44 percent who had an unfavorable view — a deficit of nine points.
That’s a 26-point swing, in total.
“Gabriel Gomez has revealed himself to be a right-wing ideologue who supports dangerous limits on a woman’s right to choose, and would vote to confirm pro-life justices for the Supreme Court who would overturn Roe v. Wade, so it comes as no surprise that women across the Commonwealth are seeing Gomez for who he really is — a pro-life Republican who can’t be trusted to protect women’s rights,” said Markey campaign spokesman Andrew Zucker, in a statement. - 90.9 WBUR, 6/6/13
So Gomez is now trying to use his backstory as a way to distract voters from where he stands on the issues:
http://www.masslive.com/...
Republican Senate candidate Gabriel Gomez released a new television ad on Thursday, a positive spot focused mostly on biography.
The ad features shots of Gomez giving his victory speech the night he won the Republican primary. “For a kid who didn't know English until he went to school, I've lived the American Dream,” Gomez says. “If you're looking for a rigid partisan, I'm not your guy. If you're looking for a slick-talking politician, I'm definitely not your guy. This election is about the future; it's not about the past.” The ad notes that Gomez is a former Navy SEAL, aircraft carrier pilot and Harvard Business School graduate, bits of his biography that Gomez has repeatedly emphasized on the campaign trail.
Gomez is facing Democratic U.S. Rep. Edward Markey in a June 25 special election for U.S. Senate.
The 30-second ad was paid for by the Massachusetts Republican Party. As MassLive.com previously reported, the state party recently paid for a $400,000 ad buy – the second one of that size that the party has bought since May. The party has not said where the money came from, since the state party had just $360,000 in the bank at the end of April. The Markey campaign has suggested that the money came from the national Republican Party, which has been recently sending staff and fundraising to help Gomez. Democrats have been trying to tie Gomez to national Republicans – even though Gomez has tried to distance himself from his party. - The Republican, 6/6/13
But top Democrats are not going to let Gomez and his campaign dupe voters:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/...
With two and a half weeks to go until a special Senate election in Massachusetts, two national Democratic groups are going up with television commercials for the first time in the race.
Both the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the campaign arm of Senate Democrats, and the independent Senate Majority PAC are hitting the airwaves with ads in support of Rep. Ed Markey, who's facing off against Republican Gabriel Gomez in the June 25 election.
"If you're worried about your retirement, then you can't trust Gabriel Gomez," says the narrator in the Senate Majority PAC spot. The ad goes onto claim that Gomez supports cutting Social Security benefits and includes a clip of Gomez from a March GOP primary debate saying "I think you can think about increasing the retirement age."
A Democratic source with knowledge of the Senate Majority PAC's ad buy says the group is spending a minimum of a half a million dollars to run the spot statewide.
Outside groups had stayed on the sidelines because Markey had been urging Gomez to sign a pledge to discourage outside spending in the contest, as was the case in last year's Senate battle in Massachusetts between Republican incumbent Scott Brown and Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren, who ended up winning the election.
Gomez has refused to sign the pledge.
The DSCC confirms that it will start running spots in Massachusetts starting Friday, but wouldn't provide any other details about the buy. Their ad hits similar themes and ends with the narrator saying that "Gomez puts himself ahead of us." - CNN, 6/7/13
Here's the ad by the way:
The Special Election is Tuesday, June 25th. If you would like to get involved or donate to the Markey campaign, you can do so here:
http://www.edmarkey.com/