E-Mail This Article to a Friend Race consciousness As Angus McQuilken and Scott Brown battle for Cheryl Jacques’s Senate seat, their contest reflects themes likely to dominate the upcoming Republican assault on Democratic incumbents BY ADAM REILLY

WHEN VOTERS IN the Norfolk, Bristol, and Middlesex District — made up of a dozen towns including Needham, Natick, Wellesley, Wrentham, and North Attleborough — head to the polls to elect a new state senator this Tuesday, far more than a single legislative seat will be at stake. In the short term, the outcome of the special election for the seat vacated by Cheryl Jacques, who resigned effective January 4 to lead the national gay-rights group Human Rights Campaign, could have an immediate impact on the course of the gay-marriage debate on Beacon Hill. If Democrat Angus McQuilken, Jacques’s former chief of staff, prevails, the pro-gay-marriage contingent could gain another legislator when the state’s constitutional convention reconvenes on March 11. (According to Brian McNiff, spokesman for Secretary of the Commonwealth William Francis Galvin, it’s possible but not definite that a victorious McQuilken would be able to participate in the ConCon, depending on how quickly the election results could be certified and the new state senator sworn in by Governor Mitt Romney: "Conceivably, it could happen, but there’s no guarantee," McNiff says.) If victory goes to State Representative Scott Brown, McQuilken’s Republican opponent, there won’t be an immediate shift in the balance of power. Depending on the election-certification and swearing-in timetable, Brown, who opposes gay marriage, will simply vote on the issue at the ConCon as a senator rather than as a representative, with his House seat remaining vacant until a successor can be elected. But given the slim margins by which legislators opposed to amending the state constitution to define marriage as an inherently heterosexual institution prevailed earlier this month, gay-marriage advocates would regard a Brown win as a missed opportunity to add a pro-marriage vote.

That’s not the only reason the Brown-McQuilken race matters. At present, Beacon Hill’s Republican legislators are an impotent bunch: only six of 40 Senate seats are held by Republicans, while in the House, Republicans are outnumbered 137 to 23. As a result, it’s virtually impossible for Romney to achieve the one-third-plus minority necessary to sustain legislative vetoes, a weakness that’s dogged the Bay State’s Republican governors since 1992. But Romney has pledged to get more Republicans elected to the legislature, something former governors Jane Swift and William Weld didn’t even try to do and former governor Paul Cellucci, despite his efforts at party building, couldn’t accomplish (see "Party Boy," February 27, 2003).

A Brown win next week would serve notice to voters and prospective Republican candidates that Romney’s mission is viable. Even a respectable Brown loss could be spun as a moral victory, since many political observers on both sides agree that the Senate bolstered McQuilken’s chances by scheduling the special election for Jacques’s seat on the same day as the presidential primary. With Massachusetts senator John Kerry still fending off attacks from North Carolina senator John Edwards, and with George W. Bush lacking any serious challenger, far more Democrats than Republicans will be voting on March 2, in Jacques’s district as well as statewide. (The Senate’s decision to hold the special election on the same day as the presidential primary, and to schedule the special election after Jacques submitted her letter of resignation but before she actually left office, was unsuccessfully challenged in a lawsuit brought by the state Republican Party and dismissed by the Supreme Judicial Court.)

According to one Republican consultant, an analysis conducted by the state party shows that piggybacking the special election on the primary will likely give McQuilken an extra 18 to 22 percentage points. Of course, these numbers could be a bit of savvy PR aimed at making anything other than a landslide McQuilken victory look illegitimate. But they also highlight the pitfalls this election poses for the state’s Democratic establishment. If the election were scheduled for any other day, a McQuilken victory might have made it harder for Romney — who’s contributed money to Brown, stumped for him in the district, and appears in a Brown television commercial — to sell his vision of a Republican resurgence. As things stand now, though, the Republicans face a win-win situation. If Brown loses, he’ll be remembered as a symbolic victim done in by the Democratic powers-that-be. "Every [Democratic] senator who voted for that election date absolutely expects to have that used against them in the fall," one Republican insider says. On the other hand, if Brown ekes out an improbable win, he’ll shake the state’s Democratic foundation to its core.

After either McQuilken or Brown locks up Jacques’s old seat next Tuesday, combatants on both sides will begin spinning the election results. In the meantime, a few distinct themes have already emerged in the McQuilken-Brown showdown that, no matter who prevails, are likely to be writ large when the Republican assault on Democratic incumbents begins in earnest later this year. During the run-up to November’s legislative elections, expect to see the following replicated again and again:

• The Republican candidates will have deep pockets — but the Democrats aren’t going to roll over and play dead. Romney, Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey, Massachusetts Republican Party chair Darrell Crate, and their respective spouses promised this past December to contribute $125 each to the first 100 Republicans who committed to legislative runs. Of course, this verges on chump change for Romney, a former venture capitalist; Healey, whose husband, Sean, earned $2.7 million in 2002 as COO of Beverly-based Affiliated Managers Group; and Crate, who pulled in $1.9 million in 2002 as AMG’s CFO. Besides, $750 does not a candidate’s war chest make. But $12,500 is also the maximum an individual is allowed to contribute in total political donations annually under state law. So while the financial impact of these donations may be minimal, their symbolic significance — especially for Romney — is huge. The governor essentially signaled that he’s personally invested in this fall’s legislative showdowns, a risky move that could make him look either brilliant or impotent come November. And the Republican faithful seem to have heeded the example set by their leaders. Between January 1 and February 13, Scott Brown pulled in just under $90,000. That’s significantly more than McQuilken, who raised about $55,000. Since his Senate campaign began last year, Brown has also been the beneficiary of approximately $100,000 worth of "in-kind" contributions from the Massachusetts Republican Party, which has footed the bill for, among other things, polls, mass mailings, fundraisers, and the services of Campaign Solutions, a Virginia-based Republican consulting firm. (In contrast, McQuilken has received only $380 worth of in-kind contributions from the Massachusetts Democratic Party.)

Brown’s financial advantage may be due, in part, to the fact that this is a statement race for the state’s Republicans. It’s also worth noting that McQuilken, who faced five challengers in the Democratic primary, had to part with a large share of his receipts earlier than did Brown, whose only primary opponent was fathers’-rights activist Earl Sholley. Furthermore, McQuilken’s fundraising is reportedly picking up as the race approaches the home stretch. On Sunday alone, he hit three fundraisers. At one, a small gathering in Millis, Congressman Barney Frank showed up and offered his endorsement. Another, held in the South End, was organized by former Democratic National Committee chair and Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate Steve Grossman — a clear sign the most powerful Democrats in Massachusetts plan to be just as visibly invested in this year’s legislative battles as Romney is.

• The Rappaport ruckus did no lasting damage. When Romney made it clear in 2002 that he wanted Healey as his running mate rather than veteran Republican activist Jim Rappaport, many of Rappaport’s supporters — who tended to occupy the most conservative end of the Massachusetts political spectrum — were incensed by what they considered a disrespectful snub. Now, however, this internecine spat seems largely forgotten. Back in 2002, Brown was one of only three state representatives to endorse Rappaport, a position that put him at loggerheads with Romney. Today, however, he’s one of the governor’s anointed: during the run-up to the Republican primary for Jacques’s former seat, Romney and the state party took the highly unusual step of backing Brown over Sholley, who also backed Rappaport in 2002, made two previous unsuccessful bids against Jacques, and turned her sexual orientation into a campaign issue.

In other words, Romney appears to have won the Rappaport contingent over. "I can understand where he’s coming from," Sholley says of Romney. "He’s in a difficult situation — he can’t sustain a veto, he can’t really do much of anything without [House Speaker Tom Finneran’s] say-so. Governor Romney knows that he needs to get some Republicans elected. We all know that. Those of us who want to build up the party understand that." Sholley adds that he sees Romney as more conservative than his predecessors. "We haven’t had a Republican governor in a long time in this state," he says. "They may have called themselves Republicans, but they weren’t Republicans. Bill Weld, Paul Cellucci, and Jane Swift were Rockefeller liberals." For his part, Rappaport says he’s willing to assist Republican candidates as the legislative races take shape this fall. "This is not Romney versus Rappaport or anything like that," he says. "If a candidate asks me to come and speak or help out, I’ll do that. I wanted to become lieutenant governor and then hopefully governor after that, but the people spoke and I listened."