共和党总检察长候选人出人意料地获得补票胜利

9月14日的初选在全国各地产生了许多令人惊讶的结果，但更不可能的选举结果之一就发生在马萨诸塞州:一次成功的重新计票活动。共和党的总检察长候选人名单上没有候选人，但近3万名选民在米尔伯里律师詹姆斯·麦肯纳的名字上签名，让总检察长玛莎·科克利成为11月2日选举的对手。在8月底参加竞选之前，麦肯纳几乎默默无闻，他需要1万张选票才有资格获得投票名额。周二，美国国务卿威廉·加尔文(William Galvin)宣布，麦肯纳以27711票轻松超过了这一门槛。麦肯纳说，上周二他开车去波士顿的Cask'n Flagon酒店参加选后派对时，接到了竞选团队的电话，通知他他很可能会投票。麦肯纳说:“很明显，情况很好。他的竞选团队计算了他需要从每个城镇和城市获得多少票才能达到1万票。“在哈利法克斯，我们需要19个，但得到了121个，”他说。“基层民众对我们参选的反应非常热烈，我都搞不清楚是怎么回事。”传播学院教授约翰·卡罗尔说，对一个补选的候选人来说，如此高的总数是不寻常的。 "The inclination going into the voting booth is not to write in somebody, the inclination is to vote for somebody who is there," he said. McKenna, who also worked as a prosecutor for 10 years, has been campaigning for Coakley's office for fewer than two months. Up until July, he served as legal counsel for GOP auditor candidate Mary Connaughton, but said he was keeping an eye on the attorney general race. "Many people were probably doing what I was doing, waiting for someone else to step up and do it," he said. McKenna said the negativity of Coakley's race against Sen. Scott Brown was one deterrent. "To step into that firestorm wasn't appealing to us," he said. When he did decide to throw his hat in the ring in August, McKenna said the Republican establishment was grateful that someone was going for the nomination, but also saw a write-in effort as "impossible." The state GOP party endorsed him two days after the primary. "He's been running an impressive campaign," said party spokeswoman Tarah Donoghue. "People are fed up with business as usual and Martha Coakley deserves an opponent." Donoghue said McKenna's campaign would have access to field offices and party staff, but would not comment on whether there would be any financial support. On the issues, McKenna lists restoring public trust, fighting illegal immigration and taking on public corruption as his priorities, all things that he said Coakley has largely failed to do. "When we have people on Beacon Hill who are stuffing money in their clothes and not prosecuting that ourselves, that is something that has to change," he said. If McKenna does manage to unseat Coakley, he does plan to turn back the clock on the office in one respect: social media. "The YouTube channel would be gone as of January," he said. "I would not be out there trying to be in front of every camera in the state, I'd be trying to get the job done." But before he can start turning off the cameras, McKenna has to overcome the odds once more and pull of another Tuesday night shocker. "I don't think Martha Coakley will be as easy prey as she was last time," Carroll said. "Everybody wants to pull a Scott Brown, but that was a combination of elements that came together that is not really reproducible. "Does James McKenna have a camera-ready wife, does James McKenna have a daughter who was on American idol?" McKenna has seemed to channel Brown in one respect: courting Tea Party voters without taking on the Tea Party label. "I've been to a number of Tea Party events," McKenna said, although he added that his unsuccessful write-in opponent, Guy Cabone of Belmont, was the only self-described Tea Party candidate vying to be on the ballot. "My thought on those folks is that they are doing the best to help their country." Even if McKenna doesn't manage to capture political lightning in a bottle the way Brown did, many see his surprising success last Tuesday as evidence that the electoral landscape is changing. "These are unusual political times," Carroll said. "The old expectations are being shattered one by one." "It wasn't just our campaign, there was something more out there and that's the real news," McKenna said.