The Senate Race Gets Weird

There's a story in today's dailies about the state Senate that is bizarre, a little, tiny bit cutthroat, and really, well, just head-scratching.

Apparently, former Gardner Rep. Brian Knuuttila met with Rep. Jennifer Flanagan (D-Leominster) -- Knuuttila's opponent -- and Sen. Robert Antonioni (D-Leominster), who is leaving the seat. Flanagan and Antonioni say Knuuttila told them last Friday he was getting out. Knuuttila says he was only talking about the giant fundraising gap he faces, and expressed concerns about how he was going to be able to keep up, and maybe -- just maybe -- he might get out.

How strange.

Make no mistake, this story came from the Flanagan camp. That's not weird. What is weird is that they were so blatant about it. This wasn't a whisper/back channel kind of thing. This was a "get on the phone and make some calls" deal. I wonder if there was any kind of last-minute "are you sure you're not getting out" calls made to Knuuttia, or if Flanagan just moved ahead without, well, warning. I'm not saying what the Flanagan camp did was wrong by any stretch, but I wonder if this could have been settled behind the scenes, or at least hashed out a bit more. It's an aggressive move, but not an unfair one.

All that said, this is a tremendous embarrassment to Knuuttila, who in both stories also apparently said he may move to Florida in the fall. His handling of it -- he apparently tried at first to deny the meeting, and then started hedging his comments on whether he was getting out or not -- was not super-smooth, to say the least. So now his credibility takes a hit, his desire is somewhat questionable, and clearly money is an issue.

Who knows what will happen over the next four months, but clearly at this point Flanagan is in a great position. Knuuttila worried that he would be outspent 7 to 1. I know some big Senate races have candidates raising $100,000 in places like Cambridge, a high total. If I were a serious candidate or part of a serious campaing, I'd set $50,000 as a basement level, while thinking $75K was a possibility. Let's say Knuuttila banked on even $30,000 -- a subpar number more fit for a competitive House race (see DiNatale, 2006). That would mean he's expecting Flanagan to raise over $200,000. And that's at a short $30G. Does he expect she'll clear a quarter-million if she had to? Good lord. No wonder he's nervous.

Give Flanagan this: When this race started less than three months ago, she was lumped in with Knuuttila, Hank Naughton, and a few others as potential winners. Hell, folks were just waiting for Dean Mazzarella to jump in and kill her chances. In those three months, she's gone from what might have been a free-for-all to being the clear monster candidate in this race.

So, now what? The good news for Knuuttila is that it's May 28. He has nearly four months to get over this. Most people will forget about this little dustup by next Tuesday, forget the third Tuesday in September. But Knuuttila probably needs to reassess where he's at (reassess again, apparently). He also might be getting a few phone calls from supporters and advisors. He might need to make a decision, and if he stays in, almost kind of reannounce his campaign and start over.

Finally, what a downer politically. When Antonioni announced he was stepping down, you had to hope this was going to be a three- or four-way, knock-down-drag-out preliminary. Now we're left with this. A lot can happen in four months, but Knuuttila needs to do some things in the next three or four days to get things back on track.