5th District candidates labor on eve of primary

With the hours ticking down to today's primaries, candidates in the special election for the Fifth Congressional District crisscrossed cities and towns northwest of Boston yesterday, trying to track down voters on Labor Day and deliver final appeals.

Despite months of phone calls, leaflets, TV commercials, door-to-door campaigning, and broadcast debates, they were also just trying to remind people to vote.

"With all that everybody has done, nobody realizes that tomorrow is Election Day. Or few realize it," said state Representative James R. Miceli of Wilmington, one of five Democrats vying to replace former US representative Martin T. Meehan, who stepped down after 14-plus years in Congress to become chancellor of the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. Two Republicans will also face off in a primary today. All seven candidates tried to mobilize their supporters and find undecided voters yesterday, amid end-of-summer barbecues, back-to-school preparations, and Labor Day events.

Many election watchers, including several municipal clerks, have predicted turnout as low as 10 percent in some communities today. Lowell City Councilor Eileen Donoghue, a Democrat, said identifying supporters and reminding them to vote as the summer comes to an end has been as important as delivering her message.

"It's easy to get lost in the shuffle of everyday life, coming back to reality after a long holiday weekend," said Donoghue, a former Lowell mayor, who has tried to stress her experience in a Democratic field differentiated more by biography than by differing positions on campaign issues.

Donoghue visited a labor breakfast in Boston and greeted voters outside Methuen's Nevins Memorial Library between stops at her Lowell headquarters to call voters and volunteers. She said she thinks many voters waited until the long weekend to make their decisions and others still remained undecided yesterday.

"We're going to see people coming to decisions - if they haven't made them already - over the next 24 hours," she said yesterday morning. "It's a late-deciding election."

Anticipating a crowd, several of the candidates stopped by the 23d Annual Bread and Roses Labor Day Heritage Festival in Lawrence, where Meehan's picture - and his message as chancellor of UMass-Lowell, a festival sponsor - adorned the back cover of the festival brochure.

"Wherever there's five or more people, I'm going," Democratic candidate Niki Tsongas said, as she worked the crowd in Lawrence yesterday afternoon. She greeted people in downtown Methuen and went to a series of picnics - two of them were her own "PicNikis" and one was the annual summer picnic thrown by state Senator Sue Tucker - while supporters held signs and handed out literature around her.

Tsongas, the widow of former Fifth District representative Paul Tsongas, said she thought many people in the district - which spans 29 cities and towns, including Lawrence and Lowell - knew the election was coming and were familiar with her candidacy, "despite what we've read" about summertime disinterest or voter apathy.

State Representative Barry Finegold, an Andover Democrat, said his strategy for the three-day weekend was to knock on the doors of 15,000 potential supporters and shower voters with calls. Some people "are getting a little tired of the phone calls, and we apologize," he said. But "everyone keeps telling us it's going to be such a low turnout, so we're just doing everything we can to get people out to the polls."

In Lawrence, Finegold shook hands and clapped people on the back. "How you doing? Barry Finegold, running for Congress," he said. "If you're registered, I'd appreciate you coming out to vote."

Finegold also tried a bilingual appeal. He spoke with Lawrence residents Nelson and Xiomara Silvestre with their 12-year-old daughter, Adriana, translating Finegold's ideas for keeping kids off the streets. Then he finished with, "Oro fino! Oro fino!" translating his name into Spanish for them.

State Representative Jamie Eldridge, an Acton Democrat, spent part of the afternoon waving to motorists on Interstate 495 and Route 4 from an overpass in Chelmsford, alongside two dozen sign-wielding supporters. Eldridge - who has touted his progressive credentials and union endorsements - went to labor breakfasts in Worcester and Boston, visited a firefighter event in Groton, and attended the Lawrence festival. He also had workers from a series of local unions making phone calls for him yesterday. Eldridge said he hoped labor support would translate into post-Labor Day votes. "Those are the groups that actually get out and vote, so that should show up tomorrow," said Eldridge, speaking from the overpass.

Eldridge said about half the potential voters he contacted were aware of the election, with half of those telling him they'll support him, he said. "Hopefully, they'll get out and vote," he said.

Miceli, a 16-term representative, said the likelihood of a low turnout gives him reason to doubt polls that have showed him trailing the rest of the Democrats.

"That's the vote upsets are made of," said Miceli, who spent much of yesterday visiting senior citizen housing developments and making phone calls.

On the Republican side, Jim Ogonowski, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and farmer from Dracut, tried to maximize his voter reach by making phone calls to undecided Republicans while also knocking on doors in Littleton. "Hi, how are you? Jim Ogonowski, Republican running for Congress," he said in person at a colonial in a subdivision near the Acton line. Then he took a similar approach on a cellphone handed to him by an aide. "Hi. Jim Ogonowski calling. I'm a Republican running for Congress. We've got a special election coming up, the primary's tomorrow. I'm calling to ask for your vote."

And a moment later, into the cellphone: "This is really Jim Ogonowski."

Tom Tierney, a self-employed consulting actuary from Framingham, spent much of yesterday planting campaign signs - with messages about reforming healthcare and preserving Social Security - in nearly three dozen neighborhoods and high-traffic areas in the district. The Republican said he had signs in every city and town except Harvard, where the "social ethic" discourages it. "We were just filling in the blanks today," said Tierney, adding that he hoped his message-based signs would motivate issues-based voters in a low-turnout election, attracting "those people who blast themselves out of the easy chairs" to vote today.

The two primary winners today will face off in an Oct. 16 general election, along with Constitution Party candidate Kevin Thompson and independent candidates Patrick Murphy and Kurt Hayes, who are not competing in primaries.