O'Reilly undeterred by Kerry, long odds

Says incumbent is out of touch

Ed O'Reilly, a former supporter of Senator John Kerry, says he questioned the senator's vote to authorize war in Iraq. (John Bohn/Globe Staff)

AGAWAM - Ed O'Reilly worked the crowd at an annual clambake, introducing himself to dozens of potential voters with a jolly optimism that seemed to overlook the stiff odds against his candidacy for the US Senate.

He spoke about the sputtering economy. He asked about local issues. He ate clams with a plastic fork.

Most were willing to hear the pitch from the mop-haired former firefighter and defense attorney who bears a striking resemblance to Joseph Kennedy. Some even said they would vote for him.

Until John Kerry arrived.

Kerry, who has made few recent appearances in this small town next to Springfield, swooped into a pavilion near the Six Flags amusement park with a half-dozen staff members at his side and began shaking hands. Heads turned. Conversations stopped. Cellphone cameras came out.

"He's like the heavyweight prizefighter," said John Auclair, a 51-year-old police captain from Ludlow who made sure to get a photo with Kerry.

The scene demonstrated the struggle O'Reilly faces in trying to unseat a 24-year incumbent and 2004 presidential nominee when Democratic primary voters go to the polls on Sept. 16.

O'Reilly said he is motivated to run because he believes Kerry is out of touch with Massachusetts voters and has not spent enough time focused on the state. But O'Reilly has little experience in elective politics and is massively underfunded, with just 2 percent of the $8.8 million that Kerry has in his war chest.

Yet the scene in Agawam also showed that O'Reilly's surprisingly strong effort is forcing Kerry to get on the local campaign trail at a time when most Democrats of his stature are focused on Denver, not Danvers. Kerry has not faced a Democratic challenger since he won the seat in 1984 and the only serious race of any kind he has faced was his 1996 campaign, when he was challenged by Republican governor William F. Weld.

While Kerry is treating O'Reilly like a nuisance, not a threat, he is nonetheless taking out television ads and has been holding "Kerry on your Corner" events in places like Framingham and North Adams. Earlier this month, he was in Beverly to present the town's "Senior Citizen of the Year" award.

O'Reilly is undaunted and is running an energetic, feisty campaign. In July he proposed having 23 debates and has been hammering away at Kerry for not quickly agreeing to the proposal. After staff members for both campaigns met yesterday, Kerry agreed to a televised debate on WBZ. Details are still being worked out, and O'Reilly said he plans to push for more debates.

"John Kerry is stale," O'Reilly said in an interview. "People want change. They want new ideas, and they want someone who will work. John Kerry takes the voters of Massachusetts for granted. He's come around only in the past few months, and only because I'm out here."

Kerry declined to be interviewed at length for this article and appeared annoyed about discussing the race after his 45-minute appearance in Agawam.

"You work hard, you don't take anything for granted," Kerry said in a 37-second interview, before closing his car door and ending the conversation. "You go around, you ask people for their votes, and you do everything you can to say your record. My record is strong. I deliver for this state. And I want to continue these fights."

Asked about O'Reilly's claim that he's rarely in Massachusetts, Kerry said, "He doesn't know what he's talking about. That's a complete distortion." His staff later produced a list of 100 local events where Kerry has appeared this year.

O'Reilly, a 55-year-old Gloucester resident, grew up with five siblings in a blue-collar family in Watertown. After graduating from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, he held a wide variety of jobs, including commercial lobsterman and prison guard. He said he was also a firefighter in Watertown until his father, the fire chief, laid him off because of budget cuts. He received a law degree from New England School of Law and launched a 25-year career as a Gloucester-based criminal defense attorney.

O'Reilly lacks significant experience as an elected official. He was elected in 1984 to a two-year term on the Gloucester City Council, but didn't run for reelection. He also held a single two-year term on the Gloucester School Committee in the early 1990s, but didn't run for reelection because, he said, he wanted to concentrate on his law practice. His service was unremarkable, said a colleague.

"I can't think of anything that was special or out of the ordinary," Kim Normand, who recently left the School Committee after 20 years, said when asked about O'Reilly's tenure. "Nothing stands out."

O'Reilly is divorced and has a 26-year-old daughter who lives in Berkeley, Calif. He lives with his longtime girlfriend in a $1.8 million home in Gloucester and has a condominium in Delray Beach, Fla. He said he was an alcoholic in the late 1980s and used "other substances" that he won't talk about, but said he was never arrested or convicted of drunken driving and hasn't had a drink since March 8, 1989.

After voting for Kerry almost every time his name has appeared on the ballot, and giving $2,000 to his 2004 presidential campaign, O'Reilly said he began questioning Kerry's commitment after the senator voted to authorize war in Iraq. He says he started to feel as though Kerry was launching for higher office while forgetting about Massachusetts.

"I thought, there have to be people who feel like I do, which is that John Kerry is not doing the job," he said. "John Kerry lives in another world. He visits our world every six years."

"Just ask your friends what they think of John Kerry," he added. "His support is a mile wide and an inch deep. It's not real."

In early 2007, O'Reilly started meeting with Democrats across the state and by May this year he had gathered the necessary 10,000 signatures to qualify for the primary ballot. And despite aggressive efforts by Kerry supporters to keep him off the ballot, O'Reilly also garnered enough support at the state Democratic convention in June to get onto the ballot.

While few expect O'Reilly to defeat Kerry, he has been able to tap into the mixed emotions that some voters have for Kerry. Even though Kerry has risen to the pinnacle of national politics, he is still perceived - and sometimes lampooned even by his allies - as being out of touch with Massachusetts residents.

In a June poll conducted by Suffolk University, 38 percent of Massachusetts residents said Kerry deserved to be reelected and 51 percent said it was time to give someone else a chance. O'Reilly was not included then, although a poll conducted by the university earlier this month showed Kerry with a sizable lead over O'Reilly, 64 percent to 20 percent.

Late on Wednesday night, following his trip to Agawam, O'Reilly drove by himself to Medford Town Hall to give a 5-minute speech to about 35 people at a local Democratic Party forum.

"Unfortunately," the moderator said, "Senator Kerry was unable to make tonight's event because of a prior commitment."

Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com.