Behind the courteous and understated tone of the first debate between the trio of Democrats competing for the Cape Ann seat in the legislature, Anthony Verga — the seat holder for the last 14 years and looking for two more — affected a defensive posture.
Verga seemed to enter the Cape Ann Television studio Wednesday night with his political dukes up for a 50-minute tag team match with his challengers, attorneys Astrid afKlinteberg and Ann-Margaret Ferrante. All are seeking the 5th Essex House seat in a Sept. 16 Democratic primary that looms as the real election, with no announced Republican candidates.
Verga began with the admonition, "Don't throw the legislature under the bus" just because the past mayor, the unnamed John Bell, didn't apply for water and sewer rate relief.
At times, Verga found himself tied up in and trying to ward off parallel arguments for gay marriage as an inalienable civil right and casino resorts as a viable source of revenue needed to sustain the decreasing flow of aid from the capital to the provinces.
Even when the three found themselves in basic agreement — as in their ardent opposition to the referendum question on the November general election ballot, inviting repeal of the state income tax — incumbent Verga became a subtle target.
"Draconian," quipped Ferrante; "Katie bar the door," Verga agreed; "A disaster," afKlinteberg added; then, however, she went on to suggest that the repealers were goaded into action by disgust at the "back room deals."
These, afKlinteberg noted, led to momentous decisions "without debate" that produced suspicion that "huge amounts of money is being wasted" in the power pyramid of Beacon Hill _ where Verga has climbed into a leadership post as chairman of the Joint Committee on Veterans and Federal Affairs.
He was all by himself on gay marriage. And, after his challengers took him to task for a June 2007 admission to the Times that he favored giving voters the power to decide whether gays should be allowed to marry, Verga conceded in an interview yesterday that he wished the "issue would go away, but apparently it won't."
Verga, who was 71 at the time, missed the vote in spring 2007 on the anti-gay marriage referendum, when it failed to make the ballot, when he was hospitalized after a fall in the Statehouse. He claimed some integrity and courage by reminding the audience that he stepped up and answered the question about how he would have voted when he could have ducked.
But afKlinteberg and Ferrrante a saw a wedge-issue distinction between their shared belief that gay marriage was a "civil right" and his expressed view that gay marriage was something less than that subject to public caprice.
AfKlinteberg said she was "disappointed" in Verga. "Gay marriage is a civil right," added Ferrante, "and it should have been better protected."
This and all the other points that were honed live and for rebroadcast under the lights in response to questions posed by June Michaels of the League of Women Voters of Cape Ann will be evaluated in an unusual political circumstance.
Because there is no Republican waiting on the November general election ballot, the race is reduced to a showdown on primary day, Sept. 16, and put in the hands of an electorate made up only of Democrats and unenrolled voters who choose to go to the polls when there is only this contest and the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate between incumbent John Kerry, the former Democratic nominee for president, and former Gloucester School Committee member Edward O'Reilly.
In the 5th District of Essex, Rockport and Gloucester, there are 7,729 Democrats and 17,260 unenrolled voters, who are free to roam in primaries.
The strange organization of this year's local Democratic primary, in the shadow of the epic presidential contest coming into focus on nearly all other television stations Wednesday night while Verga, afKlinteberg and Ferrante were slogging it out on channel 12, can only be described as unprecedented.
Verga hasn't had a ballot-certified opponent since 2003, and now he has two Democrats who have taken turns trying to elbow him to the party's margins while simultaneously insinuating in none too subtle terms that, fine gentleman that he is, he doesn't and can't produce for the district.
Verga took off from Michaels' last question — essentially, what unasked question did the candidates wish had been asked — to wonder what were the failures his opponents saw in his record that inspired them to run against him.
"I must have done something wrong," he said wistfully.
First, Ferrante answered that she offered a different style of leadership, one that would be "more prepared" and "more aggressive."
AfKlinteberg said she saw the need for a representative with "wider vision," who was "more persistent." She concurred with Ferrante in faulting Verga for not being "more aggressive" on behalf of the district.
"Well, I'm your current representative," said Verga when his turn came. He confessed, "I "kind of resent" all the criticism.
"I believe I did the job," he said. "I don't defend my record. I promote my record. I rest my case."
Richard Gaines can be reached at rgaines@gloucestertimes.com
