Mike McLaughlin versus the Rep
By JOSH RESNEK
Those of us who know Councilor Mike McLaughlin understand what a great success story his life has come to be in its present incarnation.
In other words, we, who know Mike and who have watched him come of age in Everett, understand that nearly everything he has achieved for himself wasn’t served to him on a silver platter.
He had to work hard and smart to get where he is in his life right now.
He had to overcome difficulties in order to learn what life can be. When he did that, he stood tall and swore to himself to make something out of his life.
Mike is a complex character.
He is upbeat.
He is awake always.
He is never half asleep at the wheel!
He doesn’t drink. He doesn’t smoke. He doesn’t use drugs. He’s kind to his parents and siblings. He loves his girlfriend.
Mike’s not a taker. There isn’t an ounce of greed in him. He’s not a businessman or a deal maker or a power in local financial circles.
His power is manifested in his positive personality. His perpetual smile. His hearty laugh. His humble nature.
This is an Everett young man without pretense and not all swept up in self-importance.
His overriding desire as a councilor has been to always take the high road, to do for others and for his neighborhood and for the community.
He is all Everett all of the time.
He works for a living in the construction business.
He must show up to his job every day.
He must do his bit in order to get paid.
He has a strong work ethic.
He has tenacity and a strong belief in himself.
He is moral and he has faith.
All told, he has a real love for life, for his life and for the lives of those living in this city.
This has served him well in his political career.
During a political campaign, he tends not to take much for granted.
He runs his own campaign using his own strategy as well as the advice of others.
However, his strategy is the hallmark of his campaigns. Running against the rep is no easy task.
The Rep isn’t a pushover.
He has his friends. This includes the mayor, who runs the rep like a puppet.
The mayor has chosen the rep over Mike – the past over the future – the old over the new, part of the club, club Everett that is, whose inspiration is to keep the club going because the rep is more of a convenience for him than McLaughlin would be.
The mayor doesn’t want anyone to infringe on his hold over the workings of Everett City Hall.
He needs the Rep as his puppet.
The mayor can’t control McLaughlin as he would a puppet. There for, the mayor doesn’t want him and is telling everyone he can to vote for the Rep – and to dump McLaughlin.
Last time around in the city election not even a year ago, the mayor put up his best friend to run against McLaughlin to get rid of him.
Those were the mayor’s exact words, as I understand it. “Get rid of McLaughlin.”
Like a good soldier the best friend ran a thorough campaign with all the mayor’s operatives placing signs, ads, passing out literature, going door-to-door.
McLaughlin took the high road absolutely refusing to dive into the gutter to defeat a very strong opponent backed by the mayor.
Instead of throwing bombs, McLaughlin campaigned zealously door-to-door, ran only positive ads – and not many of them – and relied entirely on himself (and his girlfriend and chief supporter Patti).
In the end, when all the votes were counted, he beat the mayor’s best friend in every precinct in every ward in the city.
McLaughlin is planning to do the same in this contest against the rep.
He has more energy than the rep.
He wants the position more badly than the rep.
He is more focused than the rep.
He spends more time in Everett among the people.
His repeated volunteer efforts passing out free food to the needy are memorable.
While the rep is hiding out in a back office at the State House which is mostly closed, McLaughlin is all around the city every day, touching many bases, taking many steps to gain what he is trying to achieve for himself.
Make no mistake, the race has the essence and the appearance of being tight – but then – the last race that McLaughlin ran against the mayor’s best friend was supposed to be very tight and then turned out to be not tight at all – a charade of sorts.
When the mayor’s best friend lost the race last time out, the mayor was heard to say: “He was a bad candidate.”
The rep isn’t the mayor’s best friend.
He’s the mayor’s puppet.
The mayor says jump and he jumps.
This behavior is made all the more difficult to understand because it was the mayor who humiliated the rep about 12 years back when he was running for mayor.
The mayor spread scurrilous rumors about the rep.
They broke his back. They ruined his campaign.
The mayor stole the election from the rep degrading him and traveling in the gutter.
Now the two are posing as best of friends – and perhaps they are – but we know they aren’t.
They are people who need one another.
A victory for the rep is a victory for the mayor.
A victory for McLaughlin is a defeat for the mayor.
It is impossible to predict exactly who will win an election until all the votes have been counted, and this includes absentee votes and votes sent in by mail.
History cannot be told until it has happened.
How this upcoming primary turns out can be a matter of looking at recent history and what came before or predicting new history and what will come after.
I know this – one candidate will work a lot harder and smarter than the other.
That candidate will likely win.
In less than thirty days, we’ll know if the mayor is a rep maker or an incumbent breaker.