By JOSH RESNEK
All three mayoral candidates continued relentless campaigning over the weekend and into the new week with renewed efforts.
The door-to-door visitations and visibilities with sign holders in the city’s squares have reached epic proportions.
The candidates quite often cross one another’s paths as they go about the task of reaching out to the city’s voters.
All three are looking for promises.
The mayor, we are told repeatedly by voters approached by him, is making promises
Only two candidates are going to receive votes in enough quantities to gain a place for the final in November.
One of the three candidates is going to be deeply disappointed.
The mayor is being chased and followed by candidates Gerly Adrien and Fred Capone as the drumbeat intensifies before the primary set for September 21.
Not to be outdone, the mayor continued his public campaigning and the blitz of Internet press releases attempting to show him as everything to everyone.
The mayor’s campaign is being organized, strategized, and directed by outside forces.
The mayor has more campaign funding on hand than Adrien and Capone combined.
However, fundraising efforts by Adrien and Capone have kept pace with their respective campaigns.
There is a belief held by many locally who believe this campaign is not about who has more money or more signs.
It is about how the campaigns manage or mismanage getting out their perceived voting blocs.
It is also about the possibility that this is a seminal moment in Everett’s political history.
That is, it could be the year when the minorities rise up to show their force as the majority voting bloc in the city.
Can this happen?
Yes, it can.
Will this happen?
We will find out on September 21.
Adrien’s campaign is about unifying and bringing out a huge bloc of Black, Brown, Hispanic, Brazilian, and Asian voters to give her a vote.
As the woman of color in the mayoral campaign, she is seeking to gain her hold on city hall at a time when women all over the nation are breaking the glass ceiling keeping them out of power.
Capone is about taking away as many votes as he can from the mayor from the same block of Italian voters.
Capone is relying more on his integrity as a lawyer and a family man to appeal to the common interests of those comparing him with the mayor and believing it is time for a change.
Capone and Adrien are pristine with their private lives and their business lives. “Kickback” Carlo has been involved in countless investigations and legal actions into his personal life during his time in public service. He has apparently paid hefty sums to several women who claimed sexual violence and abuse at his hands so that they should keep their mouths shut as reported in detailed investigative reports by the Boston Globe. Lawsuits in Federal Court have claimed he received a commission for the sale of the casino land which was the subject of an FBI investigation.
The mayor signed an agreement, a proffer, with the US Attorney’s office to provide the FBI with information about wrongdoing – but not necessarily his own wrongdoing.
If he lies to the FBI, he could be immediately indicted.
To protect himself, he has been paying a former US Attorney hundreds of thou- sands of dollars to represent him without admitting that he is likely being represent- ed to protect him from the possibility of criminal prosecution.
He has been paying that attorney from his campaign account.
Structurally, the vote and how it will come down has changed this time around.
The mayor has been commenting to his closest supporters that he has lost the minority vote.
This is problematic for the mayor as the minority vote has always tended to be his – even in his 14-year absence from caring about people of color and ethnicity.
Some believe he has lost the city employee vote, as well. City employees, they say, are tired of having to make forced contributions, pass out campaign literature, attend sign-holding visibilities and pay homage to the mayor who would fire them in an instant if they don’t do as they are told.
With little more than four weeks remaining until primary day, the campaigns intensify, and the speculation mounts.
Who will be the finalists and what will their vote be?
Those are the questions.