Massachusetts State Senator Dianne Wilkerson, a Democrat from Boston, was defeated in the September 16 primary by 213 votes. The vote in the primary was Sonia Chang-Diaz 9,071; Wilkerson 8,858. Now Wilkerson is attempting to retain her seat by running as a write-in candidate in November against Chang-Diaz. There is no Republican in the race, but the Socialist Workers Party has a candidate on the ballot in this race, William Leonard.
Both Wilkerson and Chang-Diaz know quite a bit about running write-in campaigns, since they were both write-in candidates in the 2006 Democratic primary for that same seat. In the Democratic primary in 2006, no one had appeared on the ballot, and everyone was a write-in candidate. In that 2006 primary, Wilkerson had 6,478 write-ins, and her closest competitor, Chang-Diaz, had 5,711 write-ins.
Incumbent write-ins aren’t that unusual in Massachusetts lately. In 2004, Carl Sciortino beat the incumbent Vinny Ciampa in the Democratic primary but Ciampa decided to run against Sciortino as a sticker candidate in the general election. Sciortino prevailed. This year, Sciortino had a snafu with his signatures and wasn’t on the ballot in the Democratic primary, forcing him to run a sticker campaign against an opponent. Sciortino won the Democratic primary on stickers and does not have an opponent in the general election.
Senator Wilkerson has bigger problems than running a sticker campaign: she, a convicted tax evader, was arrested this morning following an extended undercover investigation into allegations she was accepting bribes in return for political favors. The newspaper account includes a photo of Sen. Wilkerson “allegedly” stuffing ten $100 dollar bills into her bra while at a restaurant across the street from the state house.