Mass. GOP Buoyed by Dan Winslow Eyeing US Senate Vacancy - East Idaho News
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Mass. GOP Buoyed by Dan Winslow Eyeing US Senate Vacancy

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GETTY P 2613 DanWinslow?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1360143784292John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images(BOSTON) — Massachusetts Republicans got a glimmer of hope on Tuesday after days of rejections from heavy-hitting politicians weighing possible runs in the state’s upcoming special election.

Republican state Rep. Dan Winslow said on Tuesday that he is forming an exploratory committee for the U.S. Senate seat vacated when John Kerry went to head the State Department.

“Today I’m taking the necessary steps to form an exploratory committee to test the waters for the U.S. Senate,” Winslow said in a statement on his website.  “We need to fix a broken Washington where progress is being hampered by partisan gridlock.”

This is the closest a Republican has gotten to throwing his or her hat in the ring after a series of higher profile GOP leaders in the state announced that they would be staying away from the race.

Former Republican Sen. Scott Brown, who was seen as the likely front-runner for the GOP nomination, announced last week that he would be sitting out this round.  

His announcement seemed to open the floodgates for Republicans, kicking off a series of similar decisions from officials thought to be strong options for their party: Former Gov. William Weld, former state Senate minority leader Richard Tisei, former Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey and Tagg Romney, the eldest son of Mitt Romney, have all said thanks but no thanks to the special election.

As for what’s behind the steady stream of rejections, the bottom line is it’s a steep hill to climb.  Any candidate will need to gather 10,000 signatures before the end of February.  That’s a lot of names to gather in a short period of time, but presumably would not have been difficult for well-known candidates like Brown or Weld.  

Another concern is timing.  Massachusetts state law stipulates that the winner of the special election will fill out the rest of the term of the individual whom they were elected to replace.  And Kerry would have been up for re-election in November 2014, meaning that whoever wins that seat in June will face another election in just 17 months.

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