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Watching the democrats gather for their unity breakfast (sans food?) this morning at the Doubletree Hotel, I couldn’t help but notice that Massachusetts’ first African-American governor, Deval Patrick, was flanked by the state’s first female attorney general, Martha Coakley, and the newly elected democratic 5^th congressional district nominee, Niki Tsongas—the first woman likely to represent the district since Edith Nourse Rogers left Washington more than 40 years ago. As Coakley explained to the crowd of well wishers and media, “We’ve said it for a long time, we need a woman in the House…and that’s going to be Niki Tsongas!” While, the changing face of politics in the Commonwealth mirrors the national scene with viable candidates such as Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton taking center stage, the story is not simply one of gender or race. Perhaps as voters, we have evolved enough to recognize that good voting decisions must be based on ideology and issues. As Eileen Donoghue said this morning during her pledge to support Tsongas, “Over these last few months, we spent a lot of time together, but we never forgot our principles.” Those principles, such as improving healthcare access for all Americans, ending the war in Iraq, and working to address environmental issues, are a core part of the democratic agenda—with varying ideas about how to tackle them. This morning, I was struck not only by the changing face of political candidates, but also by the different principles expressed by the nominees from each party. I heard Jim Ogonowski earlier today on WCAP express his reasons for not supporting immediate withdrawal from Iraq or any policy on illegal immigrants that would allow them to become citizens. He clearly is an articulate person with his own principles and ideas about how to take this country forward. In the end, the voters must decide who best represents their vision for the America we want to live and raise our families in. That candidate, no matter what face she-he wears, will be the one to go to Washington and represent us; our job is to pay attention, be informed, and vote!

As the photo shows, Niki Tsongas, newly elected democratic nominee for the 5th congressional seat, relishes her victory while happily answering questions from reporters. The election night gathering for the Tsongas campaign, which was held at the Doubletree Hotel in Lowell, ended on an ecstatic note with loud chanting and clapping, but earlier the atmosphere had been so tense, it was palpable. With tight numbers between Niki and close competitor Eileen Donoghue, the race was impossible to call until the very end. In fact, at one point when the Lowell results were first tallied and showed Eileen had beaten Niki in the city by nearly 3,000 votes (the number being spread around the room at the time), Gary Francis, WCAP news director, told me he was going to have to pack up and head to Longmeadow (where the Donoghue campaign was camped) to get his victory speech. Even Paul Marion, a UMass employee and friend of the Tsongas family, was worried that Niki would not be able to make up the votes from Eileen’s strong win in Lowell. According to Marion (whose wife’s family grew up with Paul Tsongas and held the first campaign party for him at their home), it was expected that Eileen would win Lowell but not by such a large margin. Since Lowell was one of the first cities to tally its votes, as results trickled in from other communities, the tension increased. The crowd didn’t have a reliable, up-to-date way to receive voting results, so much was left to hearsay as word spread across the room. (I noticed a guy with a laptop who proved to have access to reliable data, so I kept returning to him.) We learned that Niki had won Lawrence by about 500 votes, while Eileen had won Methuen with a 200 differential. For a complete breakdown of the results by town, check here. Most of the night, the race felt close—very close, which is a testament to the caliber of the women candidates because the race was definitely about the two of them. For additional photos and text, more »