Gifford won’t ACKnowledge the obvious
There have been a lot of blow-in accusations tossed around in the race to replace U.S. Rep. Niki Tsongas in the Merrimack Valley’s 3rd Congressional District, but Rufus Gifford’s Nantucket-centric run could be the Louis Vuitton of carpetbag candidacies.
On Sunday, Gifford will host a fundraiser at his parents’ $8 million home on Nantucket. It’s the same location he listed as his home address until he decided to move to Concord — the tonier end of the district that runs from Haverhill and Lawrence through Lowell to Fitchburg and Gardner — and launch his run for political office.
He listed this residence as recently as Nov. 10, 2017, when he gave a $1,000 contribution to the Moulton Leadership Fund. Three days later he launched his congressional campaign in a very blue-collar part of Massachusetts.
Twelve days after announcing his campaign he posted to Facebook about how to donate, and forgot to turn off his location. Maybe he was still moving out of his ACK home?
Back in 2015, then the ambassador to Denmark, Gifford was quoted talking about the island in a Nantucket Magazine article, “Nantucket is my home. It’s where my blood pressure plummets. As soon as I land and smell that air, there’s a sense of ease and calm.”
Yesterday, Gifford said in a statement, “My family has been in the 3rd district for generations, living in towns like Chelmsford, Andover, Concord, and Carlisle. Concord is my home, the 3rd district is my home, and I’m running to represent this remarkable district in Congress.” He added he has spent months campaigning there.
Nantucket is a magical place, and that raises the possibility that Gifford might get the job and then opt to spend less time with the people who voted for him than he spends at Galley Beach or Cru.
Nantucket is peopled by out-of-touch uber elites who use the word “summer” as a verb, for whom employment is an abstract concept — unemployment even more so. Not exactly a mill city crowd.
Gifford wasn’t the only candidate to move into the district when the news broke Tsongas was retiring. Dan Koh quit his job as chief of staff for Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh to move back home to the district. State Sen. Barbara L’Italien lives just outside the district though she insists she has deep ties.
But no one else had to take a boat or a plane to get there.