Apology to Gerry Leone

Busy, busy, busy....

It's school vacation, so I will be somewhat scarce this week, but I'll be popping in to do some drive-by posts.

First, I owe Gerry Leone an apology.

During Mike Festa's campaign for Middlesex DA, Festa mentioned to me that Leone was the "conservative" in the race and that he supported the death penalty. My intention was to support Festa's campaign, so I wasn't interested enough in Leone to double-check his stand on the death penalty and I should have, so I apologize for that.

Well... I e-mailed the Leone campaign with a request for a statement from Mr. Leone about his stand on the death penalty. I didn't hear anything from the campaign for some time, so I decided to give the campaign a call. I spoke to a very nice campaign staffer who told me that:

"Gerry Leone is against the implementation of the death penalty in Massachusetts."

That's a good start. I'm not a lawyer (nor do I play one on TV), but to me there is a bit of wiggle room in that comment for someone that may personally support the death penalty, but would not be an active player in seeing it reinstated in Massachusetts. I hope that Mr. Leone will address this issue as he continues to campaign across the state.

Mr. Leone's staffer also told me that the campaign intends to update his website to include information about a variety of issues very soon. The site is done in-house and is not farmed out, so in the words of the kind young man who answered the phone, it may be a while, but they plan to do it soon.

I hope so because I'm sure I'm not the only person left with the wrong impression of Gerry Leone.