overnor Paul Cellucci is stumping out West for George W. Bush. The State House News Service reports he'll be back ''Thursday-ish.'' Evidently, he's in no hurry to come home.
Who can blame him?
Cellucci's already woeful Massachusetts Republican Party is in danger of being annihilated by the Democrats in two weeks.
Let's see. Democratic Senator Edward M. Kennedy won't deign to debate, but will honor us with a few cameo appearances as he ''campaigns'' for reelection against token Republican challenger Jack E. Robinson, Libertarian Carla Howell, and three others.
Oh yes, the all-Democrat House delegation will probably pitch another 10-0 shutout Nov. 7. And don't forget that Republicans have no candidate for 63 percent of the state legislative seats. With Vice President Al Gore likely to thrash Bush here, there will be a strong gravitational pull for the Democratic ticket on Election Day.
It gets worse. Three of the Republicans' paltry seven state Senate seats (out of 40) are now war zones, and the lack of competition in other races has left big-name Democrats free to roam at will as reinforcements in these fights.
Four-term incumbent Robert L. Hedlund of Weymouth is in another dogfight to hold his South Shore seat, this time against Democratic challenger James M. Cantwell, also of Weymouth.
Freshman Senator JoAnn Sprague of Walpole is in a tough rematch with Walpole Democrat James Timilty, whom she beat by 1 percentage point two years ago.
The Cape and Islands seat, a Republican stronghold for as long as anyone can remember, is suddenly in play after the resignation last month of six-term Senator Henri Rauschenbach, who took a job in the Cellucci administration. Edward B. Teague III of Yarmouthport, the former House Republican leader, and Barnstable County Commissioner Robert A. O'Leary, a Democrat, jumped in for a six-week dash to the finish. It's competitive.
Democrats are pouring resources and surrogates into all three districts. Hedlund's seat is considered the ripest for plucking. The district, stretching from a piece of Braintree through Weymouth and six coastal towns to Duxbury, has changed party hands three times in a decade.
Hedlund, a maverick conservative Republican, won the open seat in the GOP surge of 1990. But in a pair of cliffhangers, he lost to Brian McDonald in 1992, as Massachusetts went big for Bill Clinton over President George Bush, and barely won it back two years later.
Cantwell, formerly a Marshfield selectman and aide to US Representative William D. Delahunt, is getting plenty of help from the party powerhouses. Ted Kennedy is scheduled to campaign with him Friday at a Weymouth American Legion post. Delahunt (unopposed) has also pitched in, as has House Ways and Means Chairman Paul Haley (unopposed) of Weymouth.
Hedlund's a strong campaigner but is swimming virtually alone against the Democratic tide (Cellucci last appeared with him in the district late in 1999). He will, however, get help from party-funded Election Day phone banks.
Timilty, too, is receiving help from Democratic big guns. Kennedy wrote a letter, and the district's three congressmen - Barney Frank, Joe Moakley, and Jim McGovern - have lent support. Frank and Moakley have light opposition, and McGovern has none. Norfolk District Attorney William Keating is also helping Timilty (a good name among ex-Bostonians), whose dad, Joe, once represented a slice of the district in the Senate.
Sprague, however, is answering that with incumbency-enhancing events such as Tuesday's ceremony in Seekonk, touting the state's zero-interest $6 million loan for a water treatment plant. A grandmother and Army veteran, she's not a lawmaking heavyweight on Beacon Hill. But Sprague works hard on constituent services and issues that affect her suburban, independent-heavy district.
Further south, Teague will outspend O'Leary by at least 2-1 in their abbreviated race, and the popular Rauschenbach has thrown his organization behind him. Teague may also be better-known by virtue of his unsuccessful 1996 congressional run against Delahunt, though many voters remember his acid tongue.
But O'Leary, a moderate Democrat who, like Teague, backs Cellucci's Question 4 tax rollback initiative petition, has run Capewide several times. He gave Rauschenbach a serious run in 1988, losing by 8 percentage points and sweeping the smaller towns of the Outer Cape and islands.
Republicans will be embarrassed if they lose even one of these Senate seats on Nov. 7. Maybe that's why Cellucci is staying away, at least until tomorrow-ish.
