With just 48 hours until the primary, local electioneering should peak today and tomorrow. There has been a noticeable uptick in the volume of political info flowing into my home. Friday, there was a robocall from Steve Panagiotakos in support of Guy Glodis, a candidate for State Auditor. Suzanne Bump, also running for auditor, also called with a recorded message. “Dear Friend” cards for Eileen Donoghue have been flowing in, but there have been none for Chris Doherty. A postcard urging me to vote for Steve Murphy for State Treasurer arrived on Friday.

The glossy, oversized, multicolored postcards that appear to have become the primary means of reaching primary voters have continued to pour in. Corey Belanger, the Lowell resident running for Governors Council sent one. Guy Glodis (running for State Auditor) sent three: the first promoting his accomplishments, the second attacking Suzanne Bump (considered to be his main competition) and the third with a checklist of things to do for election day (text all your friends, send an email blast, post something on Facebook, etc).

In a race closer to home, Chris Doherty sent another flier attacking Eileen Donoghue, calling her “just another politician” and repeating the refrain “all for her, none for you.” Donoghue has responded with her own flier saying “enough is enough” and that voters deserve more than someone who will “say anything and do anything” just to get elected. Donoghue also had the benefit of a flier sent by the group MassEquality urging recipients to vote for Donoghue on Tuesday.

On Saturday, the local newspaper endorsed Donoghue, citing her experience as mayor and city councilor in Lowell, but also criticizing Doherty’s tactics in the race, writing “Donoghue’s rival, former Middlesex County prose­cutor Chris Doherty, is a worthy candidate on the issues, but his overly aggressive tactics to diminish Donoghue’s 31-year career as a practicing defense attorney, because of the type of federally-appointed cases she accepted, were low-grade distractions and irrelevant.”

Until now, there has been a complete blackout of political ads in the local newspaper, an astounding change in electioneering tactics that will be the subject of a future post. Today, however, ads appeared for Barry Finegold for State Senator (full page), Steve Murphy for State Treasurer (half page), Connie Sullivan for State Rep (half page), Sam Meas for Congress (quarter page) and Eric Dahlberg for State Senator. That was it. On the Sunday before a hotly contested primary election for a state senate district with the majority of voters in the city of Lowell, neither candidate placed an ad in that city’s newspaper.