Wilkerson camp concedes recount, says it has advantages in write-in campaign

BOSTON -- State Sen. Dianne Wilkerson's campaign conceded that it lost the recount Saturday but said that it sees several advantages going forward with a write-in campaign against Sonia Chang-Diaz in the general election.

Speaking to reporters as the boxes of ballots were rolled out of the recount room, Boyce Slayman, the Boston Democrat's campaign manager, said that the Wilkerson write-in campaign has three things going for it.

"Write-in campaigns are always difficult," Slayman said. "We have three things going for us. One, there will be a very high turnout in the Nov. 4 election because of the excitement generated by the presidential election. Two, we have a campaign organization that ran a successful sticker election just two years ago. We still have an organization that knows how to run a sticker campaign. And, three, 7,000 people voted for us on a sticker campaign two years ago."

Wilkerson was forced to defend her state Senate seat with a write-in campaign in 2006 because she failed to submit the requisite number of signatures to appear on the ballot. That year, she beat Chang-Diaz, of Jamaica Plain, in the Democratic primary.

"So," Slayman went on, "we have turnout in our favor, organizational experience in our favor and voter behavior in our favor. So what might normally be a very daunting task is significantly less daunting for us."

Slayman also fielded a question about the role of race in the campaigns, saying that his campaign never sought to make race an issue. But, he said, supporters of Chang-Diaz have injected race into contest.

"You know, because of the dynamics that have been introduced because Ms. Diaz-Chang has an exotic name and two different ethnic groups," Slayman said, mistakenly flipping Chang-Diaz's last name. "There has been some exploitation of that by some zealous supporters. Race is not the issue for us we wanted to make the issues experience."