Rebuffing outside donors could imperil Gomez's campaign and future with the Republican party, according to an expert.
SPRINGFIELD - The verbal skirmishing over U.S. Senate hopeful Edward Markey's calls for Republican opponent Gabriel Gomez to take "The People's Pledge" continues, but political observers believe outside special interest dollars will come rolling in as the candidates sprint toward the June 25 special election.
Markey, a Democrat with 36 years in Congress, emerged from the primary lobbing immediate warnings about outside money from the likes of Karl Rove and the Koch brothers. He demanded that Gomez, a young, marketable newcomer, take the pledge coined in the Scott Brown- Elizabeth Warren race in 2012; it blocked Super PAC-financed ads.
Gomez refused, arguing Markey's challenge was the "height of hypocrisy" and that Markey has accepted special interest donations for decades. A Markey spokesman on Thursday said he will keep renewing the call.
"It's laughable that a guy who was the spokesman for a secretly funded public ad criticizing the president's handling of Osama bin Laden to refuse to take the People's Pledge and pretend it's some kind of principled stand. It's not," Andrew Zucker, Markey's campaign spokesman, said.
Markey has attacked Gomez, a former Navy SEAL, for appearing as a spokesman for a group of veterans who released a video assailing President Barack Obama, stating he publicized sensitive information about the 2011 killing of bin Laden.
A spokesman for Gomez said the candidate stands by his role in the video.
"Gabriel Gomez did two interviews emphasizing the need to curtail security leaks of sensitive military information after the (bin Laden) raid, the same position that even Senator Diane Feinstein took, " said campaign spokesman Will Ritter. "These leaks put our military men and women in danger and Gabriel Gomez was happy to stand up for them."
While it is too early to tell whether this race will get flooded with out-of-state dollars from conservative groups hoping to win the seat vacated by former U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry, experts say it will provide the most likely boost to Gomez's campaign. Rebuffing outside donors could also imperil his future with the Republican party.
"For him to turn down outside money is to burn some national Republican bridges," said John Baick, a history professor at Western New England University.
He added that Markey's continued emphasis on the issue is critical to mobilizing Democrats.
"I can imagine that he will use this issue every day until the election ... It’s the idea that Gomez is not his own candidate, he is a front for conservative interests throughout the country," Baick said.
He and other political observers have noted that while the balance of power in the U.S. Senate is not as critical as it was when Brown beat Democrat Martha Coakley in 2010, it's the only political race of the moment and will be closely watched.
Rob Collins, executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, sent a mass memo out on May 1, talking up Gomez and noting that surveys have shown only 50 percent of registered voters are even aware of the special election.
Baick said whether the race will capture the attention of a large number of national conservative remains a question.
This race matters more than it might because nothing else is happening, but it also matters less because the balance of the Senate has changed and the healthcare question is no longer on the table," he said.