West Tisbury Republican Plans to Topple Eight-Term Legislator

By CHRIS BURRELL

He's a Spanish teacher at the regional high school and a
part-time farmer who wakes at 5:30 every morning to feed the sheep and
collect eggs on a family farm off Lambert's Cove Road in West
Tisbury.

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It sounds like an idyllic set-up, but Jim Powell wants more -
a seat in the Massachusetts legislature.

Mr. Powell officially announced his candidacy last week. To win in
November, he'll have to topple a Goliath, eight-term incumbent
Rep. Eric Turkington who's run uncontested for reelection all but
three times and won by a sizable margin on every ballot.

So what makes Mr. Powell, a 43-year-old Republican in the middle of
his third term on the West Tisbury finance committee, think he can
unseat the Democrat from Falmouth?

"As a 12th generation native of the Vineyard whose roots go
back to the Hinckleys in Barnstable and the Mayhews on the Island, I
know what this struggle is like," said Mr. Powell, sitting in the
living room of the Bayberry Inn, a family-owned bed and breakfast in
West Tisbury.

The district Mr. Turkington currently represents is almost entirely
an archipelago, comprised of just four precincts in the mainland town of
Falmouth with the remainder made up of the Vineyard, Nantucket and the
Elizabeth Islands.

Since a redistricting in 2002 that carved away parts of Barnstable,
the electorate in this region now tips toward the islands whose combined
voters account for 61 per cent of the total 28,917 registered.

Without a doubt, Mr. Powell is playing on his Islander status while
also spinning the bulk of his rhetoric around the theme of economic
hardship.

"We're squeezing our own people out," said Mr.
Powell. "There's a real elitist movement to squeeze out the
middle class."

The cost of food, fuel and housing, he added, is driving people off
the Cape and Islands.

"Within ten years if you're not making $120,000 a year
on the Vineyard, you'll realize it's not worth it to
stay," Mr. Powell said emphatically. "The average price of a
home on Nantucket is $970,000. Is it any wonder we're outsourcing
our labor to Brazil?"

His solution to money troubles in the region lies in Boston and
Washington. Mr. Powell believes that only 12 cents of every tax dollar
coming off the Vineyard ends up back here in the form of state aid to
towns for general government, education or transportation. The urban
centers of the commonwealth are grabbing at unequal shares of the pie,
at the expense of rural and suburban regions such as the Cape and
Islands, in his view.

"The disparity is so great," said Mr. Powell.

The vice-chairman of the West Tisbury finance committee, he likes to
dissect the numbers and he would love to change the way revenues from
the Martha's Vineyard and Cape Cod land banks are distributed. He
wants money to go toward affordable housing in addition to land
conservation.

"We need to continue not just to get land for conservation but
we also need to save our people," he said. "How can a family
of four successfully raise their kids here on the Island, own a home, be
good, supportive citizens ... and then afford to send the kids on to
college? If they can't afford it, where do they go - Maine,
New Hampshire?"

With a campaign sharply defined by pocketbook issues, Mr. Powell is
billing himself as the people's candidate.

"Look at what you have to deal with as a teacher, the whole
cross-section of the Island," he said. Mr. Powell has taught
Spanish at the high school here for seven years.

He is also trying to shed some of the stigma that comes with being a
Republican in a district where registered Democrats are almost double
the number of GOP voters: 31 per cent Democrat compared to 17 per cent
Republican.

"I'm a moderate Republican. You can't legislate
morality," he said, while noting the fact he worked for the late
Massachusetts Sen. Paul Tsongas and campaigned for President Jimmy
Carter.

Mr. Powell also made frequent efforts to praise Cape and Islands
Sen. Robert O'Leary, a Democrat who is facing a Republican
challenger this fall. "I like a lot of Rob O'Leary's
stands on the issues. Rob's a teacher, too," he said.

But beyond the partisan politics, there's a simple fact
feeding Mr. Powell's optimism - the unenrolled voters. They
make up of 51 per cent of the district's electorate, according to
the latest figures from town clerks and the commonwealth's
secretary of state.

"I'm not a conservative," said Mr. Powell, again
trying to hammer home the distinction and appeal to the voters who
haven't pledged a political party. "We need independent
thinking and leadership."

Republican Gov. Mitt Romney has helped recruit more than 130
candidates from his party to run for seats in the state legislature this
year. The state's Republican committee has already amassed about
$500,000 for the collective campaigns.

Mr. Powell won't divulge the size of his war chest. His first
campaign finance filing isn't due until just after Labor Day. Rep.
Turkington, meanwhile, reported a campaign fund of $20,929 in his most
recent filing with the state in January.

In Mr. Powell's view, the incumbent is vulnerable.

"He hasn't delivered except to a narrow segment that
provides the majority of his campaign contributions," said the
challenger. "(House speaker) Tom Finneran has kept everyone on a
short leash. He sets the agenda."

While his experience as a teacher and finance committee member
sounds provincial, Mr. Powell said he has proven himself at the state
level, successfully lobbying for the restoration of state educational
aid and most recently being appointed to serve on the state workforce
investment board.

He also points to the fact that he traveled to Washington, D.C. to
establish a teacher exchange between Massachusetts and Spain.

Mr. Powell seems well suited to the political arena. In other words,
he likes to talk politics. Last winter, he was one of the outspoken
finance committee members from West Tisbury arguing for a more equitable
cost-sharing formula in the Up Island Regional School District.

He is concerned about rising taxes and the way that the economy is
altering the demographics of the region.

"We're uprooting families," he said. "The
people who leave the Island are silent. We don't hear from them
anymore. I'm going to fight to keep that number from
growing."