Nick Collins Nixes Sticker Hijinks

As you may have heard if you hang out with certain grumpy types in South Boston, nefarious forces have conspired, using evil tricks and underhanded schemes, to steal the 1st Suffolk state senate seat away from its rightful Southie ownership.

So, some of those grumpy South Boston types decided to try to take it back.

After Linda Dorcena Forry’s Democratic primary victory over Southie state representative Nick Collins at the end of April, a group of Collins supporters—including members of his family—began discussing plans for a “sticker campaign” for Collins in the May 28 general election. Stickers are how to do a serious write-in campaign in Massachusetts elections; voters are allowed to place them directly on the ballot, so the write-in candidate prints and distributes them in advance, and at polling places.

Collins has now shut that effort down, but not before it raised serious concerns in local Democratic circles. Enough concerns for SEIU leaders to warn Collins against it.

Even enough concerns, I have confirmed, to merit a phone call Monday from state senate president Therese Murray’s office, to a member of the Collins political camp, making sure Collins understood how displeased Murray would be about such an effort.

The threat was probably never destined for success. Still, with turnout expected to be extremely low, a full-scale sticker effort just might have had a chance to win Collins the election. Or just maybe even split the Democrats’ votes and give Republican Joseph Ureneck a chance at winning.

It certainly seems that Collins has now made it very clear that he opposes the idea. “It is 100 percent shut down,” a Collins campaign insider tells me. On Tuesday, Collins lunched with Forry at high-visibility Scollay Square, and last night he introduced her as a guest at his debt-repayment fundraiser. I’m told he plans to attend Forry’s fundraiser tonight at Pier 4.