The state’s heroin scourge — a hot topic on the campaign trail this election cycle — may have spilled directly into gubernatorial candidate Don Berwick’s path last week, when the Democratic hopeful said he tended to a man seizing from a possible overdose just minutes before stepping into a prime-time debate.
Berwick, a pediatrician and former Medicare chief under President Obama, said he was walking on Cambridge Street shortly before 6 p.m. Wednesday en route to a debate at Channel 7’s downtown studios when a man next to him “collapsed, fell stiff to the ground and ... kept seizing.”
“I tried to protect his airway and make sure he had a pulse,” Berwick said. “Usually a seizure lasts two or three minutes. In his case he kept seizing over and over again. It was a severe situation.”
A friend walking with the man told Berwick he had taken heroin “shortly before” and that he was “sure” it was an overdose.
“It’s everywhere,” Berwick said of the drug that’s suspected of causing a rash of fatal overdoses earlier this year, prompting Gov. Deval Patrick to declare a health emergency. “I just haven’t been anyplace where it hasn’t been (an issue), and it was on the doorstep of the debate. His friend who was with him was very clear that’s what he thought it was.”
Berwick said he stayed with the man for 10 to 15 minutes before an ambulance rushed him to the hospital. McKenzie Ridings, a spokeswoman for the Boston Public Health Commission, confirmed Boston EMS responded to a call for a seizure at 1 Center Plaza and took a patient to Mass. General Hospital, though his condition was unclear.
Berwick, meanwhile, marched on to the debate, where he delivered some of its sharpest attacks against front-runner Martha Coakley and second-place poller Steve Grossman. “I’d be wrong to say it didn’t take me a few minutes to have my mind focus (back) on the debate,” Berwick said. “I was so glad he didn’t have a cardiac arrest before the ambulance came.”
It wasn’t the first time the doctor-turned-candidate has put on the stethoscope on the campaign trail. During a Fourth of July parade on the Cape, he tended to a woman who had collapsed along the route, and stayed with her after she regained consciousness.
“It’s kind of eerie it would happen twice,” Berwick said.
Lesser is more
Nowhere in the State House races is the money flowing like in the First Hampden and Hampshire District, where former White House aide Eric Lesser has pulled in a whopping $302,897 for the anything-but-sleepy, five-way state Senate Democratic primary — and probably more eye-popping, spent $250,840.
How do you spend a quarter-million dollars on a state Senate race? According to campaign finance records, Lesser dropped more than $12,000 on research; $11,000 on buttons, lawn signs and letterhead — all courtesy of the Grossman Marketing Group, gubernatorial candidate Steve Grossman’s family company; $62,225 on media ads; $96,820 on mail pieces; and a lot of trips to Staples.
For comparison, when combining the bank accounts of the seven Democratic Senate candidates in Suffolk County, they’ve raised $222,537 through Aug. 31 and spent $202,140. That’s the work of six Beacon Hill veterans, though it represents only one “competitive” primary: Sonia Chang-Diaz reported spending only $907, a downright princely amount compared to primary challenger Roy Owens, who raised and spent nothing.
Given his Beltway ties, Lesser’s campaign account is littered with Washington, D.C., and Maryland addresses, and names familiar to any Democrat’s ears — David Axelrod, David Plouffe, Alan Solomont and John Fish, to name a few. Daniel Koh, Mayor Martin J. Walsh’s chief of staff, also gave the $500 maximum.
But Lesser isn’t the only candidate stirring up donors in the bid to replace departing Sen. Gale Candaras.
Opponent Timothy Allen raised $61,280 and spent more than $66,000. James Harrington drummed up $38,200 and nearly spent it all, while Aaron Saunders raised $32,000, and spent nearly $30,000. Thomas Lachiusa, a fifth candidate, spent and raised roughly $3,000.
Who said there’s donor fatigue?
Eyes right
The Democratic gubernatorial hopefuls have sought to repeatedly frame themselves as more progressive than the other, a left-of-left tactic they hope appeals to the type of voters that often hit the polls for a primary. But they’ve also swayed right, too.
Berwick, answering a question of whether he’s ever voted Republican at Thursday night’s NECN debate, took the back door to an answer.
“I did not vote for John Silber,” he said, referencing the 1990 governor’s race in which the former Boston University president lost to Republican Bill Weld. So call Berwick a one-time Weldie.
Grossman was more direct: He said he voted for Frank Sargent for governor in 1970. The opponent was Boston Mayor Kevin White.
As for Coakley? “I don’t believe I have.”
