First and foremost, folks, remember that the primary election this year is two weeks earlier than normal and on a Thursday — September 6, to be precise. Get out and vote! Voting gets things done; whining on news website comments sections about how bad the country is does not.

The primary ballot is not terribly busy but there are a few key races to consider, starting with two contests for the Ninth Congressional District. On the GOP side we have Christopher Sheldon of Plymouth and Adam G. Chaprales of Sandwich vying for the party nomination.

In terms of positions on the major issues, these men are largely interchangeable and their respective experiences in public service I would call comparable, so this might be a very close race.

On the Democratic side, I am not anticipating good news for C. Samuel Sutter, the Bristol County DA challenging Congressman William R. Keating (D). Mr. Sutter’s campaign strategy has been to aggressively criticize Rep. Keating rather than sell his own qualities, which is never a good sign.

Add to that the fact Mr. Sutter has issues he wants to address, but in most cases no game plans for doing so — and has made addressing traffic at the bridges one of his three big issues. Having been stuck at the bridges myself on many an occasion I appreciate the sentiment, but really: bigger fish to fry.

More locally we have a primary contest for State Representative of the Second Barnstable District between incumbent Demetrius J. Atsalis (D – Barnstable) and Brian R. Mannal, or as I’m calling it, The Race of Lost Opportunity.

See, Rep. Atsalis I consider one of the more vulnerable incumbents in the region. I think a very solid challenger could defeat him, but no such challenger has come along in several years and Mr. Mannal, in my opinion, has failed to buck the trend.

As a fellow Democrat, Mr. Mannal needed to decisively illustrate where Rep. Atsalis has failed as a legislator on critical issues and show voters how he would be markedly different. On his campaign website, Mr. Mannal compares and contrasts himself with the incumbent on three issues of significance: the increase in the sales tax, an expedited approval process for wind turbines, and whether to amend the state constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman.

The other three topics he mentions are rather trivial: proposals on a term length increase, posting roll call votes on the state website, and a campaign spending disclosure measure…not the kind of issues voters are all that concerned with nowadays. His positions on other priority issues are unsurprising and fail to educate voters how he’d be a change from the status quo.

Mr. Mannal’s most aggressive push against Rep. Atsalis has also been on relative non-issues: Marie Parente’s endorsement of the incumbent and Rep. Atsalis’s attendance record. I’ve written about both previously and won’t rehash them now, I’ll simply say Mr. Mannal could have (and I dare say should have) put his time and effort toward something more substantial.

Still, Mr. Mannal has put significantly more effort into his campaign than Stephen M. Palmer, the Plymouth man challenging Senate President Therese M. Murray (D – Plymouth) — and by “challenging” I mean “His name is on the ballot but he has a snowball’s chance of actually winning.”

I recently listened to WATD’s online candidate forum hosting Sen. Murray and Mr. Palmer and…uh, yeah. Wow. Mr. Palmer was semi-coherent, confused, angry, occasionally condescending — in other words, he sounded like yet another person running for office not to serve the public but to have a large stage upon which to grind his anti-government axe.

Finally we have the three Democrats running for governor’s council of the first district: Nicholas D. Bernier, Oliver P. Cipollini, and Walter D. Moniz. This is another toss-up because the candidates’ positions are virtually identical: more public outreach, more diligence in appointing judges, no rubber-stamping whatever comes to them.

One thing voters should be aware of is the potential for another non-contest should Mr. Cipollini win. The Republican incumbent, Mr. Cipollini’s brother Charles, won the 2010 race against Oliver despite his continued insistence that he didn’t even want to win. He actively encouraged people not to vote for him. Voters deserve better than that.

Political news and announcements may be e-mailed to Michael Bailey, senior political reporter, at bailey@capenews.net.

Not surprisingly, voters are looking at a possible repeat of the 2010 election, when brothers Oliver P. and Charles O. Cipollini, of Marstons Mills and Fall River respectively, ran against each other – by which I mean, they were both candidates and they campaigned, but Charles kept telling voters to support Oliver.

Charles won the election and, like last year, has no primary opponent. Oliver, however, will face off in September against fellow Democrats Walter Moniz of New Bedford and Nicholas D. Bernier of Swansea.

My theory, Cynical Version, is that the general election will come down to Charles and Mr. Bernier, because voters don’t know squat about any of the candidates and will simply vote for whoever appears at the top of the ballot, and “Bernier” comes before “Cipollini.”

My other theory, the Non-Cynical Version, is that Charles will probably square off against Mr. Moniz, who ran in 2010 and got his 2012 campaign ramped up nice and early.

Either way, both those scenarios would better serve the voters than another non-campaign featuring the Not Even Remotely Fighting Cipollini Brothers.

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The campaign events calendar is looking pretty thin all around, except for Sandwich Republican Thomas F. Keyes, who has a slew of events scheduled for this month and next.

Among the upcoming local events for the state senate candidate: house parties at the homes of Beverly Comeau in Sandwich (May 18), Frank and Andi Keohane in Falmouth (May 30), Ted and Sylvia Wahl in Sandwich (June 3); a reception with Mary Z. Connaughton, former Republican candidate for state auditor, at the Nimrod in Falmouth (June 18); a garage sale (seriously, that’s what it says) at the Sagamore home of Alice Zinkevich (June 23); and a meet-and-greet at Ms. Zinkevich’s home (June 26).

Keep up with Mr. Keyes’ campaign events at www.votekeyes.com/events.

***

Sheila R. Lyons, incumbent Barnstable County Commissioner, is preparing to launch her new campaign website. There’s just a placeholder page there now, but I’ll let you know when the full site is up and running.

One of her opponents, Eric R. Steinhilber, has also launched his campaign website, which already has some content on it.

The third candidate, incumbent Mary L. (Pat) Flynn, does not have a county commissioner-specific website up yet.

Political news and announcements may be e-mailed to Michael Bailey, senior political reporter, at bailey@capenews.net.

The Marstons Mills Democrat has confirmed that he is running for the seat he ran for unsuccessfully in 2008 and in 2010, making him the third Democrat to throw his hat into the ring, along with Walter Moniz of New Bedford and Nicholas D. Bernier of Swansea.

The incumbent, Republican Charles O. Cipollini of Fall River — Oliver Cipollini’s older brother — is at present a “probable candidate” for re-election.

For those of you who might have forgotten, Charles won an unusual race that pitted him against his brother. The two men frequently campaigned together, and throughout his run, Charles openly declared that he didn’t really want to win and would prefer it if voters supported Oliver.

Charles’ tenure has been equally colorful. He questioned Supreme Judicial Court nominee Barbara Lenk’s capacity for impartiality on same-sex marriage issues in light of the fact she is a lesbian; asked SJC nominee Fernande R.V. Duffly during his confirmation hearing his thoughts on polygamy and communal living; and, commenting on Governor Deval L. Patrick’s efforts to expand the diversity of the SJC, wondered aloud how long it would take the governor to “nominate an illegal” (as in illegal immigrant).

His supporters regard Charles as a breath of fresh air and a change of pace from the (real or imagined) rubber-stamp nature of the governor’s council, while his detractors view him as a disruptive presence on the council.

Whether Charles will run again is a topic for another day, but if he does, voters could be looking at a repeat of the brother-versus-brother non-race of 2010. They can do better than that.

***

Sandwich Democrat R. Patrick Ellis this week officially kicked off his campaign for State Representative of the Fifth Barnstable District. John Walsh, chairman of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, joined Mr. Ellis and his supporters for the campaign launch event, held last night at Hemisphere in Sandwich.

Mr. Ellis is currently the lone challenger to State Representative Randy Hunt (R – Sandwich), who is running for a second term.

Political news and announcements may be e-mailed to Michael Bailey, senior political reporter, at bailey@capenews.net.

Mr. Ellis, who last week filed his paperwork with the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance (OCPF) as a Democrat, has served as a selectman in Sandwich, well as the town’s superintendent of public works and tree warden.

Democrat Brian R. Mannal of Centerville also filed his paperwork with the OCPF, bringing him one step closer to his primary challenge to State Representative Demetrius J. Atsalis (D – Barnstable).

So far no formal challengers have popped up for State Senator Daniel A. Wolf (D – Harwich) or State Representatives David T. Vieira (R – Falmouth), Timothy R. Madden (D – Nantucket), or Cleon H. Turner (D – Dennis).

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Beware the ides of March! Because that’s when Rep. Hunt will hold his official campaign kickoff event.

Join Rep. Hunt at the Dan’l Webster Inn in Sandwich on Thursday, March 15 at 5:30 PM as he launches his first re-election campaign. This is an “open donation” gig with no set minimum donation to the re-election campaign.

Contributions will be accepted at the event, or make an early donation online.

***

C. Samuel Sutter, Bristol County DA, this week formally announced his candidacy for the Ninth Congressional District. Mr. Sutter had what you might call a “rolling campaign kick-off” that started Monday morning in Provincetown and ended in Westport, with a stop in Falmouth along the way.

Backed mostly by supporters from off-Cape, Mr. Sutter stopped at Peg Noonan Park in Falmouth, where he chided Congress in general and Congressman William R. Keating (D) in particular for their ineffectiveness in addressing major national issues such as the federal deficit.

Mr. Sutter also made a couple of mistakes in his speech when he berated Rep. Keating for his votes on two bills, one for aid for firefighters and one calling for funding cuts to Planned Parenthood. Mr. Sutter said Rep. Keating voted against the first and refrained from voting on the latter, neither of which proved true.

The Sutter campaign brushed it off as a minor faux pas, but those are the kinds of faux pases (faux pi?) that can earn a fellow a reputation as uninformed at best, a liar at worst. Better get on the ball, Sam.

***

Walter Moniz, Democratic candidate for governor’s councilor of the first district, has picked up an early endorsement from the retiring Congressman Barney Frank (D). Rep. Frank will formally issue the endorsement at an upcoming campaign event in Acushnet (also known as the thinking man’s New Bedford).

Meanwhile, another gent has entered that race: Nicholas D. Bernier of Swansea, who is also running as a Democrat. He doesn’t have an official website or Facebook page, just a page on WePay.com where people can make campaign donations.

There’s been no word from the incumbent, Charles O. Cippolini of Fall River, whether he plans to run for a second term.

***

Finally, a quick correction: last week I mentioned that Rep. Atsalis’s closest re-election race ever was in 2002, and he won by only 101 votes. That number was wrong due to a math error — hey, I became a writer so I wouldn’t have to do math — and the actual figure was 1,101.

(An aside: while presenting accurate information is always important, I find it amusing how quick politicians are to correct inaccurate vote tallies from past elections. It’s like they’re worried they could retroactively lose the race or something.)

Anyway, with this correct tally in mind, it reaffirms my earlier comment that Rep. Atsalis has never had a solid Republican challenger. Any Republicans out there care to step up and try their luck?

Political news and announcements may be e-mailed to Michael Bailey, senior political reporter, at bailey@capenews.net.