Winslow Hoping for Republican Nomination on Tuesday

Medfield Patch recently sat down with State Rep. Dan Winslow at Blue Moon to discuss his run for State Senator. The state election is on Tuesday. 

When Daniel B. Winslow, 54 (R-Norfolk), first ran for State Representative of the 9th Norfolk District, it was a completely different campaign: He rode his bicycle door-to-door to meet as many voters as possible to win their vote.

But this campaign is different as he drives all over the Commonwealth in hopes of winning the Republican nomination in the primary election on April 30 to fill the Senate seat recently vacated by now Secretary of State John Kerry. 

"This race is different. I have to get 150,000 votes to win this race, I needed 10,000 votes to win my other race," Winslow said. "The bike is in the garage but I'm still working hard." 

Medfield Patch recently sat down with Winslow over coffee at Blue Moon where he said he hopes Medfield voters are proud of what he has accomplished while representing their town.

"My hope is that the people of Medfield are pleased to see the job I've done as Medfield's representative. Everything that I ran on, I've done; those things that I haven't accomplished yet, I will fight for again," Winslow said. "I think voters find it refreshing to see somebody do what he'll say he'll do." 

"As a freshman legislator, I've been a very busy person; I've focused on jobs and the economy and getting things done in government," he said. 

He said he "takes positions to do something" and he took a three-term limit pledge when he took office so he wants to get things done. "Because of that, I'm on a different schedule than a lot of other legislators." 

He said lawmakers have to work hard to make sure progress is made. 

"Let's just solve problems," he said. "Republicans are equally guilty [but] finger-pointing doesn't solve problems." 

Winslow has ties in many areas of the Commonwealth and, according to his campaign blog, his race for Senate has the endorsement of The Boston Herald, The Boston Globe, The Lowell Sun, The Fitchburg Sentinel, The Springfield Republican, and The Eagle Tribune. 

Winslow once lived in Medfield (where his daughter was born), and currently lives in Norfolk with his wife and three children. He was born in Northampton and grew up in Amherst where his father was an antenna repairman. His mother was a first-generation Italian-American who worked three jobs to put four boys through college.

He attended Tufts University and Boston College Law School. 

He says he has worked hard to get where he is today. His first job was in high school as a house painter; he then worked as carpenter through college, and as a laborer through law school. 

Since then, he has worked in private practice (which he has since left to focus on his run for Senate), was a judge in the Wrentham District Court and the Massachusetts Trial Court, and served as chief legal counsel to Governor Mitt Romney.

Winslow also said he represented former Senator Scott Brown in his race against Martha Coakley when he saw a lot of excitement around a Republican candidate in a primarily-Democratic state.

"I think we may just surprise the Democrats because we need to have a vital two-party competition of ideas in Massachusetts and we're lacking that," he said.