of we ve had blizzards, an upheaval in city politics with menino dropping out. everybody focused on that. then a big tax debate on beacon hill with the governor s tax plan and then all of a sudden, we have this marathon bombing, which has just taken the oxygen out of the air. these guys like markey, lynch particularly and the two republicans who were trying to challenge mike sullivan, the front-runner on the republican side, need more time to get into this race and get a challenge. build up a challenge to it. because they re not getting there. and that s what s amazing. i want to look at the republican side a minute. i talk to many democrats around here and they re only focused on one guy and that s gomez. that s the candidate they think if he gets out of the primary, he presents a real threat in the special general election. they re very dismissive of sullivan, who appears to be the favorite, because it all depends