Sometimes name recognition isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Just ask Geoffrey Epstein.
Epstein, who’s running for mayor in Framingham, Massachusetts, is — obviously — a different one from the disgraced late New York financier Jeffrey Epstein, who is back in the headlines as Republicans wrestle with each other over the release of documents related to his trafficking of underage girls.
But the shared name does draw some comments from people online pleading with him to “show us the list,” Geoffrey Epstein said. Take one Redditor, who recently posted a photo of an Epstein for Mayor mailer under the header, “Is this guy for real?” Other commenters, familiar with the former Framingham School Committee member, offered support: “He’s got good ideas about the city’s finances,” wrote one.
The Framingham mayoral hopeful — who goes by Geoff — says it’s not much of an issue among locals, who know him from his work with public schools.
“No one locally cares about that at all,” said Epstein, a former theoretical physics professor who moved to the U.S. from Australia decades ago. Among the abundance of differences between the two: “He’s a dead American, and I’m an alive Australian,” Epstein said.
Epstein, who served on the school committees in both Newton and Framingham, both major Boston suburbs, got in the race to tackle problems he sees the city facing. His campaign, he said, is focused on education, infrastructure and environmental action, and he has no shortage of solutions he’s pitching — from expanding solar installations on school roofs and in school parking lots, to shifting more of the city’s budget toward education.
He’ll face a demanding fight against incumbent Mayor Charlie Sisitsky, who had more than $61,000 in his campaign coffers as of last month, compared to Epstein’s roughly $5,000.
Luckily for Epstein, a tough name doesn’t necessarily tank a campaign. Look at Harvey Epstein, the New York state assemblymember, whose name unfortunately evokes two of New York’s “most notorious sex perverts,” as comedian John Mulaney put it in a spoof campaign ad on “Saturday Night Live.”
That Epstein recently won the Democratic primary for a New York City Council seat, spoiling the attempted political comeback of former Rep. Anthony Weiner— yet another notorious sexual miscreant — in the process.
Harvey’s tip: “My advice to Geoffrey would be to lead with your values and who you are as a candidate,” the New York Epstein said over the phone. “People will support you if you do the work and follow through.”
This reporting first appeared in Massachusetts Playbook. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every weekday.
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