Gabriel Gomez is already a terrible candidate. He wasn’t supposed to be, because on paper he sounds swell! He’s running for John Kerry’s Massachusetts Senate seat against Democrat Ed Markey. Good luck with that.

Politico:

A Suffolk University poll has Markey receiving 52 percent of the vote to Gomez’s 35 percent among likely voters, with 11 percent undecided. A poll from WBUR, the NPR affiliate in Boston, shows Markey with an 8-point edge among likely voters, 46 percent to 38 percent, including leaners.

Let’s see if the numbers drop after voters get a load of this report from Think Progress and The Boston Globe:

[Gomez] claimed a $281,500 deduction on his income taxes for promising not to alter the appearance of his historic home. While he identified this “easement” as a donation to a controversial Washington, DC-based organization, he was reportedly already prevented from making any such changes under local historic preservation laws — a move the Internal Revenue Service has identified as a common “tax scam.” [...]

On his campaign website, Gomez notes that he “experienced how onerous taxes and excessive regulation are barriers to job creation,” and complains that the federal govenrment “runs at an annual loss.”

So he hates taxes and says “we need to start looking at the corporate tax loopholes as well as the personal loopholes… we shouldn’t have a tax code that is thousands of pages long” as he exploits fancy schmancy personal tax loopholes.

No hypocrisy there, Gabe, you little “tax scammer” you.

But wait, there’s more! A bonus post by Joan McCarter at DKos: Gomez furiously tries to distance himself from his swift boat organization!