Gabriel Gomez, GOP Candidate (& Khazei Supporter)

 Gabriel Gomez, a Cohasset private equity manager and former Navy SEAL, is running for US Senate -- he took out papers today to begin gathering signatures. Gomez has several Mitt Romney people on his side, including Ron Kaufmann, Darrell Crate, and Gail Gitchco from what I'm told. So he's quite likely your GOP nominee.

You would think. But there's something a little off here. First off, no Republican activists I know have any relationship with Gomez at all -- or knowledge of him even. He's not somebody, as you might expect, who has been involved with GOP politics in the state, helping with funding or support or organizing or anything.

In fact, while he apparently has a lot of money, he doesn't seem to have much history of funding any local Republican candidates or committees, other than a couple of checks to Romney and Kerry Healey.

But, I discovered that -- while Scott Brown was running for US Senate in late 2009 -- Gomez gave a cool $1000 to Democrat Alan Khazei in that race.

And in March 2007 -- while Romney was running for President -- Gomez gave $230 to Barack Obama!

Now, who knows how these things happen. Maybe he has an explanation that will appease the Republican activists who are wondering who exactly this dude is they've never heard of and who now expects to be their US Senate nominee. We'll see.