In the great Democratic state of Massachusetts, where a multi-billion dollar tunnel was glued together with something only slightly stickier than library paste, September 11 is just another campaign day for next year's election. 

The decision to exclude the brother of a pilot killed in the Sept. 11 attacks from ceremonies marking its anniversary has set off a political firestorm in Massachusetts.

Jim Ogonowski, who is a Republican candidate for Congress in the heavily-Democratic state, was not asked to speak, as he had for the past four years.

Ogonowski's brother John was the pilot of American Airlines Flight 11, one of two planes that was flown into the World Trade Center.

While Jim Ogonowski was not invited, speaking will be ex-Congressman Martin Meehan, whose wife is chairing Democrat Niki Tsongas' campaign against Ogonowski.

"I never really thought about this as a political situation," Ted Livingston, executive director of the Massachusetts 9/11 Fund, told The Boston Globe. "We didn't seek to include or exclude anyone because of party lines."

still plans to attend the ceremony.