BOSTON — Barack Obama is nudging him to run. His inner circle is actively encouraging it. Obama world’s clear and away 2020 favorite is sitting right here, on the 38th floor of the John Hancock Building, in a nicely decorated office at Bain Capital.
…
Obama strategist David Axelrod has had several conversations with Patrick about running, and eagerly rattles off the early primary map logic: small-town campaign experience from his 2006 gubernatorial run that will jibe perfectly with Iowa, neighbor-state advantage in New Hampshire and the immediate bloc of votes he’d have as an African-American heading into South Carolina.
Valerie Jarrett, Obama’s close adviser and friend, says that a President Patrick is what “my heart desires.”
When you have a governor around for eight years, one likely develops varied thoughts, a complex relationship with that person, as it were. I haven’t put things together thematically, but these things occur to me:
Patrick is a two-term governor. He was decently, not overwhelmingly popular. He’s a terrific political talent — a great speaker of genuine passion and conviction. Many times over he challenged the political culture, including the legislature, with a progressive, inclusive ethic, and progressive initiatives — some of which passed, some of which ran up against a stubborn small-c conservative House. Patrick supported same-sex marriage before it was easy; he supported clean energy and efficiency, and helped develop a strong hometown industry that is well-positioned to take advantage of the ongoing energy conversion; he advocated for more funding for universal pre-K and public transportation. Before the ACA website nightmare, the Massachusetts health care law was quite neatly implemented (with some credit to the outgoing Romney administration as well). We tend to under-value certain aspects of a politician’s résumé that have been so well-integrated into the Zeitgeist that we take them for granted; we also rarely give credit for taking a risk advocating for things that didn’t pass in the legislature.
In any event, the culture shift has stuck: The difference between Charlie Baker in his 2010 and 2014 versions, was Baker’s acceptance that he essentially wasn’t going to set the agenda, but rather implement a consensus strongly influenced by Patrick.
Patrick is about as progressive as you can expect a national politician to be. (I acknowledge Bernie Sanders’ enduring popularity, but we didn’t put him in the crucible of a national campaign. We just didn’t run that experiment, and for 2020 I’m not at all inclined to support a near-octogenarian Bernie nor Biden.)
On the other hand:
- Some will not like the Bain association. Patrick is obviously quite at home — maybe too much so — in big-money, big-business settings; the things he’s working on at Bain sound kind of intriguing, but the culture of investment and finance is not exactly politically fashionable these days.
- I never agreed with him on casinos. In light of Steve Wynn’s recent arm-twisting of Nevada Senator Dean Heller on health care, I’m especially unhappy with having invited such creatures as Wynn to be major economic — and political — influences in Massachusetts.
- There were shortcomings in administration execution in his tenure. The rollout of the health care website under the ACA was a nightmare, and I didn’t like the somewhat distant tone that he set in response. I hear that DCFS is much better run under Baker. The MBTA was not delivered in good administrative shape to Baker — although Patrick did push for and achieve administrative branch control which Baker is using.
What do you think? Is this just talk? Are there better alternatives? Fired up, ready to go?
Trickle up says
I think this badly misreads the moment.
A case can be made for charismatic centrists such as Obama and Macron. It is not a case that I, a leftist, personally like, but they seem to win elections, even if things fall apart afterwards.
However, part of the trick seems to be that these hopeful saviors need to be unknowns who come out of nowhere, tabulas rasas upon whom a weary electorate can project their hopes.
That’s not Patrick, anymore, and I say that as a Patrick delegate. He is tarnished by experience.
Axelrod et al don’t yearn for today’s Patrick but yesterday’s.
As I’ve said before: Patrick for SCOTUS. (A much nicer job, too.)
Charley on the MTA says
“badly misreads the moment” — I think you’re probably right. I suspect this comment thread may prove that point.
However … I don’t believe in perfect candidates, and a tabula rasa isn’t necessarily a good idea either. You want a defensible record, not a perfect one. (Though, see Hester’s comment below.) I want someone who can a.) win, and b.) *read* the popular mood, including those things that are popular but not “centrist”. In other words, someone to do business with, not an icon or savior.
I mean … look at Baker, and give him credit for running the bureaucracy, but gosh, any decent Democrat would have a much better, more responsible, more forward-looking, more compassionate and inclusive legislative vision. Any of ’em.
jconway says
And a big reason ‘any of em’ are going to lose is because voters were also rejecting a third term of Deval Patrick by voting against his hand picked successor Martha Coakley. Patrick barely beat Baker in 2010, and would’ve surely lost had Cahill not been a spoiler on the center-right. A good argument could be made that the then personally popular Cahill would’ve given Deval a run for his money in the primary. Not to mention it’s not just Bain, it’s kids dying on his watch at DCFS and him doing nothing about it and his cashing out to Boston 2024-a miserable idea nobody wanted. If he ran, I doubt he would win our primary. Especially against an actual progressive like Liz Warren or Bernie Sanders.
johntmay says
After Trump, it’s all a new frontier. I’m not sure what the Democratic version of this new candidate will be, but I don’t see Deval Patrick as something new. He’s just another version of the same upper class professional rank Democrats we’ve tied our wagons to for too long. Yes, Bain is a problem. Yes, Obama taking thousands from Cantor Fitzgerald is a problem. Clinton’s transcripts from Goldman Sachs were a problem.
Jimmy Carter building homes for Habitat for Humanity? Not a problem.
That’s the image we need to go after. Those are the “optics” to look for.
SomervilleTom says
Interesting observations.
To me, your comparisons lead to an obvious question. We’ve had three Democratic Presidents since LBJ stepped down:
– Jimmy Carter
– Bill Clinton
– Barack Obama
How did working-class families do under each of these three Presidents?
You’ve offered criticism Barack Obama, praise for Jimmy Carter, and we know your opinion of Bill Clinton.
For me, Jimmy Carter is an honorable man who I was proud to vote for, twice. I think he was a mostly ineffective president, though. I don’t remember the economy changing very much for better or worse during his single term. My family and I didn’t suffer greatly, nor did we benefit.
The Bill Clinton administration was a breath of fresh air, a dramatic turnaround from the grim suffering that resulted from the first Bush administration. The housing market recovered, employment in my field recovered, new stores opened in the streets of Lowell that had been shuttered for years. The long lines snaking around the block from the Lowell unemployment office disappeared. The salvation-army soup kettles that summoned the ghosts of the Great Depression while feeding the unemployed during the Bush administration evaporated.
The Bill Clinton years were far and away the best years of my adult life, for pretty much everyone I knew about here in Massachusetts.
Barack Obama brought more fresh air and a palpable feeling of relief after the lies, torture, and sheer incompetence of the second Bush administration. The jingoistic racism and misogyny of the 9/11 aftermath, so explicitly pandered to by Bush and the GOP, finally receded.
The Barack Obama years were perhaps not as dramatically better than the Bill Clinton years. In my view, that was very much the direct result of a corrupt and malicious GOP intentionally seeking to destroy everything Americans hold dear. Sadly, the racism and misogyny returned in spades.
So — on a scale of 1-9, with 1 as the worst and 9 as the best, I give Jimmy Carter a 4, BarackObama a 7, and Bill Clinton a clear 9.
In my view, America desperately needs a president who can begin to undo the deep wounds that more than 16 years of GOP barbarity, vulgarity, deceit, and outright lies have brought upon our nation. Donald Trump may well be inflicting mortal wounds on us.
As much as I admire Jimmy Carter and Habitat for Humanity, I think our world and our nation faces MUCH larger challenges — challenges that I did not see Mr. Carter rise to while he was president.
I think we need a different benchmark from your proposal.
johntmay says
Where did I say that Carter was an effective president? He was awful. He was ground zero for the new policy of Democrats agreeing to remove protections (de-regulation). I am simply pointing to who he is now. what the “optics” are and what people are looking for in a leader. He wields a hammer, builds walls, and helps the working man. (Hint: Think of Brown’s barn jacket and pickup).
I don’t see Deval with a wrench in his hands, or from the list that hesterprynne provided, a man keenly interested in helping the working poor as they are.
Bill Clinton a “9”? Based on what? NAFTA? Repeal of Glass Stegal? Please, I’m a working class guy, not a highly paid professional.
SomervilleTom says
You ask, perhaps rhetorically, “Bill Clinton a “9”? Based on what?”
Was some part of this unclear:
So you are apparently demanding that our candidates emulate an “awful” president who was “ground zero for the new policy of Democrats agreeing to remove protections (de-regulation)”, while again loudly attacking the Democrat who by most measures was better for working-class men and women than any President in living memory.
Interesting that you cite Scott Brown’s barn jacket and pickup. Mr. Brown stands out as one of the most incompetent clowns to ever win an election for national office in MA. He was, and is, an embarrassment to the state and even to his own family.
The criteria you offer have so far produced elected officials who are at best mediocre and more commonly “awful”.
I suggest we set higher standards.
Charley on the MTA says
OK, who’s your contender? As I say … no one’s perfect — particularly not people who have actually served in office.
johntmay says
No one is perfect. Who do I see as a contender? Frankly I am having a tough time with that. I was keen on Seth until I read about his thing with the New Dem Pac.
I really do not see anyone at this point. I think the party is so entrenched with neoliberals that we may have to suffer through two Trump terms before we figure it out and see that Bill Clinton was not a “9”. .
SomervilleTom says
Who do you think was a better president than Bill Clinton?
Perhaps a benchmark might help … please rate the following, so that we better understand what presidents you like and don’t like:
Jimmy Carter:
Ronald Reagan:
George H. Bush:
Bill Clinton:
George W. Bush:
Barack Obama:
I already gave you mine for the Dems. Mine, for the Republicans, is:
Ronald Reagan: 2
George H. Bush: 3
George W. Bush: 1
FWIW, I count Donald Trump as about a -20 on this scale.
jconway says
I’m a history teacher, and I ask why we keep arguing about the past? The only question is, how do we beat Donald Turmp in the 2018 midterms and how do we beat him again in 2020? The integrity of our democracy rests on our response. When you’re dying of cancer, you don’t care what method kills the cancer. That is the mindset we have to adopt.
And it’s time for the social progressives, myself included, to concede that our party has to move to the middle on identity issues and immigration. It’s time for the economic moderates and incrementalist liberals in our party to concede that the party has to shift farther to the left on economics than it ever has since 1932. The stakes are literally the future of our constitutional government.
Worried about being woke on BLM? Persisting on reproductive and GLBT rights? Jeff Sessions and Neil Gorsuch certainly aren’t. There’s a whole lot more of them coming down the pike if we don’t elect a Democrat. Any Democrat would appoint solid progressive people to those roles.
Worried about Trump selling our country down the river to Russia or jeopardizing our international agreements, or worried about climate post-Paris withdrawal? I am positive even fracking loving governors like Hickenlooper and Bullock would appoint actual scientists and policy wonks to EPA, DOE, and DOI and not industry lobbyists. I am positive they would appoint competent people to lead and fund the State Department. Unlike AWOL Tillerson and the unprecedented 40% cuts that department is taking on the chin.
Worried about passing single payer? Warren and Bernie aren’t going to get elected by the truck drivers in WI, PA, OH, or MI. Find an official who looks and talks like this guy who I believe will take out the dishonorable gentleman from Wisconsin. I think Sherrod Brown, Al Franken, Steve Bullock, Kirsten Gillibrand, Amy Kloubuchar, and maybe Tim Ryan are our best bets. All have won congressional districts or states in the past that were carried by Trump this year. Bullock had 20% of his voters split their ticket with Trump. Franken estimates that 12% of his 2014 voters voted for Trump. It’s because they are genuine, authentic, come from and focus on the middle class. These are the folks we need. Not Deval.
petr says
We keep arguing about the past because you, history teacher, keep getting it wrong. You have the intellectual version of Stockholm syndrome all the while you insist you’re the only sane one here.
jconway says
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black
petr says
We weren’t talking about that. Try to stay focused, at least.
jconway says
Maybe when you respond to the substance of my argument instead of taking my quotes out of context.
petr says
I’ve been engaging your arguments directly and forthrightly for some time now. You don’t attend. You want to ‘move on,’ confident in your own righteousness. Some of us won’t let you because you’re not right. You’re in fact quite wrong.
You started this by wondering aloud why we argue about history. We argue about history because you’re wrong and refuse to see it.
jconway says
So prove to me how I’m wrong by bringing data to the argument.
jconway says
Actually you’re both right. Unlike today’s Democrats, Clinton figured out how to win back Reagan Democrats to become President. That is something no possible presidential contender other than Steve Bullock or Al Franken is even talking about. Secondly, the manner in which he won them back can’t be replicated today. Policies that worked for the 80s and 90s environment aren’t suited to today’s climate. So let’s figure out how to start thinking about tomorrow and move on.
SomervilleTom says
I had two very specific purposes in asking my question — 1. In my view, one of the more effective ways to evaluate a proposed strategy is to ask how it has fared historically.
2, To clarify the biases of the commentator I’m responding to
As a historian, you are surely aware of the cliche “Those who do not know history are bound to repeat it” (paraphrased from George Santayana.
I am responding to comments that proposed that we seek candidates who emulate Jimmy Carter and, later, Scott Brown. A commentator who loudly argues against the practices of Bill Clinton.
I suggest that if “how do we beat Donald Turmp in the 2018 midterms and how do we beat him again in 2020” is the most burning question, then emulating Jimmy Carter is NOT the best way forward.
I’m not arguing about the past. I do, however, think that a response to my questions helps clarify the PRESENT biases of the respondent. I note, in addition, that he has not answered.
SomervilleTom says
@ policies that aren’t suited for today’s climate:
Bill Clinton CREATED the “town hall” format.
I encourage you to watch the master at work and tell me that you think this STYLE won’t succeed today.
This quote is from the 1992 presidential debate — TWENTY FIVE YEARS AGO.
Are you telling us that the following “aren’t suited to today’s climate”:
1, Invest in American jobs
2. Invest in American education
3. Control American health care costs
4. Bring the American people together again.
You might not like the music of Jimi Hendrix, but it’s simply incorrect to assert that he wasn’t the best guitarist of a lifetime.
I don’t know about “policies of the 80s and 90s”. I know that I see in Bill Clinton a stellar campaigner, and the hands-down best politician of my lifetime.
jconway says
That Bill Clinton sounds an awful lot like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren to me, in short, a populist focusing on the economy and putting the culture war issues on the backburner. The Republicans ran as culture warriors that year, not the Democrats. So I absolutely endorse that style of campaigning-it is largely a style that Hillary Clinton avoided to her peril last fall. It is also a style too many progressives are uncomfortable with today since they do not know how to engage with working class voters and their aspirations.
So absolutely he is a master class on effective campaign strategy and rhetoric and won many culturally conservative voters by appealing to their economic dreams rather than deploring their cultural views. I remember safe legal and rare. Do any Democrats run on the rare part these days? I remember him alluding to a fair deal for the people who work hard and play by the rules. Have Democrats gone after Wall Street figures who didn’t play by the rules? Do they empathize with people who work hard and didn’t go to college, or do they lecture them on learning new skillsets?
I think Clintons rhetoric is incredibly helpful and won over Reagan Democrats. I think we absolutely should study this messaging and adapt it with policies viable in todays economy that can win back Trump Democrats and independent. What I do not see Clinton do is demonize people that disagree with him, right off half the electorate as deplorable or 47%, or otherwise campaign to the Whole Foods set and leave the Wal Mart shopper behind.
SomervilleTom says
@ populist Bill Clinton: That’s my point, though.
That IS the Bill Clinton that I remember as the greatest president of my lifetime. I fear we do him and ourselves a dis-service when we rewrite history to make him a villain.
centralmassdad says
That Bill Clinton was a lot like Bernie Sanders. The entire point of the 1992 campaign was “Its the economy, stupid.” Indeed, the thing that made him stand out was his willingness to kick back on “cultural” issues in order to push economic issues.
That is essentially what everyone seems to want Candidate 2020 to do– so it might make sense to see how it was already done (and successfully, at least in the campaign).
petr says
That’s part A. And it’s very well. No disagreements.
Part B is this: Bill Clinton passed comprehensive tax increases without the support of a single Republican.
In fact, the Republicans prophecy’d doom and despair as a result of the tax cuts USING THE EXACT SAME ARGUMENTS they use today.
They.
were.
wrong.
Clinton raised taxes and said the raise would be good. The Republics cried woe and ragnarok! and said the tax increase would be hellscape and damnation. What happened? The economy was lifted. Jobs were created. Budgets were balanced. The Republicans were definitively, decisively, completely and utterly proven to be wrong.
Why can’t we run on that?
Why do we, instead, have to hold our nose and, for some reason, pretend that Donald Trump isn’t slightly less a blistering idiot than the blistering idiots who voted for him and please-mr-and-mrs-idiot vote for us now…?
centralmassdad says
Fair enough. I suppose the fly in the ointment is that, in return for this achievement, in 1994 Dems lost both Congressional majorities in what has turned out to be a long-term shift to minority party status.
They’ll have had the HoR for just 4 of 24 years by the next election, and those 4 required a war to start, become unpopular, and be unpopular for a few years– and once the war receded from the headlines, they were promptly bounced back to minority status.
The Senate record looks artificially better– 10 of 24 years in control, but a number of those years had razor-thin margins that required kissing up to Joe freaking Lieberman.
It is irritating that success does not yield electoral success, nor failure yield failure.
SomervilleTom says
@ cmd & 1994 losses: I have a slightly different view of the same facts. In my view, America has been slipping into the miasma of right-wing lies for decades, beginning during the Jimmy Carter years and breaking out with the election of Ronald Reagan.
In my view, the losses in 1994 and after are a manifestation of this sad shift. I admire Bill Clinton because he accomplished all that he did in spite of this rightward shift in the body politic and therefore congress. Bill Clinton did what he did in spite of relentless and relentlessly personal attacks and groundless opposition — including the failed, hyper-partisan, and intensely hypocritical impeachment.
I share your frustration with this. It is also the reason that I feel so strongly that we should NOT focus on 2018 or even 2020, and instead focus on reshaping America from the ground up.
Christopher says
Good to see people finally remembering the real Bill Clinton! To hear some people tell it he was nothing but a DLC sell-out:(
jconway says
And for the record I love Jimi Hendrix and do not dispute he was the best guitarist of all time.
petr says
I’m very sorry to have to point this out (again) but this is yet another example of you not reading comprehensively.
It is a real problem.
Somervilletom didn’t say Jimi Hendrix was the best guitarist of all time. He said “the best guitarist of a lifetime.” You’re responding to something he did not say making your argument, by definition, non sequitur
(For the record, Jimi Hendrix, had he allowed himself time to mature, might be a better guitarist than Buddy Guy is today… but he killed himself with drugs and didn’t give himself that chance…. And Buddy Guy himself points to the work of B. B. King with admiration and respect. )
jconway says
Now this is a good counter argument. Buddy Guy is the best guitarist I’ve seen live, that’s for sure.
hesterprynne says
Two policy ideas that many of us would consider to be inhumane:
The first: a restrictive policy on access to emergency shelter for homeless families with kids under which many families must first prove that they have slept in a place not meant for human habitation, like a car, a train station or a hospital emergency room in order to receive shelter.
The second: a proposal to count federal disability payments as income in determining eligibility for cash welfare grants. This proposal would, for example, take away a $400 per month welfare grant to a grandmother and her 13-year-old granddaughter who cannot walk or talk because of cerebral palsy because the granddaughter receives $750 per month in federal disability payments.
The first of these is currently our state’s policy. The second is not. It has been stopped — twice — by the Legislature, which may stop it again this year. You might not be surprised to learn that Governor Baker supports both, but you might be surprised to learn that Governor Patrick did too — in fact, his administration originated them.
judy-meredith says
Thank you Hester for reminding BMG readers about these two heartless policy initiatives that Deval Patrick promoted. I’m trying to remember who was Secretary of A& F at the time, and I’m trying to remember the debate and . who in the House and Senate opposed him.
hesterprynne says
I believe it was Jay Gonzalez in both cases. I have a better recollection of the family shelter debate and remember in particular the passionate opposition by the late Senator Donnelly (though I’m sure there were others).
And thank you Judy for declining to join the 2014 invitation from his federal PAC to praise his tenure as Governor (and for telling the Globe the reasons why you chose not to)..
jconway says
I already was disinclined to support him in the primary and that seals the deal.
judy-meredith says
Forgot all about that rant. Wonder if Jay Gonzalez will testify at the hearing later these same issues this week?
judy-meredith says
ha! Governor Patrick, don’t for get your windbreaker!!!
petr says
Here’s hoping you keep trying.
Some jogs to your memory: The 2007 Commission to end homelessness, proposed by Patrick (and Tim Murray) and authorized by the legislature, suggested that shelters were not a solution to homelessness and that housing policy aimed at identifying at-risk families and prevention informed the law that the lege passed and Patrick signed in 2010. To enable this they moved money from DTS, which runs the shelters, to Housing/Community Development which runs public housing and monitors situations where families are at-risk.
The policy sounds utterly draconian, indeed ‘heartless’, when shorn of context. But the context requires us to ask if there was any success to the policies of pre-emptive anti-homelessness measures. Or, put another way, has anybody actually had to prove they slept in a car to get access to emergency shelter or has the policy had any success in preventing homelessness… as opposed to simply accepting it when it happens? (which is, itself, kinda ‘heartless’)
petr says
Yes, and…
… would it not help to know that it was part of a multi-tiered approach to identify at-risk families, stabilize tenancy and improve existing public housing safety in order to make emergency use only under actual emergency…? Money from the Department of Transitional Assistance was moved to Housing/Community Development for this purpose and the lege beefed up the budget for public housing…
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. You may have missed the ounce in your condemnation of the implementation of the cure…
hesterprynne says
Ah yes, the vaunted “Housing First” plan to reduce shelter demand. A shame nobody remembered to provide the housing first.
petr says
“reduce shelter demand’? The plan was to reduce homelessness and only to use shelter under cases of, you know, actual demand. No
You sound like the caricature of a liberal: the important thing, the caricature goes, is the defense of the shelter and not going on the offense against homelessness.
judy-meredith says
Details, details
petr says
I provided some details, upthread, but you’ve not responded to them.
So your acerbic mention of ‘details, details’, here, seems only to highlight your silence, there…
Nor has anyone provided anything other than assertion (“nobody provided the housing first.’) that either the overall program was a failure or the one aspect of it derives from sheer heartlessness… which was the initial charge.
In 1989 doctors let my grandfather die. I had a similar reaction as your reaction to the shelter situation: I thought they were heartless bastards for that one action. It was prostate cancer and they caught it too late… but with the medical technology of the time they didn’t know that, so when they actually did surgery to remove the tumor in the prostate they noticed how much metastasis had occurred. All through his body. They closed him back up and said there was nothing more to be done. Three months, and a lot of morphine, later he died.
I told my doctor my medical history, including how my grandfather died, and every year I get blood work and a prostate exam. I don’t know how I’m going to die, but I’m fairly certain it won’t be prostate cancer…. why? Because, as noted previously, an ounce of prevention is, indeed, worth a pound of cure…
SomervilleTom says
This is a difficult issue with tough choices.
A significant contributor to our homeless population — and therefore our demand for homeless shelters — is our collective decision decades ago to stop providing institutional care for the mentally ill.
I understand the arguments against such institutionalization, and to me they are little more than rationalizations. The net result is that far too many of our mentally ill are incarcerated in state prisons. Perhaps I’m hopelessly old-fashioned, but to me it is barbaric for a society to imprison the mentally ill.
My bottom line is that we live in a state that collectively spends tens of millions of dollars on sporting events, on “luxury” housing (can somebody tell me the difference between a “luxury” condo and a regular one, and where people can buy the latter), on super-duper vegan gluten-free locally-sourced organic groceries that cost ten times the price of a comparable item at a local Stop-and-Shop, and similar extravagance.
We here in Massachusetts can afford to spend more to protect and care for our most vulnerable populations — even if it means raising taxes, especially on the wealthy.
Deval Patrick is not the issue, nor is Charlie Baker. In my view, the issue is people who happily spend more than hundred bucks a seat for a Fenway Park field box, passionately reject any tax increase, and then complain about the homeless people they pass going to and from the game.
jconway says
Fair criticism. My father was a mental health counselor for over 25 years, including at the recently cited Westwood Lodge, and saw nothing but cuts every single year he worked in that field from state and federal governments led by both parties.
When my nephew (we’re only a year apart) turned 21 the state cut off funding to his work shelter program he was attending in CT where he was learning life skills as well as employable ones. Instead, he stayed with my sister in an increasingly unstable situation, compounded by an unhealthy and manipulative relationship with an older woman. This toxic mix ended with a stint at the county jail in Billerica for assaulting property (he attacked her car during a dispute). So now he has the CORI stigma on top of his intellectual disability.
I give a ton of credit to Sheriff K and his department, the parole officer and case worker that were assigned to him were great. The medical staff made sure my nephew got off the drugs he shouldn’t have been on and got back on the treatments he needed to be on for his disorders. The mandatory classes he had to take as part of his parole actually helped him figure out how to be in an emotionally supportive relationship and his current partner and her family are awesome. Dave from Hvad, Fenway 49, and Sen. Eldridge (my sisters state senator) were also helpful people I turned to for advice who care about these issues.
And thank god for Artie T since Market Basket has been employing my nephew for almost a year now. The CORI and ID issues were not a barrier to employment, and he is getting good wages and benefits for part time work. I am confident he is landing on his feet.
But we are lucky. So I am sorry to burst the bubble of Charley and others here who are fans of Deval, as I was in 2006, but I strongly feel he neglected the mentally ill, the incarcerated, public defenders, and kids in foster care. All issues that my older siblings and their kids have been on the front lines dealing with. And our legislature has neglected them along with our local political culture. And it is wrong, and it has to stop.
JimC says
Other considerations aside, I don’t think he’d win the nomination.
JimC says
Although, that said, there is a narrow path if the two candidates are HRC or Biden (or someone like either of them), and Bernie (or someone like Bernie — though no one is quite like Bernie). If that’s the choice, then Deval could end up as the best known “new face” in the field.
betsey says
Noooooo! This article provides a nice summary:
betsey says
oops!
doubleman says
I think the Bain issue is a killer in a Dem primary. Also, his record as governor ain’t that great. Pass.
There is an interesting point about the Democratic Party buried in the article. I think this exemplifies those who currently hold the power in the Party, and it’s not good.
Charley on the MTA says
Whereas candidate X was at an Ironworkers meeting talking single payer and UBI, with sick pwns of neoliberals …
I kid, I’m a kidder. I hear you. That description is kind of everything — the Vineyard, SALT (which apparently doesn’t stand for anything) …
But I’d like to know who this mystery alternative is. I don’t necessarily think résumé is destiny.
bob-gardner says
Kind of early to be in settling mode.
Charley on the MTA says
Not early to be asking for alternatives.
jconway says
See my rant above ^
We need someone deftly able to move to the middle on immigration and identity politics and to the left on economics. Because That is where the voters are.
Mark L. Bail says
I worked for Patrick the first time he ran. But he was a mediocre governor and a major disappointment.
Patrick is highly charismatic. Whenever I’ve seen him, he really lit up the room. His retail political skill may be unparalleled; his wholesale politics were never very good. Sometimes his wholesale politics were incredibly bad. Redecorating the office, getting a Cadillac, and appointing a couple of incompetent people in his office. He failed to fulfill a huge number of appointments across the state, things like appointments to Soldiers’ Homes and Housing Authorities.
Policy is important, but politics–the kind that doesn’t get on television–is required to get things done. Patrick never demonstrated that kind of skill. He would be a decent candidate, but a terrible president.
Christopher says
What has struck me is how thoroughly he seems to have disappeared from the public eye since leaving the Corner Office. Michael Dukakis, in his 80s and Governor longer ago, is more politically active.
jconway says
I might add Dukakis also used his political capital to advance progressive policies for the common good, especially his lobbying efforts on the new North-South rail link and public transit in general. Post-governor for Deval? Cashing out on Bain, taking a laughable fee for Boston 2024, and not really being active at all in helping the local, let alone, the national party elect downballot progressives. His time has come and gone. I would vote for just about anyone in the primary before him, even Cory Booker, who’s at least solid on criminal justice reform unlike Deval.
petr says
Yabbut…. How will it play in Peoria…?
Some of the people here pretty straightforwardly oppose Patrick, some on legitimate ground. I don’t agree but I can respect that. I think it’s honest and earnest.
The rest of y’all are worried about ‘the moment’ or the optics or the perspective of some bohunk from east bag-a-donuts: you’re lost in a maze of twisty passages thinking about what a parcel of somebodies whom you don’t even know is thinking about somebody who you vaguely know and it’s a mug’s game, if not an actual paved runway to disappointment.
In the end you get to vote for or against. If you’re ‘political’ you get to argue about the for or the against. I generally find it useless that you should try to pre-empt that argument by assuming what some people will or won’t think… especially since 63 million of them pretty clearly demonstrated catastrophically bad faith in pulling the lever for the present occupant.
Me. I’ll vote for Deval Patrick if he runs. I think he’d make a good President.
jconway says
This is one of the dumbest ideas I’ve seen in a long time. Patrick epitomizes exactly the wrong approach our party needs to take to 2016. Frankly, running Hillary again might be the better bad idea.
Every Democratic candidate in 2020 should look at the Drutman graph and memorize it. There are literally under 3% of all voters in the ‘fiscally conservative, socially progressive’ Mike Bloomberg/Acela Corridor bubble. Nearly 70% of all voters are solidly on the left side of the spectrum on economics. After three decades of middle class stagnation, falling wages, rising costs, and deadly social maladies like drug abuse afflicting their communities they’d be morons not to be.
Every single Republican running on trickle down, tax cuts, and cuts to the social safety net was eviscerated by Donald Trump in the primary. His genius combining the long time GOP dog whistle strategy of racial resentment without the dog whistle with an actual economic populist agenda on questions like trade, health care, the social safety net, and taxing the wealthy.
He ran on those things in a GOP primary and won. I am shocked we don’t talk about that more.
Now he is governing like a Norquist clone and Chuck and Nancy of all people have figured out running against that is a real political winner. Deval is the epitomy of a creative class liberal, farther to the left than the rest of America on immigration and cultural change, farther to the right than the rest of America on globalization, markets, and free trade. It’s exactly the wrong approach. We don’t need someone who governed to casinos, biotech, and the Seaport while leaving Gateway Cities, the working poor, and non college educated behind. We don’t need someone who cashed out to American job destroying Bain and the IOC cashing in on our party’s lack of leadership.
Charley on the MTA says
I think there are some principled criticisms of Patrick’s record elsewhere in this thread. These, however– Gateway Cities, the working poor, etc — are really a Thomas Frank caricature, or just totally inaccurate. I could go on but I scarcely know where to start.
jconway says
The Gateway Cities have gotten worse under his watch, they feel abandoned by both party’s and they are desperate for help. I’ve discussed his at length and used data to make my case. So has your co-editor, AmberPaw, Jonathan Cohn, and Dave from Hvad just to name a few.
The Patrick era DCF took my brother foster kid back to her drug addicted mother. The Baker era DCF led to a successful adoption. And no kid has died in state care. Case closed on that issue.
I can’t afford an apartment in my hometown or anywhere adjacent to Boston and my wife and I will be moving from her parents house to mine until her nursing income gives us the savings sufficient to enter the apartment search again.
This is unsustainable and he did little about that or transit. The folks in Firchburg feel leftist behind, so does my sister on Section 8. And Baker is also not helping, but neither did Deval. There are few politicians I’ve campaigned for I’ve been more disillusioned with.
jconway says
Frankly we’d don’t feel like Boston even wants young people who grew up here to stay, and we aren’t alone in thinking that.
Charley on the MTA says
Did little about transit?
https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/01/15/governor-deval-patrick-proposes-billion-rail-and-transit-betting-big-like-dukakis/shHT8QrzuK6FV5axKh0m5H/story.html
He tried to fund it — stuck his neck out, repeatedly. Lege said “nope”. Come on.
Gateway cities? Huh — here are two mayors who said they had a real partner in the Patrick administration.
I seem to remember someone spending a fair amount of effort and political capital getting a wind farm staging area for New Bedford — which will come in handy when MA gets its 1600MW of offshore wind power. New Bedford, Worcester, worse under his watch? Heck no.
etc. I’m not arguing for anyone’s perfection — or at all w/r/t/ DCFS — but your narrative is just not convincing.
jconway says
Hester and Paul Simmons have both argued in prior threads that he made that proposal at the last minute in a way that minimized it’s chance for passage, something my sources in the legislature who supported this proposal agree with. New Bedford is still listed as our most dangerous, least economically mobile city despite having some wind farms and a Amazon plant. But we don’t even need to quibble about his record compared to his potential in Massachusetts. Just compare him to the other Governors possibly running.
His tenure isn’t nearly as impressive as Martin O’Malley’s during the same amount of time. John Hickenlooper, Steve Bullock, Terry McAuliffe and Jay Inslee have done more progressive things in harder terrain more recently.
All have had to contend with partially or fully Republican legislatures. Granted, I’d be the first to tell you that’s not a fair comparison since our local culture is ‘unique’. But I’m not the national media or an Iowa caucus voter who will be making these evaluations at the start of the cycle assuming everyone here voted like Elizabeth Warren.
The question isn’t really about his tenure, which we can agree to disagree on, it’s about whether that tenure stacks up to other Governors in other states with better records. I don’t think it does. I don’t even think it stacks up to other progressive politicians in Massachusetts rumored to be in the mix.
jconway says
Re: transit: proposing a bill that didn’t pass isn’t really something you can build a presidential campaign on is it?
Even if I concede all my criticisms are wrong, we are left with a pretty mixed record of accomplishment, especially when compared to other politicians in our party who have done a whole lot more with a whole lot less.
Charley on the MTA says
You’ll notice I’ve expressed skepticism on his candidacy too. That’s not my point. I do think we should evaluate him fairly, though. You bring up some good points (and some less good), but I would guess that the closer you look, you’ll find that a lot of govs and pols have “mixed records” on a variety of things. (McAuliffe, “more progressive”? Do tell.)
Anyway, #omalley2020
jconway says
TMac very courageously restored voting rights to 200,000 ex felons and pardoned each individually when the Supreme Court overturned him. Pushed an expansive Medicaid and transit expansion, brought new businesses to Virginia while saying no to tax credits and actually raised corporate and business taxes to fund early childhood education. Did this despite a Republican State Senate via executive orders. Also beat us to recognizing trans rights.
Granted he’d have a tougher time running for President because of all the Clinton baggage, but he did a much better job than most, including me, expected.
I’m not arguing pols have to have perfect records-I feel Deval’s legacy was more bad than good on balance for certain stakeholders who we need to win in 2020. His passed agenda is far less progressive than Barack Obama’s who had six years of tea party opposition to contend with. There are definitely areas where Baker was an improvement and areas where he’s made things worse. I think we can do a whole lot better than Deval, I think Deval would do a whole lot better than the incumbent.
petr says
Your replies are a strange, rather stringent, mix of “we must do anything to defeat Trump” and “only the right kind of progressive is acceptable.” It is an argument (sic) deeply — seismically — at odds with itself.
You want to beat Trump? Run the Obama ’08 hope and change playbook with Deval Patrick. Tried. True. Works. Will achieve the stated aim of defeating Trump. There, I fixed it.
But that’s not really what you want, now, is it?
jconway says
It worked for Obama since he was a clean slate without an extensive record. Deval has eight years of mediocrity to contend with. Not to mention a Republican successor. You’re in lonely company on this blog in thinking he’s our best candidate for 2020.
Christopher says
Um, Obama’s clean slate without an extensive record is quite the negative for would-be Presidents IMO.
jconway says
Not to voters. Our party’s last three presidents were all total unknowns to most primary voters at this stage in the cycle. Somewhere out there is a governor or back bencher in Congress ready to pounce with a bold agenda suited for these times.
jconway says
I know you dislike Frank, but this is the work of an actual political scientist familiar with our state and it is quite compelling. Again, a lot of the issues were beyond Deval’s control in terms of our local political culture. But he also ran as someone committed to transforming that culture as a key part of his appeal. I am not arguing he was a bad governor, I am arguing he was a mediocre one who didn’t live up the potential early adopters like me saw in him.
I say this as someone who has seen him speak in person, talked to him one on one, and canvassed as early as 2005 for his bid. He could’ve been better than Obama, and he ended up being about what Chris Gabrielli would’ve been.
petr says
yabbut… Your stated criteria, listed in another response above in-thread as “the only question…”, is to defeat Donald Trump in 2020 (and in 2018). Your stated criteria is not (was not) “assuage my disillusionment.”
You substitute your own disillusionment, which many of us in the reality-based community do not share, for a facile anxiety about un-electability that is neither demonstrated by the record of the past nor excused by your genuflecting towards some purely hypothetical Trump Democrat.
jconway says
It’s not hypothetical, you’re not being reality based. Al Franken claims 12% of his vote in MN went to Trump in 2016. Greenberg and other pollsters have classified this. Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto said that too many Democrats in Western PA voted for Trump. Confirmed by our resident pollster Paul Simmons a WPA native and someone who did some canvassing there this past fall and also linked to data demonstrated. Larry Sabato claims up to 8 million Obama voters defected overall, and they were heavily concentrated in the five swing states Trump flipped from red to blue.
But what do I know? Let’s listen to you and the other guys who felt we would win 2 suburban Republicans for every rust belt Democrat we lost.
Christopher says
Is it just me or have you had a bit of a chip on your shoulder today? I suspect we will have lots of choices in 2020. I for one am far from making up my mind. So far my reaction is that none of the names mentioned excite me for primary support, but I would be very happy to support any of them if nominated. My advice for everyone when the time comes is vote for the candidate YOU would most like to see become President and not try to play 11th-dimensional chess regarding what the party supposedly “needs”.
jconway says
No chip on my shoulder, just exhaustion at telling people truths they don’t want to hear. Like Deval was a mediocrity not a messiah, our party is still less popular than Trump, and the same old strategy isn’t going to cut it. Generally I agree with you on primaries, but beating Trump will require an asymmetric campaign that thinks outside of the standard left/right box just like his did. The electorate is very fluid right now.
petr says
Here is a truth you don’t want to hear: The choice is not such a clean dichotomy between mediocrity and messiah; and your search for the messiah puts ordinary humans, by default, into the mediocrity category. You have written yourself a recipe for disappointment.
Nobody claims Deval Patrick is, was or will be the messiah. Nobody can plausibly claim, conversely, that he was mediocre. He was, is and will be an ordinary human being who once put himself in the arena and may do so again.
SomervilleTom says
Here’s another truth that we Democrats don’t want to hear.
As noted elsewhere here, politics is a lagging — not leading — indicator. Candidates and campaigns RESPOND to the demands of the public — a public especially vulnerable to lies and distortions propagated by a bought-and-paid-for media with NO societal controls to even attempt to tell the truth. Instead, a media that is compelled by statute to maximize its shareholder price.
Fox News is the communication arm of the GOP, and is the primary news and information source of more than half of the American electorate. Think about the implications of that. Breitbart and the alt-right are even worse, and their influence grows each and every day.
Our herculean challenge is to change our culture. Trying to elect progressive candidates in 2018, in today’s culture, is like trying to empty the ocean with a teacup.
johntmay says
Trying to elect progressive candidates in Massachusetts is difficult. Why so? I think it’s because the professional class that runs the party likes things as they are, with cheap labor, so why not side with the wealthy Republicans here and there….unless there is an election coming and you need feet to GOTV…I don’t buy the “evil media” angle.
petr says
Not really, no…
Electing progressives is difficult because whenever a conservative wins you and others (ref, Conway, J) including the professional political class in the Commonwealth (and across the nation), panic and say whatever the Republican did, Progressives have to do also, to get elected.
It’s the political equivalent of Stockholm Syndrome: you’re so intent upon the electorates response to Republicans that you become wholly captured by it and beholden to it: you end up thinking that’s the only politics that matters and try to clever your way outta cognitive dissonance by trying to convince your self the path to victory is by trying to outclass the Republicans at their own game. That’s never going to turn out the way you think it will. Never.
jconway says
I hope I haven’t shied away from the idea that we are living in a self-obsessed zero sum culture, and only in that kind of cultural environment could a cancer like Trump be successful.
The idea that any gain on the parts of immigrants, minorities, women, or GLBT citizens has to come at the expense of someone else. The idea that my rights to gun ownership trump public safety. The idea that my access to health care is weakened when universal access is granted. The idea that my education or my childrens will suffer if we extend educational opportunities to disadvantaged places. My property values will suffer if we have more affordable housing in our community or more social services. Etc.
And too often many progressives fall into the NIMBY trap. I see it with the helicopter parents of the affluent kids I’ve tutored in the affluent socially progressive suburbs of Chicago, going every mile so their kid can climb over another on the way to the top. I saw this with the No on 2 campaign where the real charter killers were the parents who ‘paid for good public schools’ in Baker./Trump places like Lynnfield and Boxboro as well as Coakley/Hillary bastions like Newton and Marblehead. It was the Fall Rivers and Salems that wanted the charters, since their systems are underwater and drowning and any lifeboat will do. There’s a whole book about it I keep recommending.
This is the kind of stuff I’ve been talking about since I wrote the Tale of Two Commonwealths. And it really comes down to an absence of progressive leadership locally willing to be honest about our problems and honest about how to solve them. I give the idealists like Jamie who truly care about saving everyone a ton of credit for pushing every policy that can help. But we need some realists too. Setti Warren is starting to shake off his Deval esque platitudes and talk about meeting folks in Gateway Cities and dialoguing with Trump voters to see what they want from Beacon Hill. That’s a good start.
centralmassdad says
Given that the “economic populism” was dropped within hours of the election, have never been discussed since except by Democrats, and that he has governed like a member of the Freedom Caucus, and has not lost much in the way of popularity among his WWC base, I’m going to stick with my existing belief that his voters gave and give zero fucks about his economic agenda, so long as he “pisses off the librul snowflakes” by being nasty to immigrants, Moslems, women, gays, etc., etc., etc.
jconway says
They want a candidate that will do both. Democrats need to make the argument they will do the economic piece better and move to the middle on culture. You should really read the Drutham and Greenberg piece.
A second coming of Bill Clinton would adapt the party to these new voters rather than dismiss them as racist. They were certainly a lot more racist when he had to win then back in the 90s.
Christopher says
Given Clinton’s background and the nature and context of the unfounded attacks against him going way back to the Arkansas days, I doubt he got many votes from dyed-in-the-wool racists.
jconway says
We’ve been over this before, but he did win the vote of Reagan Democrats sensitive about benefits going to minorities. I would argue they are not dyed in the wool racists, but they are definitely more racist than the typical progressive voter. These are the folks Trump appealed to this time around with his appeal. So figuring out how to win them back without compromising too much on our principles is smart politics.
JimC says
Two words, my friends: twenty, eighteen.
Poll: Kid Rock trails Stabenow 50-42% in Senate race
jconway says
His website is interesting since he says he is appealing to working class voters tired of the extreme right and extreme left wing “bullshit” (his words). Language that sounds awfully similar to the Bernie/Trump voters I encountered at my UIP town committee meetings. I think Democrats continue to underestimate how so much of politics comes down to establishment vs. anti-eatablishment rather than particularly ideological issues. He’ll be a force to be reckoned with in this climate, and we dismiss him at our peril. As we dismissed Trump and Scott Brown before him.