Tom Keane writes here in the Boston Herald that the Democrats shouldn’t just hand the nomination for Governor to Tom Reilly. Keane is absolutely right about that: Reilly needs to earn it. And Keane aptly describes the problem of a charismatically-challenged prosecutor turned Attorney General who wants to become Governor, as we’ve already discussed:
OK, you may think, lots of people lack charisma. That’s a real issue, however. Governors and AGs are the political equivalents of CEOs and corporate counsels. No one expects the lawyers to be live wires. But the CEO is the face guy, the one responsible for leading, inspiring, persuading.
Keane also describes Reilly’s recent speech to the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce as a "flop," "meandering and without punch," and as a "dirge-like treatise about life, politics and what is wrong with Massachusetts." Great — that’s really going to get the crowds cheering.
Folks, we HAVE to do better than another stiff-as-a-board candidate who gets out-charismaed by His Excellency. Maybe Reilly will start to sparkle and turn out to be a much better candidate than we think. But he hasn’t yet, and with Capuano out, there’s a real opportunity here for some inspiring progressive candidate to sweep us all off our feet. The question is: who?
I’m always amazed at how politicians — especially Democrats — manage to ignore some very very basic things about speaking in public: brevity, flow, and so forth. Reilly, John Kerry, and every other dull-as-ditchwater speaker should be locked in a room with MLK, JFK and RFK speeches playing in a big loop for 72 hours. No, it’s not “public policy”. But it IS “politics”. And you’ve got to win the “politics” game to play the “public policy” game.