Like I said, this story is not going away. Here’s Tom Reilly in another article published yesterday (emphasis mine):
“It is a bad company that engaged in despicable practices in cheating people – cheating people out of the equity in their home. Personally, I would have absolutely nothing to do with this company.”
Hmm – and upon whom might Reilly be casting aspersions with that little comment? Couldn’t be Deval Patrick, board member of Ameriquest’s parent company, could it?
Of course it could. Expect much, much more of the same from Reilly. As I said yesterday, Patrick needs to get out in front of this story in a big way. His involvement with this company is fair game – he obviously thinks he joined the board for the right reasons and thinks he’s made a positive contribution, so let’s hear about it! So far, all we’ve heard is Patrick’s press guy saying that Patrick doesn’t intend to resign from the board and that he’s “devoted his career to ensuring people are treated fairly.”
This story is actually a real opportunity for Patrick, if he’s willing to take it on. He can use this case as an object lesson in how to encourage good corporate citizenship, or in what constitutes good lending practices especially where you’re dealing with people with bad credit, or lots of other things. But we need to hear it from him (not his flack), and we need to hear it in more detail than we’ve heard so far. Some candidates for office (*cough* John Kerry *cough*) seem to think that if they ignore a story that might be seen as unflattering to them, it will go away. It doesn’t work that way, folks.
For keeping on this.
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Despite the fact I’ve endorsed Deval and think he’s the best candidate for the office, I too want to see him address this comprehensively and not dodge it. After all, we want from our leaders no more politics-as-usual. Deval says he’s different, and so far he has been. He needs to take the chance and stand out on this issue as well as everything else.
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Not to diminish the importance of substantive issues like health care, energy, etc, but this is the sort of story that can chip away at a candidate’s support. I hope the campaign is reading these posts (I know they are!).
Lynn. On all accounts. Deval should learn from Reilly’s mistakes with the “call” get out in front of the story, don’t leave it to surrogates, and when you do get out in front, get the story clear, concise, and compact. It took the Reilly camp a week to boil the “call” down to a privacy issue, where it should have been from the start.