Our own FieldGuy had it first, and now it’s semi-official: Tom Reilly has tapped state Rep. Marie St. Fleur (D-Boston) as his running mate. At least, that’s what campaign insiders are whispering to the AP.
Well, if that don’t beat all. Quick take: this is a bit of an annoyance for Deb Goldberg, whom St. Fleur had previously said she was supporting. This is an interesting change in strategy for Reilly, who has gone in a heartbeat from a really rich white guy to a not-rich black woman as his running mate. And this is a substantial shake-up to the Lieutenant Governor race, which has had more than its share of shake-ups lately! What will they think up next?
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I had heard that St. Fleur had no loyalty . . . but wow, thats a pretty obnoxious thing to do. And the fact that Reilly is still tapping into his “backroom list” is a sure sign of disrespect to all the other candidates in the LG field.
I think St. Fleur has a lot of loyalty to the state party. This move could be seen as consistent with that.
St. Fleur’s staked out relatively liberal positions, but she was also on Tom finneran’s good side. I think that Marie St. Fleur is loyal to whomever she thinks will help her advance herself. Apparently she feels that Tom Reilly trumps Deb Goldberg in that–which, while cold, is probably correct.
Is there any reason why the Field of Four unaligned candidates wouldn’t now fall over themselves to join Patrick? Conversely, is it now good or bad for Patrick to have one of those four join his slate? Since all four of them have now been spurned by the Reilly camp, I would argue that Patrick will gain all of the Murray, Goldberg, Silbert and Kelley supporters without having to officially add any one of them to his slate. I think Patrick should still fly solo.
… and I’m not ;), but it’s kind of d-lish to be able to point out that one of your opponents endorsed you and said just days ago she would stand by that.
Combine that with Reilly’s pledge to Murray and number of his (Reilly’s) Worcester supporters that he would not get involved in this race…Is this really a ticket you can trust? Is it even a ticket that can win in November? A couple of Beacon Hill Insiders…I am sure the Republicans are already dusting off their playbook from the 2002 campaign.
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I am becoming more and more convinced that Deval Can win this thing…
Tom Reilly’s latest move amidst an array of uncontrollable flailing on the part of him and his staff is, to say the least, insulting to the voting public. I am outraged at him…and absolutely shocked by St. Fleur’s sudden change of heart. I’m a Goldberg supporter, and I think St. Fleur was either the first or second State Rep. to officially endorse her, which makes this even more unusual. I was on the fence between Reilly and Patrick before this whole BS…but now I just got pushed over.
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Deval Patrick just needs to sit back and watch. Reilly’s doing all the negative campaigning on himself.
I don’t know if Reilly or St. Fleur can be trusted to bring victory to the Democratic party. They seem to be making a mess and making the Democratic primary field more complicated than it needs to be. I think that the Gubernatorial and LG candidates should not align themselves this early and wait til the primary or convention to team up. It is a decision that should be left to the delegates and voters.
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Deval would be smart not to choose someone just yet . . .since he does have the support of Murray, Silbert and Goldberg people.
I think it is not realistic to assume that Deval automatically has the support of the delegates of the 4 established LtG candidates. And besides, that’s putting the cart before the horse, it’s far more likely that delegates are with the Deval, than any significant numbers a LtG candidate is bringing in. I believe that the LtG candidates will have enough to do, without injecting themselves into the Reilly/Patrick race.
I’m puzzled about what or who you’re responding to. LG candidates don’t typically run delegate slates of their own, so most delegates will already be either Patrick supporters or Reilly supporters, and many may not have made up their minds yet about the LG race. I searched this post and discussion for any other mentions of the word “delegate” and found nobody making the claim you say is unrealistic. I think it’s not “unrealistic”, it’s irrelevant, because there are few such delegates – but again, nobody seems to have said it in the first place.
… and conceding the need to flesh it out more :).
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When I think of support right now, I think of delegates. There is now a strong interplay between the 2 races, as the Lt Gov candidates seek support, it will be interesting to see how they play out their views on the top race, in seeking that support. The weaker Reilly does at the top, the better the chances of the Gang of Four against St. Fleur.
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I would think the Murray campaign is thinking in terms of slates in and around Worcester, clearly he’s steamed at being misled by Reilly. He’s also got Jim McGovern with him, who is deep in the Patrick campaign also.