OK, I know – I’m starting to seem obsessive about this story. But I think it’s really important for lots of reasons. So here goes.
Thanks to alert commenter timw, who posted on my most recent Ameriquest post a very interesting column from yesterday by Herald columnist Wayne Woodlief (reg. req’d). Woodlief talked to both Reilly and Patrick, and got both of them to say some pretty interesting things.
Woodlief’s basic take is that Ameriquest is a good story for Reilly, and leaves Patrick with some explaining to do. That’s fair enough – I thought the same thing, though I now think that Patrick has gone a long way toward doing what he had to do.
But what’s more interesting about Woodlief’s column is that what he says in his first paragraph is absolutely true:
The way Tom Reilly and Deval Patrick have handled the predatory lending lawsuit case against Ameriquest Mortgage Co. shows the contrasting styles the Democratic rivals for governor would bring to the Corner Office.
The styles grow directly out of both men’s background in the law: one a career prosecutor, the other with a more varied legal background including a lot of time as a corporate lawyer. Reilly, as Woodlief notes, “is a passionate moralist, quick to righteously go after the black hats with all his might.” He attacks every problem with the certainty of a long-time prosecutor: he knows he’s doing the right thing, and nothing’s going to get in his way come hell or high water. That trait can be a good thing – it served him well in the Ameriquest settlement (reportedly he and New York’s Eliot Spitzer forced the company into coughing up $40 million more than they wanted to). It can also be an Achilles heel, as it was in the “call to Conte” fiasco.
Patrick, on the other hand, is a problem solver – as one might expect given his lengthy corporate background. He seems less interested in the white hat/black hat approach to issues, and more interested in figuring out how to reach a resolution that lets everyone walk away happy. I like Woodlief’s description: “Patrick is smooth, as familiar with boardrooms as Reilly is with courtrooms. Like Reilly, he had a hard-scrabble upbringing. But unlike the AG, he doesnât pound on those doors of privilege so much as pry them open.” And, as Patrick notes, the Ameriquest situation is actually not so simple – he told Woodlief that “these institutions lend to people the downtown banks wouldnât touch,” so there is real value in keeping them in the game rather than just screaming epithets at them (Reilly: “This is a bad company, a bad company”).
We need both of these kinds of people in public service. The passionate crusaders serve a very valuable function, as do the problem solvers. The question is which one belongs in the Governor’s office. We’ll all have to think hard about that one in the months to come.
thats a great analysis by both David and Woodlief here. Think it hits the nail on the head with both, explains why both are appealing (in different ways), and does so in a (not to joke) fair and balanced way.
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More posts like this, the better off we all are.
I agree that Reilly’s make up prevents him admitting a mistake (or at least acknowledging the appearance of a mistake to stop criticism) and your example of the “Conte call” is a good one.
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But I think Patrick is cut from the same strip. Iâm OK with his whole association with Ameriquestâthe corporation. But his action of writing a letter of support for Ameriquest’s Chairman (whose name escapes me) illustrates his inability to admit he can be wrong. He should realize that some Democrats will think that a candidate for the Democratic nomination for Governor should not be writing letters endorsing one of the largest Republican fundraisers for Bush. And to add insult to injury, this man also was a major contributor to the 527 that slandered John Kerry’s war record. Patrick should have at least acknowledged this as bad politics and say he should not have written the letter. But at a forum I attended Patrick did not back down, saying the man was a friend and he was not going to abandon him.
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Maybe. But both examples (Reilly’s Conte Call and Patrick’s Swift Boat Friend) show that both these men have moralistic streaks in them that could hurt them. Fortunately, neither compares to the privileged attitude the spews from Kerry Healy.
You’re talking about Roland Arnall, and I agree (as I’ve said before) that backing his ambassadorship might not have been the cleverest move on Patrick’s part. And I would have welcomed his backing off of it. We can’t always get what we want.
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Nonetheless, I think Woodlief’s point is valid. It’s not so much being unwilling to admit mistakes – it’s more in the way they see issues. Reilly strikes me as a very black-and-white kind of guy (Ameriquest bad), while Patrick sees in shades of grey (Ameriquest made some significant mistakes but also serves a useful societal function so let’s try to keep them at the table while preventing further abuses).
…to peg them solely as a moralist verses a realist. In the Ameriquest case, Woodlief description is accurate. But on other issues one could make the argument that it is Reilly who is the realist and Patrick who sees it as black and white.
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(But to digress for a second⦠was Woodlief giving Reilly a bone because they have a long relationship? Was Reilly being the realist and just attacking anything Patrick does?)
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Reilly’s whole campaign message seems to be taking the realist route, while Patrick is standing tall taking the tough positions. The most telling example in my mind is taxes. Reilly has experienced first hand the lack of funding for state agencies–his office had to loan the Suffolk DA Office 6 prosecutors to assist in the recent rash of murders. He knows his DA friends…and all state agencies…are still at pre 2001 funding levels and Reilly can’t be ignorant of the funding issues facing local communities. His solution? Lower the income tax. Great politics, but bad policy. So much for the moral high ground.
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Patrick, on the other hand, is taking the tough, correct route and has advocated giving communities the power to impose various local taxes. He’s addressed head on health care issues by advocating for an increase in the tobacco tax and employer tax to meet this need. If fact I’ve been critical of Patrick on this blog (in posts with you, I believe) of doing to much of the “right” thing and not enough of the political thing.
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So people are complex. On some things Reilly will be the moralist and on others it will be Patrick.
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As a digression–and to compare Patrick with Mitt. Patrick is doing the right thing (in my mind) in supporting Cape Wind. But Willard is taking an interesting position…opposing Cape Wind because of it’s negative impact on the local community (the view I suppose) but supports drilling in ANWR because it is in our national security. Boy I hope Mitt gets questioned on that one on national TV.
First of all I love this blog but have never posted on here but I felt I had to comment on this Ameriquest issue. I just moved to Massachusetts last summer and am not as familiar with Mass politics as many of you but I am learning quickly. I know someone who works for AG Spitzer in NY and they explained to me that AG Reilly jumped in on this lawsuit really late in the game. He was not one of the original AG’s pursuing the lawsuit. From what I hear he didn’t jump in until he found out Deval Patrick was on the board. Again this is word of mouth from an acquaintance in NY and I have no proof of this but was wondering if anyone knew how one can confirm when Reilly joined the lawsuit? If this truly is the case why are Woodlief and others giving Reilly so much credit?
I’m not sure when MA joined the case but this excerpt from the Iowa AG’s office (Tom Miller was the acknowledged leader on this case) may provide evidence for both sides of this issue. Reilly’s office is one of fifteen mentioned as being involved but not one of the five that negotiated the settlement.
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From the Iowa AG web site…
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“The States’ Investigation:
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Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller led the group of states. The group of states that negotiated the agreement are: the attorney general offices of Iowa, California, Washington, New York, and Illinois; the New York State Department of Banking; and California district attorneys. The executive committee of states leading the matter included those states and also the attorney general offices of Minnesota, Arizona, Texas, Massachusetts, New Mexico, and Connecticut, and the financial regulators of Washington, Nebraska, New Hampshire, and Florida. Miller said the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office played a strong early role in the matter, and Minnesota Assistant Attorney General Prentiss Cox led the group initially. Since June 2005, Iowa Assistant Attorney General Patrick Madigan has led the group of assistant attorneys general and financial regulators who investigated and negotiated with Ameriquest.
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Miller said Ameriquest was forthcoming in providing documents and other information during the investigation and that the states and Ameriquest worked extraordinarily long hours to reach the agreement.
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The settlement was joined by officials of 49 states and the District of Columbia, and a group of six California District Attorneys. (Virginia is not a party because Ameriquest did no business there.) Attorneys General for 49 states and DC joined the agreement, as did financial regulators for 45 states and DC. In a few states, financial regulators did not participate because they do not have jurisdiction, or no such regulator exists in the state.”
There has been a lot of evidence as well as rumor that Reilly came onboard this Ameriquest thing very late, as has been noted. It’s sad that his campaign strategy has been to ignore issues and try to focus on things like this.
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I also wish Deval hadn’t written the letter, because it’s inconvenient to the news cycle, which focuses on black and white, and ignores gray. But to expect he’s going to apologize for it is silly. Should he also apologize for bucking the trend and supporting Cape Wind, if it turns out that Reilly out-raises Deval on Martha’s Vineyard or Nantucket? Don’t we want politicians who do what they feel is right, rather than what’s politically expedient?
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I also think it’s worth mentioning that according to a message sent out to Deval’s supporters, he joined the company in 2004 specifically to lead the charge in negotiating this settlement. I’m baffled as to how anyone could possibly find fault with a man choosing to go to a company that has committed sins to find a way to resolve past grievances, and put in place new policies to avoid repeating those sins. And then, in the midst of solving those problems, he writes a letter on behalf of the head of the company that reached out to him to fix what went wrong… somehow this is a bad thing? Isn’t that what we want of all our leaders in all walks of life? Help me out here.