What idiots Tom Reilly, Marie St. Fleur, and their campaign staffers must think we all are.
As everyone knows by now, it turns out that Marie St. Fleur – Tom Reilly’s hand-picked Lieutenant Governor candidate – has massive money problems, including an extant $12,000 federal tax lien from less than a year ago, along with over $7,000 of now-discharged city tax liens from a couple of years ago, and over $40,000 of delinquent student loans dating back to her graduation from BC Law School in 1987.
It’s hard for me to decide what I find most infuriating about this story. Here are a couple of options:
St. Fleur told the Globe last night that she had paid down the federal tax debt to about $8,000 by making $500 monthly payments since last spring. But later last night, Corey Welford, a Reilly campaign spokesman, corrected her, saying that she had in fact made only one $500 payment last May and that the balance is still more than $12,000.
And her husband is an accountant, for heaven’s sake! Maybe I’m being harsh, but I seriously question whether “most people will understand” this kind of thing. To the contrary, I think “most people” expect state legislators who earn a nice living at least to keep up with their taxes. Dianne Wilkerson’s similar (though more serious in some ways) problems have been a major albatross around her neck ever since they came to light some years ago, and Wilkerson never ran for statewide office.
All this prompted one Republican to offer a slogan for Reilly’s campaign: “We Broke Our Word to Our Best Supporters. Think What We’ll Do For You!”
What a godawful mess.
It all boils down to arrogance. Tom Reilly arrogantly decides that he doesn’t need to know the extent of St. Fleur’s financial problems, assuming that if her assurances are good enough for him, they’ll be good enough for the people of Massachusetts. St. Fleur arrogantly decides that “most people will understand” her financial problems, even though she’s financially much better off than most of those “people” whose understanding she assumes she will have. They both arrogantly decide that whatever commitments they made to already-announced Lieutenant Governor candidates don’t matter, apparently expecting that the rest of the party will just fall in line behind them because they’re the alleged “front-runners” (I wonder how long this “front-runner” idea will hold up).
I don’t know whether this will lead to a sudden surge of local elected officials bailing on Reilly and signing on with Patrick. But what I do suspect is that this – along with the campaign’s other miscues – will substantially dampen the enthusiasm of the local officials and the rest of the party apparatus for Reilly’s campaign. And we all know what happened to Scott Harshbarger when the party apparatus wasn’t solidly behind him.
You’ve just got to think that Deval Patrick has been feeling pretty good these last few days. From Eagan’s Herald column:
Asked what above-the-fray Deval thinks of all this, his spokesman kept above the fray. “We continue to do what we do … he (Reilly) continues to do what he does.” How deliciously Zen. But then it’s easier to be calm when you’ve suddenly got the mo’, no?
If all of these miscues don’t dampen the party’s enthusiasm for Reilly then we really have problem. I am not saying Reilly should be abandoned but if politicos don’t think the Reilly campaign has serious problems then we lose another 4 years to the Republicans!
First, The Reilly/ St Fleur match is going to make things very difficult for al elected Dems in central MA.
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If they support the “establishment” ticket of Reilly/St. Fleur, then they are making enemies with Murrary and the Worcester machine.
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If they support Murrary, then they are going to cause bad blood with Reilly and the establishment.
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I am sure this is causing a similar situation in Brookline, although on a much smaller level.
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Yet I am wondering, can you be on both sides of the fence without looking silly.
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I found the Glodis comments in the Globe interesting ( he is supporting Reilly, but not St. Fleur ). I think we need to get a count from all the Reps/Senators/ DA candidates/ local officials to see where they stand.
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My second concern is regarding the “Front Runner” label. I think we can officially put that away. Reilly has been running for Governor since 2003, something changed in the last few weeks ( I don’t think it is the Conte call), since he was scrambling to get Gaberlli and then St Fleur). He couldn’t have done this LT Gov work 3 months ago?
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We need polling and we need it now. The only numbers I have seen show both Reilly and Patrick beating Healey.
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Where is the Reilly vs. Patrick poll?
Would it make sense to hold off on polling for just a little while yet? Many people may not have made up their mind about St. Fleur, outside of the political junkie circuit. Again, I’m not sure.
I am not realy concerned with St. Fleur and her polling, since a poll right now wouldn’t be accurate. Clearly she would get low marks from the financial information and she has not had a chance to show her strenghts ( of which there are many).
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I want to know Reilly’s numbers.
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Are his unfavorables way too high? Is he losing to Patrick?
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Either way, he is making moves reflective of a desperate candidate. Otherwise he would have planned this LT Gov thing much differently. ( going back to my point that Reilly has been running for 3 years now)
Granted, most of the polling I’ve paid attention to is months old by now, but all of it shows two things: Reilly cleans Patrick’s clock in a head-to-head primary. Reilly’s favorables are high, and his unfavorables are much lower than Romney’s (as a reference point).
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That was all before 2006, though. It’s been one train wreck for Reilly after another since New Year’s Day.
that Reilly’s unfavorables would be substantially higher than they were in ’05. As you say, ’06 hasn’t been kind to him so far.
The poll I saw about a week ago on Kos were both Dems against Healey:
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Deval was 51/43 over her and Reilly was something like 49/44 over her.
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The poll frankly surprised me – (disclaimer – I am a Deval guy)
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I will try to find it on Kos and get back here…
It was a Zogby internet poll. I had the numbers if you’re interested. The methodology is pretty suspect. The surveyed population consists, roughly, of people who volunteered to have Zogby send them poll questions. Then, as I understand it, he then runs the responses through various algorithms, weights them for certain demographics and gets the results that way.
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So, yeah, it’s a poll. In the same way that those Kraft singles are cheese.
There seem to be a few posters who get all hot and bothered when they start attacking the Reilly campaign. I think that they might want to take a cold shower and think about how exciting it could be to have some diversity in the race. Sure it doesn’t look that great when your husband works with numbers for a living and you can’t seem to pay your bills on time, but even political candidates are human…and humans make mistakes! I will wait a little more than a couple days to cast my judgment on this candidate…she might turn out to be just what the Reilly team needs.
Well, we already had two Jewish women and one black man in the race before St. Fleur parachuted in. Plus, it’s not like St. Fleur just made one mistake. The Globe documents an extensive history of serious financial difficulties. I’m not saying that makes her a bad person – obviously it does not. Nor am I “judging” this candidate. But the points in my post stand – the way this thing has been handled reflects tremendous arrogance on Reilly’s and St. Fleur’s parts.
St. Fleur’s financial situation will be a political liability if she even makes it to the general election. I’m not saying that it should be, but given the state of politics today there’s no way that the press/opposition — Republican or independent — won’t try to capitalize.
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The question, I guess, is whether St. Fleur’s strengths outweigh her liabilities — and if the Dems want to take that chance. Personally I would not.
Reilly has a lot of integrity as a candidate. That’s a big strength of his. Combine the whole calling the Worcester DA incident with this revelation about St. Fleur now, and I’d be worried he might lose a little glean off that shine. Because it’s not the specificity of either of these issues that will stick, but it’s the constant negative mentioning in the media. Eventually, people may start having questions about him since they keep hearing about all these different problems.
Maybe Rep St Fleur was confused with the $5000.00 she repaid her campaign back for the down payment on her personal automobile. Perhaps she was overwhelmed and thought that money was for the IRS. The big picture is how a candidate for governor could rush into a decision as important as this without having the facts. Just what Massachusetts needs is a governor that is reactive not proactive. Arrogance doesnt even describe this one.