In a somewhat surprising move, the Herald’s astute political columnist Wayne Woodlief has given Deval Patrick the early edge to win both the Democratic primary and the general election. From Woodlief’s column (reg. req’d):
So here are the odds Iâd lay now, with the caveat that things can change in a flash:
PATRICK: 3-1 for the nomination; 4-1 for the governorship. His stunning 2-1 victory in Saturdayâs caucuses certified campaign manager John Walshâs ability to build an organization and boosted Patrickâs money-raising momentum. His now virtually-certain convention victory over a sitting AG should bring in even more campaign cash. Heâs taken in over $1 million.
Still, pitfalls remain. âDeval is in danger of being defined by his opponents before he can properly define himself,â said a Democratic strategist. TV ads putting an adverse spin on Patrickâs corporate lawyering or board memberships could come either from the Reilly camp or Healey.REILLY: 4-1 to win the nomination; 6-1 to win the governorship. His embarrassments of the past week eventually could be corrected.
But Reilly needs to seek out a broader team of advisers, take a deep breath before he makes the kind of call he made on Marie St. Fleur, sit down with some key Democrats, including women leaders, and explain himself better than heâs done. He has considerable strengths â integrity, willingness to stand up to institutions. His campaign has to focus on them again.HEALEY: Overwhelming favorite to win the GOP nod; 7-1 to win the governorship. Sheâll try to ride her message of lower taxes and her role as a check on Democrats and their tax and spend style. She is smart, attractive and has gained respect among some local Democratic officials as Romneyâs municipal liaison.
But the charismatic Mitt Romney has overshadowed her for three years and sheâll need to spend much of her fund-raising capacity (and perhaps private fortune) to become known. Also, some local officials complain that though she listens sympathetically, she hasnât been able to sway Romney to their causes.
If Mihos declines her invitation to face off against her in the primary and runs as an independent, Healeyâs chances to win a general election diminish substantially.MIHOS: 100-1 to win GOP nomination; 25-1 to win governorship as an independent. Christy is the guy who helped keep the Republicans in office in 2002, when he commissioned a poll that showed Romney he could trounce acting Gov. Jane Swift and then beat various Democrats if heâd only run.
Mihos may have little chance to be elected, but he has money and moxie to give it a darned good try and keep everybody else on their toes.
I think Woodlief is a pretty insightful guy – his column on the fallout from the Ameriquest settlement (which I discussed here) was the best mainstream media commentary that I saw on it. And this is the first MSM instance I can think of in which Patrick is treated not as a bump in the road for Tom Reilly to overcome, but as a genuine contender who could actually win despite his financial disadvantages vis-a-vis both Reilly and Healey. Fascinating.
or at least he’s put heavy odds on a dark horse.
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The Democratic nomination:
Patrick == 3:1.
Reilly == 4:1.
The field == 12:5.
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Does Woodleif really think that there is a nearly 42% chance that someone not named Patrick nor Reilly will win the Democratic nomination, given that as of now, those are the only two men in the race?
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Let’s continue, shall we?
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The corner office:
Patrick == 4:1
Reilly == 6:1
Heally == 7:1
Mihos == 25:1
The field == 2100:816
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Does Woodleif really think that there is a nearly 39% chance that someone not named Patrick, Reilly, Heally, nor Mihos will win the governorship?
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Dude may have written good words, but he wrote terrible numbers. It’s simply inexcusable. You don’t publish numbers without checking to make sure that they’re even plausable. Woodleif’s numbers aren’t — he should go spend some time in a high school mathematics classroom.
I was going to give him a call and bet $1 on Patrick and bet $1 on Reilly to win the Democratic nomination, knowing that I was pretty sure to make money. That’s the problem with liberals, can’t let markets do the work of sending Mr. Woodleif back to bookmaking school…
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Of course Fox News was saying the other night that there are rumors of a draft Martha Coakley effort, so maybe I owe you a buck.
Blue Mass Group, becuase I’ve only heard that rumor here.
Specially if the media turns into a Lynch mob… The rumors have long circled that he is tired of Washington politics and would like to be governor. Plus he’s Reilly with a pulse so that would help his chances so until the convention is a day over, there’s always time for one more horse to jump into the race…
the only person who is paying attention to whats actually going on here? AG Reilly had the worst month he ever could have had, is still up in the polls 39-30, and still has nearly $4 million in the bank. I agree that Patrick will most likely win the convention, but come the primary I think its going to be Reilly’s win.
It is a statistical dead heat among Democrats most likely to vote.
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I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if Reilly’s fund raising has come to a complete halt since the Marie St Fleur week; I bet it had been lagging leading up to that point.
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I won’t speak for other communities except my own – calling people to support my effort to become a delagate I’d start out by saying I’m running to become a delagate, they would interupt me and say, ” I hope it’s not for Tom Reilly”. This happened every single time.
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I think it’s going to be Deval Patrick’s win.
Has it been the worst month he ever could have had? Probably. Hopefully. But so far I’ve only seen the Reilly camp do stupid things. I have not seen one good political move from Reilly as a candidate (and I want to make the distinction between Reilly the AG, who has been making some good moves lately and Reilly the candidate for Governor).
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Reilly has suffered some serious internal wounds and no one really knows how severe they are. There is plenty of time for these wounds to heal and Reilly may do the right things to heal these wounds and be stronger than ever in September and the fall. Of course these wounds may already be fatal and we just need to wait for September to find out. In addition, Reilly could very well aggravate these injuries by making another series of self inflicted wounds and kill his candidacy.
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Either way, I’m not optimistic that Reilly will be able to rehabilitate his candidacy. Unless he brings in new blood and listens to them, he’s not going to win.
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So far the only thing Reilly has proven he is capable of, politically, is raising money. And I’ll bet that wonât be the case when the next couple for Campaign Finance reports are filed.
Very good points Frank and like you say, alot of this we won’t know for at least a few months.
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You make an interesting point about the moves made by ‘Reilly the AG’ and ‘Reilly the Candidate’ … while these might be differences we see, do you think the voting public makes the distinction? I’d tend to guess they don’t, but thats only an inkling based in no way on empirical evidence.
Yes, people…rightly…see one Reilly and they are seeing the very competent AG side and an incompetent politican side. If he could maintain a “Rose Garden” strategy and just be the AG he will redeem himself. But it’s an election year and he is running for Governor, so he’ll be force into being the politican, whether he likes it or not.
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And he’s the first to admit that his not much of a politican.
…remain until the primary. If Reilly had a $3M lead over Patrick in July, that would be very significant. But how would this come to pass? Patrick has more donors, has been beating Reilly month-by-month in money collected for the last 3 or 4 months, and, from my admittedly imprecise read, has much more enthusiastic supporters — at least thousands more who were willing to spend a few hours at a caucus on his behalf.
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If, as is likely, Patrick wins the convention in June, he will get a media bump more significant than the one the caucuses provided, and another boost to his poll numbers and his fundraising.
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So what does Reilly do NOW with all his money? Spend some of it to rehabilitate his image as a decent, honest guy with our interests at heart, who’s sort of “above politics” (as opposed to not being very good at it)? Or is that likely to be looked back on as wasted money once we get to the last month of the primary race?
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If, on the other hand, Reilly goes negative on Patrick this early, he risks seeming desperate and turning off voters all the more. If he doesn’t, he lets the Patrick momentum roll on.
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Unless, of course, he can get the free media to do his negative work for him on Patrick’s mortgages, Ameriquest, etc. Maybe Reilly does have a running mate after all. Maybe it’s Frank Phillips.
…that Reilly is on the tube early…very early. I’d be up mid April – mid May with a soft bio ad that introduces the positive side of Reilly. It should get his #s (and his poll lead) up enough to weather the next storm for him–lossing the convention nomination.
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If they don’t go up that early, they certainly have to be up by mid August and stay on. They’ll need that amount of time to boost his image.
As astute readers will recall, Deval Patrick gave an extensive interview to David, Charley and me last summer.
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We’re still waiting for the august A.G. to respond to our interview request.
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Incidentally, we’ve also had interesting coversations with LG candidates Andrea Silbert, Deb Goldberg, and Sam Kelley, all of which we have written up and published. Tim Murray has not yet been able to find 20 minutes in his schedule to speak with us.
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Maybe unwillingness to talk to community members is a sign of Democratitis incumbentitis.
So are you saying that Murray’s campaign has been like Reilly’s recently? While Silbert has certainly been impressive in that she’s gone from a non-elected position to arguably leading the field in a statewide race, I think Murray has done more than OK. His endorsements are there, his money seemed to be OK (BTW, where is his latest OCPF report for 2nd half of Jan.? Is he afraid of a poor showing next to Silbert’s solid month? Surely he bested Goldberg, right? I digress…)
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He’s in more of a bind, though, because he’s balancing his interest in appealing to moderates with the reality that the only people paying attention to the LG race now are crazy insider progressives, and Murray, while somewhat appealing to those types, comes off as the “Reilly” of the LG’s race to them. They want to want a woman, and Silbert and GOldberg are giving them that opportunity.
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Also, unlike Murray, Silbert doesn’t have the burden of a record to carry, so she can play her tune in front of everybody without people saying “wait, you did this or that.” That’ll probably help her win those moderates that Murray wants since many of them are women and since Goldberg has a harder (but not impossible) time competing for those types due to her ties with the liberal elite in Brookline.