Chris Gabrieli: a battle-tested policy wonk joins the Governor’s race (with poll!)

Gabrieli started with a short summary of what he hopes to see the next Governor accomplish, and why he thinks that person ought to be him.  On the first question, he sees Massachusetts as dramatically under-performing – as one example, we’re 46th in job creation, a pretty lousy statistic.  He emphasizes heavily the need to get the Massachusetts economy back on a growth track, and notes a book by Benjamin Friedman called “The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth,” which hypothesizes that a growing economy creates societal conditions more favorable to social justice and the ability and inclination to care for the less fortunate among us, while a stagnant or shrinking economy tends to create conditions favorable for the opposite.  Bob mixed it up a bit with Gabrieli on the book’s thesis; I suspect you’ll hear more about that from Bob.

In any event, Gabrieli sees his experience in the 2002 campaign (in which he was the Democratic nominee for Lieutenant Governor, if you’d forgotten) as having prepared him for this year’s race.  He said that the Republicans have already dug into his background and haven’t found any ammunition to use against him, either personally or professionally, so he’s been “vetted” in that sense.  He also noted his long record of accomplishment both in the private sector (in which he’s helped create 100,000 jobs through his venture capital work) and in the public sphere (in which he led the fight to override Governor Romney’s veto of the stem cell research bill and has done excellent work with extending the school day and improving after-school programs).  And he noted that Massachusetts has the third-longest streak among all the states of electing Republican Governors – after only South Dakota and Utah – and that he’s the only candidate with up-close experience of running against a serious Republican challenger (in fact, of course, he ran against Kerry Healey herself), so he has the best sense of what it takes to win that kind of race.

We then turned to a discussion of several “hot topics.”  Tops on many people’s list is the question of rolling back the state income tax from 5.3% to 5%.  Gabrieli says that he is in favor of the rollback, but that it should be done via a formula (which he has not yet worked out) that links the rollback to overall economic growth – the idea being that if the economy is growing, reducing the tax rate won’t require painful cuts in services.  He gave three reasons for favoring the rollback.  First, this is an expensive state to live in, so a lower income tax rate makes it easier for people to live here, other things being equal (and the formula is designed to ensure that other things are, in fact, more or less equal).  Second, the fact that the voters approved a rollback to 5% is important and should be respected – it is, after all, the will of the people.  And third, hardnosed politics: he feels that any Democratic candidate for Governor who does not have a plan to reduce the income tax rate to 5% will lose the general election.  Elaborating on the third point, he noted that for some voters the symbolic importance of a rollback to 5% might outweigh its financial importance, but symbols are important in elections and Democrats ignore this one at their peril.

Turning to property taxes, Gabrieli noted the possibility that property taxes might stop increasing so quickly as the real estate boom flattens out, as appears to be happening now, but recognized that there are larger problems in the relationship between the state and the municipalities that have exacerbated the current situation.  He said that there are no easy answers to the general problem of high property taxes, and derided Christy Mihos’s “Proposition 1” as a gimmick that won’t help solve the problem.  He didn’t offer a quick fix, and my notes are sufficiently convoluted on the rest of our conversation on this topic that I don’t want to put words in his mouth that weren’t his.  Maybe Charley’s or Bob’s recollection is clearer!

Of course, the hottest topic in the state right now is health care.  Gabrieli credited the state legislature for taking a big step toward expanding coverage, and noted that it would have been a lot easier to act if the pressure to pass the plan by veto-proof majorities weren’t so great.  He lauded the plan’s recognition that the participation of individuals, employers, and the government is necessary in order to move forward, though he criticized some aspects of the way in which the bill accomplished that goal.  He noted, for example, that charging employers who don’t offer health insurance $295 a year per employee seems a bit light when you remember that individuals forced via the individual mandate to buy insurance in the private market may end up paying $325 a month to cover themselves.  He also recognized, as have many others, that the next Governor will have his or her hands full implementing this bill – among other things, the key issue of determining “affordability” remains to be worked out.  And he lamented the absence of measures in this bill to control health care costs, though he recognized that the cost problem is more difficult to solve.

On to another issue of the day: energy.  Gabrieli spoke in generally favorable terms about the Cape Wind project, though he wanted to reserve final judgment on a couple of details (more below on that).  He also recognized an important reality about trying to effect major changes: everyone is in favor of “renewable energy” and “reducing our dependence on foreign oil” in the abstract, but when it gets down to brass tacks, many entrenched interests will find reasons to object to any specific plan to advance those goals.  He said he had seen that pattern play out in his work with afterschool programs, and that it would undoubtedly happen with renewable energy as well.  He urged the importance of being willing to take risks and of having the courage to take on entrenched interests.  Relatedly, he thinks it’s outrageous that Romney pulled the state out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

Gabrieli wanted to look into two specific issues on Cape Wind before endorsing it: first, whether the state would be getting a fair deal in exchange for the rights it would give to Cape Wind (contrasting what he said was a giveaway to cell phone companies), and second, whether the specific technologies involved in the project were … uh … oh, there go my convoluted notes again.  Anyway, he had another issue he wanted to look into.  I forget exactly what it was.  Sorry.

Finally, Gabrieli talked generally about elections, and about why he was running.  He said he wants to run a campaign based on specific ideas that can help Massachusetts.  He also said that, while he of course wants to win, he would consider it a “good second prize” for someone else to win but to borrow some of his ideas in the process.  He noted Paul Tsongas as proof that one can, in effect, win for losing (those are my words, not Gabrieli’s).  Tsongas didn’t win the 1992 nomination for President, but he did change Bill Clinton’s thinking on economic policy.

Whew.  Well, we covered a lot of ground in an hour and a half, and I didn’t capture it all but I’ve tried to outline the highlights.  My overall impression was pretty positive – perhaps moreso than I expected it to be.  Gabrieli is a serious, committed candidate with a lot to offer.  And, especially given his pretty much limitless wealth, he will be a force to be reckoned with in the campaign.  I’m very much looking forward to the April 23 debate
– it will be fascinating to see how these three very different candidates stack up head to head.

One final point.  There’s been endless speculation here (and elsewhere, I assume) about the delegate count at the convention.  It seems very likely that Deval Patrick will pick up the endorsement by getting more than 50% of the votes.  The big question is whether he will get so many more that he makes it difficult or impossible for Gabrieli or Tom Reilly to get on. 

Which leads to today’s poll question: if it’s looking like Gabrieli or Reilly might actually not make it onto the ballot, should Patrick release enough delegates to ensure that they all make it on (assuming that he can do so while still getting the endorsement)?  How important is the 15% rule, really?  Isn’t it more important to have the voters decide?

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