I’ll be the first one to talk about the elephant in the middle of the room here. The simple answer is racism. A slightly more nuanced explanation would be some sort of combination of begrudgery coupled with crypto-racism.
People like Tom Reilly and the Globe’s Frank Phillips have been playing the begrudgery game with Deval for months. “Deval has two really big houses, both way nicer than your house, therefore he must have done something illicit or back-handed to get his success,” is the underlying message that those guys have been pushing. Yet, Gabrieli seems to be getting a pass, along with Mihos and Healey. Kind of reminds me of that old bit on Sesame Street- one of these kids is not like the others…. Deval Patrick is being singled out because of his race.
The Globe tries to position itself as the more liberal of the two daily newspapers. However, given the racist subtext of many of its articles about Deval, that liberal editorial position is a farce.
I was wondering how long it would be before supporters started intimating that any attack on Deval is because of the color of their skin. This state doesn’t have much of a history of comfortably dealing with race, but this came quicker than I expected.
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Deval is the front-runner. He worked the caucuses, secured the endorsement, and now he’s in the lead. I presume that’s what his supporters wanted. And that means that he is now the target. The best way to win is to build yourself up, preferably while tearing the leader down. That’s how it works, whether you’re black, white, or polka-dotted.
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Gabs isn’t mentioned because he barely got on the ballot and is in third place, not because of “crypto-racism”. No smart candidate talks about the guy coming in last. Why isn’t Mihos mentioned? Probably because he’s a non-entity who will be lucky to survive until Election Day.
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Why isn’t Healey being mentioned? I don’t know, but probably because the front-runner for the Democratic nomination prefers to focus his fire on other Democrats.
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I don’t see how it’s racism to treat the front-runner like a front-runner. In fact, it’s racism to treat a candidate differently because of his skin color which brings us to this blast from the past
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So, here we have the argument in favor of Patrick is that Ralph Nader thought he should be on the Reserve Board for the sake of diversity. To translate this into Orwellian language for this uncomfortable with race:
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If Deval is attacked due to his lead in the polls it’s because of his skin color. If he’s praised because of his “diversity”, it’s because of his competence.
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Deval is admirable for overcoming poverty and disadvantage to build a great career. I’m sure he was held back by his race in Chicago and Washington, and I know it’ll be a factor for some voters in Massachusetts. I don’t think, however, that selective color-blindness is anything but demeaning for any minority candidate.
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However, every candidate has a few of these nutjob supporters. DP himself does NOT seem to be playing the race card; in fact, he seems to be going out of his way to avoid it.
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I do think we should give DP himself a break here. Inevitably on this website there will be some lilywhite limolibs who try to inject race on DP’s “behalf,” because it makes them feel good to accuse others of racism, but it might be fairest to assume until proven otherwise that DP himself would probably want these “supporters” to clam up.
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2. I would argue that DP will be somewhat helped overall by his race in the primary.
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To test this, one could create a “blind poll” describing each candidate’s main positions and their bios – with language directly lifted from their websites, but which doesn’t mention race, and then test it on likely Dem voters in, say, Oregon. I’d be surprised if DP tested at 36%, where he is right now.
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3. My frustration with DP is that I think as an African-American candidate, he could make a great case to centrist voters that we need a push to fight for inner-city kids (schools, crime reduction in Lawrence, Lowell, Brockton, Boston, etc) OVER entrenched interests.
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Instead, thus far, he seems to have it backwards….to supposedly “help kids” by giving entrenched interests exactly what they seek.
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DP missed such a great opportunity on this. When Menino said no to Romney on more cops for Boston, DP should have said “It’s rare that I agree with our part-time Gov over Boston’s time-and-a-half Mayor, but we absolutely need the state to help fight crime. When longtime Roxbury pastors feel the need to flee to Woburn to protect their teenage kids, we need everyone to work together, and the last thing we need to worry about are whether city cops get overtime. It’s too bad Romney has poisoned things so much that Dems first reaction is suspicion, but in this case, let’s get state troopers in to help patrol deadly streets.”
Tom Reilly’s mentor as a teenager was was his best friend’s father Joe Budd ,who was a cop in Springfield. Joe was Wayne’s father. Tom had lost both of his brothers from horrific accidents by the age of 17 . His father then passed away. Budd’s dad became his surrogate father.
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Later ,Tom and Wayne Budd started one of the first mixed race law practices in Boston in the 70’s. “Budd and Reilly” . They had 19 lawyers, including Ralph Martin who was hired right out of law school . Deval Patrick was still watching Sesame Street at the time.
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Marie St. Fleur has been a friend of Tom’s for over 15 years. He gave this Haitian women her first a job as a prosecutor 15 years ago. He then stuck his neck out for her by selecting her as his running mate. He took her word for it when she said her credit problems were minor. Who knows ? Only time will tell, but he may have risked his entire Gubernatorial campaign for a black woman.
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Patrick’s huge estate is a valid issue as it compares the candidate who devoted his life to public service to a candidate who lined his pockets as a civil rights lawyer. The apartment in Watertown versus the house in Milton and the estate in Lennox are a fair comparison . Ameriquest is the whipped cream topping and I hope Reilly runs with it as an issue .It shows where one’s character and greed intersect bullshit that Patrick was only on the board to help out the companies problems will not fly with the average voter, especially when he was paid $380,000 for 4 board meetings per year.
I lived year-round on Nantucket Island for eight years in the late ’80s and early ’90s, and I have watched people (including well-known Democrat elected officials) use a red hot resort development market as a way to make a short- or long-term investment that will yield high returns.
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Now I live in the Berkshires, and the real estate market here is just beginning to heat up in the way that the Cape and Islands did at the end of the last century.
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I am a Deval supporter, and my reading of the attempt to attack the Patrick family for their decision to build in the Berkshires is that the attackers are inadvertantly putting a spotlight on Deval’s investment savvy. Isn’t it a good thing to have a Governor with financial skills (as well as private sector experience)?
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I’ll tell you that western Mass. supporters are also very excited to have a candidate with a base in one of our small towns. This will be a Governor who will understand why municipal funds for plowing snow off of local roads is important to us.
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A few people may resent Deval and Diane’s career success, and their ability to invest in a family home where they can relax and spend time with their friends and daughters. I think most people will admire their good fortune, recognize that they have worked hard to earn this opportunity, and wish them well.
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P.S. I am glad to add “begrudgery” to my vocabulary, although I don’t think the behavior that goes with this term is limited to one ethnic group!
What bothers me is that exaggeration. The Boston Globe made the Berkshires house out to be some giant McMansion with 24 rooms and 5 acres of clear cutting or some such.
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Recently someone said to me that they didn’t like it that Deval had, “like 10 houses.” Please.
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The other item that gets overlooked is the fact that’s it’s not just Deval and Diane rambling around these houses. From what I understand Deval has a rather large extended family that is living in these houses as well as his two daughters.
We all know that people would prefer that the facts not get in the way of rumors. Why on Earth do you insist on ruining people’s fun? We shouldn’t talk about the fact that Patrick didn’t inherit one cent and that he has earned every penny and now wants to spend that money on people he cares about. We can’t talk about the fact that Deval sat on boards for the purposes fighting the good fights in order to confront real problems at these companies. It is so much easier to paint a person in the negative than in the positive.
You know how painful it is for me to agree with you.
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And now someone will come by and say, Ameriquest! Which is the stick that some folks love to take a smack at Deval with.
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Bah.
If you don’t think race has something to do with the disparate treatment, you’re not a person of color in America. There is no comment about how Deval made his money himself, conversely, Gabrieli came from a rather comfortable background and he’s hailed as a self-made man. I have no idea how much property the other candidates own. I assume for most (except Tom Reilly who is practically on the street with his $110+ per year salary), that they have vast property holdings. We don’t know because it’s not reported. It’s naturally accepted that people with money will spend it on property; that’s not news. Front runner status is not the only reason this is reported as a story (by the way, Deval has only recently become the front runner, this story well predates that development).
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I’m a Deval supporter from before he announced. Early in the campaign when I talked to likely supporters I got a lot of, “yeah, he’s great, but Massachusetts will never elect a black governor.” Or the thinly veiled, “Do you really think he’s ELECTABLE?” Gabrieli got in the race because of race (oh and he’s been trying to buy an elected seat for years now).
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People, let’s be honest here. One of the big problems with the left is that everybody professes to be color blind (I guess that would make the Right Wing of the Supremes is right). I would rather be honest and go forward. The Globe and Phoenix are wringing their collective hands about what will happen in the general if Deval wins the primary. I’ll tell you what will happen: the Dems will finally WIN!
You seem to suggest that “Do you think Deval is electable?” is a veiled version of “MA will never elect a black Gov.”
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Sure, sometimes.
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But with the first question, you can insert Howard Dean in 04, Robert Reich in 02, Phil Gramm in 96 – “electability” is always raised as a primary issue. Always. Simply asking that question is not automatically racial.
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If it’s a female candidate, then the question gets a gender twist; if it’s a non-white candidate, it gets a racial twist; if it’s a Mormon or Jewish candidate, it gets a religious twist.
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When I hear “Is Deval electable?” I mostly think of it as “If more centrist Dems have lost last 4 elections b/c independents feared Dem control of all of Beacon Hill and Fluffernutter bans as far as the eye can see, wouldn’t a more left-leaning Dem face an even bigger challenge?”
As a matter of fact, I don’t remember a lot of people being passionate about Shanon. I remember people telling me that they were supporting her because she was “electable.”
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I think we keep losing the general because we nonimate candidates that we think will be palitable rather than candidates who are actual leaders. If the Dems were to put up a candidate who has a vision and real leadership skills we would win.
As a disinterested observer of the Dem primary, I view Gab’s wealth differently than Deval’s. While neither’s personal balance sheet is of any political interest to me, I think Democratic primary voters may feel it’s important. It’s not a racial difference.
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Without impunging the character of anyone, one can look at their respective backgrounds and resumes and conclude that Chris Gabreili was a savvy and aggressive venture capitalist, made savvy and aggressive investments, and earned a lot of money. Same goes for Mihos and Healey (albeit via her husband.)
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One can look at Deval Patrick and ask, as many business people might ask, what hard-earned personal capital did he risk? How many jobs did he create directly because of starting a company, or helping to fund start-ups? I don’t know, but it isn’t hard to say “here’s a smart guy who has done well, primarily in government (despite sitting on corporate boards,) good for him, but he’s worth many millions. How’d that happen?”
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The undertone I smell in the Globe articles, and generally, in questions about Patrick’s net worth, is he’s been the beneficiary of insider political treatment, sweetheart loans, and, yes, affirmative action.
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That’s why no one questions Gabreili’s Louisburg Square townhouse but they can raise an eyebrow about Deval’s multi-million real estate in Milton and Richmond.
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I don’t see Patrick’s exposure as explicitly racially motivated. Begrudgery, maybe. Again, their balance sheets mean nothing to me so I’m only trying to give a sense of how people, in general, might take all this.
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Does this influence Dem activists? Will it work politically? You tell me. In politics today, anything seems worth trying.