Dear BMG Editors,
I have a tremendous respect to you and your blog but I was more than surprised when you endorsed Deval Patrick with such incredible exuberance. Overall, I was expecting your endorsement of Deval for some time since it was pretty much in line with your previous posts and comments on BMG. Again, most of the left blogs, if not all of them, endorsed Patrick. But to present him as the “most inspiring leader and speaker in Massachusetts in a generation” (your quotes will be in bold here) and to say that he is “most likely to beat Kerry Healey and Reed Hillman in November” is an extremely long stretch…
I would like to offer my take on your endorsement of Patrick:
You wrote that he is the “most thoughtful, substantive, and consistent of the candidates on the issues” mentioning some stands he took on number of issues and some proposals he developed in a course of the campaign. Yes, he is smart to be consistent and yes he took some bold stands on issues that appeal to Massachusetts liberal voters (its his most devoted base after all). Your examples: Cape Wind; health care ballot; same-sex marriages; independent investigation for the Big Dig (BTW, a high school graduate couldve come up with this brilliant idea that was simultaneously undermining Reilly as a top man on Big Dig investigation).
You said that he is the most independent of the moneyed interests but how about getting contributions and support from unions? Dont you think he is very much aware of unions being heavy hitters that aggressively lobby their interests? And what about Boston Teachers Union which endorsement of Patrick was announced on June 16? Or American Federation of Teachers, Massachusetts that endorsed Patrick on June 17. Were those endorsements a coincidence or were they organized (hello! unions!) to happen together with Devals proposal on merit pay in public schools on June 13? I guess here goes BMG comment: He made a constructive proposal on merit pay in schools and skillfully navigated tricky political waters to do it.
Again, Deval is an extremely smart guy who understands that populist message worked since ancient times. He tells exactly what his base wants to hear and as you said in your post Patrick’s supporters love their guy. Love is a strong emotion that usually overcomes common sense. Otherwise our common sense couldve told us that even a very good lawyer, a true expert on civil rights who was first persecuting and later defending corporate clients from unions and claims of civil rights violations, in reality should have zero experience on economy, education, health care, public safety, energy and environment or on anything else for that matter. Yes, he can pretend to have thoughtful proposals on all of those issues but they are just campaign proposals developed by other experts in those respective fields. BTW, that also applies to all of the gubernatorial candidates, not just Patrick: we know that Gabrieli has experience in running businesses and investing in them (as well as being devoted to after school education); we know that Healey is a talented criminologist; and Reilly is a career prosecutor and career elected official. Thats it; the rest is done by consultants.
You write that in early 2005, before he finally made the decision to run, Patrick went on a “listening tour” of the state and that “Patrick wasn’t out on some Romneyesque search for the positions that will win him the most votes. He was out to see whether the message he already knew he wanted to deliver was one that would resonate with actual voters. As he told the Phoenix in early 2005, “what Im trying to find is whether what I offer is what people need.” After spending a lot of time talking and — more importantly — listening to people around the state, he concluded that his message would indeed resonate.
This is a classic populist approach: you dont have a platform but you formulate it based on what will appeal to voters by listening to their issues and testing your ideas, while at the same time identifying your base. No wonder most of what he says is loved by his liberal base. And BTW, the liberal folks are very reliable voters they will come out to vote, doesnt matter if its snow or rain. Being a smart man he is, he probably realized early enough that for obvious reasons, he is a perfect fit for them and that they would love him despite his corporate resume.
Again, if you still think he is “most inspiring leader and speaker in Massachusetts in a generation” and that he is “most likely to beat Kerry Healey and Reed Hillman in November” – that is just your Love talking, I guess
