Finished reading? Good.
I’m not the researcher that David is, but in trying to find out more about this issue I did poke around Google, which is apparently more than Boston Globe reporter Frank Phillips did.
From an article in Black Enterprise magazine dated August 2004 titled “Coke loses top black executive and general council” comes the usual stuff that we already know about Deval Patrick’s reason for leaving Coca-Cola: He left for personal reasons. Wanted to spend more time with family. He didn’t like the office politics.
But buried in the middle of the article comes this quote from Rev. Jesse Jackson:
Let’s think about this for a moment. Why did Deval Patrick take the job with Coca-Cola to begin with?
From the same Black Enterprise article:
So what happened?
Deval didn’t just leave Coca-Cola. Deval was pushed out because of his commitment to doing what is right — and not just for his employer.
From Atlanta Business Chronicle dated October 29, 2004:
The board, it was reported, didn’t like the way Patrick was resolving (and often settling) litigation.
But the board has since issued a public apology to Patrick. And Patrick recently made a speech to Atlanta business leaders that gave a more thorough look at how he has approached running Coke’s legal department.
He said he decided to stop being defensive and immediately denying all charges made by complainants.
This change, he said, helped Coke listen to its adversaries, from disgruntled employees to regulators from the European Union.
Being less reactive, Patrick said, helped Coke learn from mistakes or oversights, and in the case of a drawn-out EU antitrust action, resulted in avoiding fines.
Still, another search executive said Patrick’s approach probably sealed his fate at Coke by not endearing him to the top brass.
“The reality was he probably didn’t have a career there,” said Thomas Zay, of Atlanta search firm Zay & Co. “[Patrick] had to take tough, corrective action. It’s pretty difficult and doesn’t build the foundation for a long career.”
Zay said that Patrick is “a very able guy. He brought [Coke] into reality and moved aggressively to counter what he felt were the mismoves … [Coke] had initially made out of the box when facing [litigation]. But the settlements he made didn’t endear him to the board and other leadership.”
This is completely consistent with Deval Patrick’s assertion from the Frank Phillips article in the Globe:
“I am not running as something I am not,” Patrick said. “I am a person who believes that economic expansion and social justice go hand in hand . . . people have to figure whether they want to call me a liberal looney or a corporate devil.”
I am a progressive liberal. Some would say a VERY progressive liberal. Deval Patrick’s associations with Texaco, Coca-Cola and Ameriquest raised a major red flag for me when I first heard about him. But talking with and listening to Deval, and looking into this for myself, instead of relying on the Globe’s hackery I’ve come to a few conclusions:
I think it’s very important to know about a candidate’s background and Deval Patrick’s work history is fair game. What isn’t fair is to cherry pick details of his work history without providing the whole story.
It’s very easy to work for a company like Ben & Jerry’s, it’s much harder to try to change a not-so progressive corporation from the inside. Did Deval Patrick succeed 100%? No. But I would argue that these companies are better off for Deval Patrick having worked for them. It would have been nice if the Globe could have seen it’s way clear to provide the whole story.
And… I think it’s past time that some Boston Globe reporters pull their heads out of their Lexis-Nexis and take a tip from us bloggers. Google. It’s free and it works. Unless of course, you’re just publishing opposition research. But you so-called mainstream media folks wouldn’t do that, would ya?
and positions the size of the VP/Secretary/General Counsel, the difference between jumping and being pushed is very small. I suspect, we’ll never know for sure.
Your post is a perfect example of how blogs like BMG provide evidence and perspectives left out of newspaper stories.
The point about not reflexively denying all allegations is quite interesting, particularly if that applies to cases in litigation (couldn’t tell from the article whether it did or not). I know (having seen it many times) that in the early stages of litigation the defendant routinely denies practically every allegation made against it in its answer to the plaintiff’s initial complaint. It’s standard litigation procedure, and no one thinks much of it. What would really get people’s attention would be to not do that – if Patrick was trying to steer Coke down that road, it would border on the radical. Fascinating.
We’re finding more and more about this fiasco and it’s making me feel more and more confident that Deval’s going to win. This is the best they can do?
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What’s most important is that residents of Massachusetts are saying NO to Democrats swiftboating Democrats. Other campaigns will latch on to “Killer Coke” at their own peril.
The Swift Boaters were clearly on the other side (right wingers). But nothing I’ve read here indicates that Killer Coke is part of some right-wing effort to get Deval. In fact, unless proved otherwise, is albeit misguided effort, does seem to be coming from a strong left wing/labor orienated group. Sure other comparisons are valid–both are trying to undermind the strength of Kerry/Patrick. But the folks behind the Swift Boaters are and will always be my poliitical enemies. The Killer Coke crew, while I disagree with them here, are not my (nor do I suspect your) enemies. If fact, I’m sure we’ve been on the same side in the past and will be in the future.
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Hey, “frank” you seem to have been on vaca or something.
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(And, btw, to all my friends here at BMG, let me take this obscure opportunity to tell you I’ll be enjoying some beach time for the next few days — I’m Best Man in a wedding on the Outer Banks — and will be MIA until midweek — try to keep the Bay State safe while I’m away! After that, it’s ADAT till September 19!)
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The “crew” you refer to, as established by David and Bob, is one person.
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I prefer to use Gandhi’s word [“I do not have enemies, I have only opponents”], and so would not characterize Ray Rogers as an “enemy.” On the other hand, he may be an enemy of the truth.
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The very name of his campaign suggests that Coke is responsible for deaths. Yet, where is the evidence for that?
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As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I hold no brief for Coca-Cola or their products. In fact, I can’t understand why anyone would want to imbibe that stuff when coffee and wine are available. Or water, for that matter. Tap water.
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Still, railing against Deval Patrick seems to me to be a very strange way to advance the cause of the working class. Deval has come out solidly for universal health care, for example. He has called it a “public good.” He has expressed strong support for unions.
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How does opposing him advance the cause of unions or the average working slob? I think Ray Rogers’s efforts are very misplaced. He is my opponent as much as Kerry Healey is my opponent.
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This guilt-by-association crap just doesn’t do it for me.
The Swift Boat Metaphor?
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While I’m going on vacation soon, I certainly am taking a vacation from this silly Deval thing.
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So I ignored most of your post because I really could care less about this whole tiff, but I understand your emotionalism because some folks are dissing your guy.
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Not to get your blood pressure going, but it clear that Rayboy is getting financial backing from some labor group(s). Folks you may have supported financially in the past or may support (under a different “cause” of course). And the punch line is you will probably never learn who in the labor movement is actually funding this, so you’ll never know if you’ve crossed pathes in the past or in the future.
“frank,” your whole post is pretty much incomprehensible to me.
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Check out David’s latest.
because I could care less about it. So David’s post is some OTHER unions are challenging Killer Coke. So what. There are lots of unions and they are not centrally connected.
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Are you denying that Killer Coke is not a labor funded effort? (I really shouldn’t be asking this–because I promised myself I would step into the vortex of this primary echo chamber.)
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The thing is, Killer Coke has been around for years and has hundreds if not thousands of student groups around the world that have been support boycott efforts. The group is not wrong to be pushing Coca-Cola to take a serious look at this. The reason the campaign against Deval is seriously misguided is not that there is no basis for the accusations (union leaders at Coca-Cola bottling plants in Columbia were murdered by paramillitary groups in the mid-90s) but that Deval supported the cause of a full independent investigation while he was at Coca-Cola. The group is legitimate, perhaps not legally, but in it’s existence as a political movement in this world: but Ray Rogers is clearly off-target in attacking Deval.
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I would also argue that “swiftboating” doesn’t have to come from “the other side”. While John Kerry and Max Cleland were Democrats swiftboated from the opposition, John McCain was swiftboated from his party’s base, and as is Deval Patrick in this instance.