Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Who Said This?

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“People don’t want candidates who buy the race, it’s tacky.”

Answer: Deval Patrick speaking about Chris Gabrieli yesterday in Springfield.

Gabrieli has spent $5 million of his personal fortune so far on television commercials and other campaign expenses.

Source: The Republican – Western Mass newspaper covering Springfield

I find this to be an interesting change in tone from Deval.  This begs some questions and I invite your thoughts and suggestions.

1.) Does Deval see or at least sense a change in the polls that has not been made public yet?

2.) Deval and his wife are loaded.  Why don’t they spend some of their own money? (note they did spend $350K to help get their campaign off of the ground)

3.) What’s tacky?  Saying that you are no “ordinary leader” and then consistently doing what almost all “ordinary people” do by taking the $ in your jobs over principle (see Coke, Ameriquest, United Airlines, etc. etc.)

4.) Gabrieli’s tacky because of the money he has and will spend on the race?  He not only spends his own money on campaigns (his and other democrats), he supports a wide array of causes on behalf of the public good.  His record to this point as it pertains to helping those less fortunate and working on behalf of the people of Massachusetts dwarfs Deval’s virtually non-existent resume on this front.

5.) Gabrieli has not taken one shot at Deval in his ads.  Why is Deval going negative first?  Calling a person’s strategy “tacky” is usually a warm-up to more aggressive attacks.  It also smacks of sour grapes, jealousy, excuse making, and a lack of accountability in the event that he loses to Gabrieli on the 19th of September.

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Comments

  1. Remember that little e-mail ad about Chris spending his money on the campaign from, what was it, May?  That was the first campaign official negative of the season.  It’s odd to see two rich guys arguing over how they should spend their money — I’d love to have that problem.

    • That was in June, as a response to Gabrieli’s $15.36 million. It wasn’t about Chris spending his money, but about Chris setting the cap for the primary absurdly high, to try to drown his opponents in the primary. And thouhg it wasn’t in a video clip, Reilly’s been going negative constantly in public appearances together and in TV debates against Deval for months and months.

  2. Deval and his wife are loaded.  Why don’t they spend some of their own money? (note they did spend $350K to help get their campaign off of the ground)

    Offices should go to the highest bidder? Is that what you want? Maybe we should just skip the voting part and put them on the auction block.

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    The rest of your post is too tacky to merit a response.

    • How much money does Deval want to raise before he spends his own millions? I think it’s offensive to be harrased by direct mail for donations three times a week by a rich corporate lawyer. I’m not interested in financing his negative campaign. Spend some money Deval, easy come easy go!! And please take me off your mailing list!I jumped ship months ago.

      • I’m an enthusiastic deval supporter but haven’t given any money to his campaign because, hey, he has more than I do, and I’m helping him turn out actual votes.

    • who is confident enough about himself and his candidacy to invest his own $ in his own campaign.  You know, it is called putting your money where your mouth is.  Afterall, why should I or anyone else for that matter write a check to support a candidate if he is unwilling to dip into his own bank account. Deval is a millionaire.  He certainly has the finacial means to support his own candidacy.  He chose not to do so.  Having said that, Gabrieli is hardly just a rich guy who wants to “buy” an election.  Chris has many supporters who believe in him and work hard for him.  Chris has a track record of working on and investing in many important social issues that can make a real difference in people’s lives.  He has been a staunch supporter of the Democratic Party and Democratic candidates.  Gabrieli is a self-made man who has an exceptional business background. But more importantly, Chis is a committed family man who sees his candidacy as a chance to make Massachusetts a better place for his children and all of us to live.

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      I do think Deval’s testiness was somewhat out of character. Maybe it was a manifestation of some frustration that he is currently feeling.  Bottom line, Chris and Deval have both made their own decisions  regarding the way in which their campaigns will be run and the strategies that they will utilize to win.  Chris is willing to live with his choices.  Is Deval ready to live with his? 

      • Deval is a millionaire. He certainly has the finacial means to support his own candidacy.  He chose not to do so.

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        Deval wouldn’t be a millionaire anymore if he’d spent his own money like Gabrieli has. Chris just reached $5.2 mil recently, nearly all of which is self-financed, and I’m not sure, but I remember reading that was more than Romney spent in 2002 total, (though it may have been just that he was on pace to spend more than Romney, I don’t remember the source). It seems like he’s saying “I can spend this 15 million now and still have another to take on Kerry Healey” which is very tacky.

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        And I don’t think it’s going to be a sustainable way to campaign: TV ads build name recognition but not much hardcore support, and relying primarily on self-financing means there’s less people who feel they hold a financial stake in campaign: if you donate to a campaign, you want to work harder to make sure the campaign wins so it’s not just wasted money.

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        Deval’s built the foundations of his campaign over nearly two years, and now has a month throw $2mil at TV ads like Gabs did in April and hold onto his lead. Gabrieli can do the same, but he’s got a shakier shelf to do it on.

        • There are (at least) two problems with the trend toward self-financed campaigns. One is that it limits our choices to wealthy people. Surely there are qualified people out there in the world who don’t happen to have big bank accounts!

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          Another is that it increases the cynicism that the average voter has about whether they can really make a difference. If offices are seen as something to by purchased by the wealthiest candidate, why should people bother to vote, let alone work on a campaign?

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          We need public financing of campaigns, but until we get there, the Patrick campaign is a model of how to go about it. The campaign has already set many fundraising records in Massachusetts, and from the anecdotal evidence I hear the money is still pouring in. As alexwill points out, it is the commitment and energy of these donors (who in large part are very likely also campaign volunteers) that will propel Patrick to victory, not the dollars.

        • in his own right and his wife works as an attorney for a very  prestigious law firm.  His disclosurers rightly do not include his wife’s earnings; therefore, I question Alexwill’s statement that “Deval wouldn’t be a millionaire anymore if he spent his own money.” I am not convinced that this ascertion is true.  Moreover, while I am not exactly sure of the total amount of money that Romney spent in 2002 (I think it is more than Alexwill alleges), Romney did not have a primary nor did he have the “image problem” and an unlikeablility factor that his Lt. Governor has. Have you seen Healey’s disastrous positives/negatives #’s in the latest poll?  Consequently, Romney did not spent any money on TV until after the September 18 2002 Democratic primary. Essentially, whatever he spent and we can agree that it was at least 5 million dollars, was spent in approximately 6 weeks. 

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          Gabrieli has now been in this gubernatorial race for four and a half months.  Because Chris got a late start, it was always part of the equation that he was going to need to spend his own money to make up ground.  Considering that Deval’s been campaigning for 2 years and Chris has been in the race for less than 5 months, I think Chris has run an outstanding campaign. According to the latest polls  Chris is in a statistical dead heat with Deval for the Democratic nomination.  In the latest Rasmuussen poll Gabrieli holds the biggest lead, 20 points, over Healey. 

          • His disclosurers rightly do not include his wife’s earnings; therefore, I question Alexwill’s statement that “Deval wouldn’t be a millionaire anymore if he spent his own money.”

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            We do know these things:

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            –The Patricks were assessed $17,000 by IRS in 1996 or 1997 and didn’t have the cash to pay the IRS so he entered into a payment plan;

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            –Ropes & Gray partners make about $1,000,000 per year, plus or minus.  His wife is a fairly new partner so I’ll guess minus. $800,000?;

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            –They are “house poor” with two very large and expensive pieces of real estate and $6.0 million of debt.  Enough to make any conservative banker worry. Think about it–that’s $350K to $400K annually, just in interest.

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            –As best we know, Mr. Patrick has no income source right now unless he’s receiving continued severance from Coke. Resigned from Reebok, UAL, Ameriquest and Coke.

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            –His options from Coke aren’t substantive.  He has deferred comp (2,785 shares) from Coke but he isn’t old enough to cash it out and the remainder of his options were underwater when he left.  In November of 2004 after he sold 13,100 share (probably to finance his campaign) he still owned 39,084 of coke which likely represented a substantial portion of his wealth ($1.5M?)

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            –2 daughters.  College age? Gulp.

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            Bottom line:  (1) A lot of wealth in real estate, but fully leveraged and not easy to draw on for campaigning.  (2) I’ll guess $2 – $3 million in the bank–not a sum that Mr. Patrick would care to post up against Mr. Gabrieli’s wealth; (3) running for office doesn’t pay well, so the Patrick’s are living on Mrs. Patrick’s income, paying the interest on the mortgages.  High living expenses.

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            Rather than outspend Gabrieli, it’s good strategy to make heavy spending seem tacky.

            • and we do know that.  If he manages his money poorly, it’s another reason to question his candidacy

              • I’m wondering how strong he actually is in the financial management arena.  Certainly no background for it with a legal education and the corporate background as General Counsel doesn’t really impart financial expertise.

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                One promise is the savings of $735M.  Any idea of the source of that promise?  Details?

          • I question Alexwill’s statement that “Deval wouldn’t be a millionaire anymore if he spent his own money.” I am not convinced that this ascertion is true.

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            Well, I’m not convinced it’s true either when you change what I wrote. “…like Gabrieli has” was important, and admittedly vauge, I mean if Deval had spent $5 million of his own money, I doubt he would still be a millionaire now. He is not as massively rich in the same way as Chris. He might have more than my estimate, but definitely not $15 million.

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            Romney set the Massachusetts governor record, and I think it was aobut $6mil so Gabrieli’s probably not at that point yet, and good point about Romney waiting til after the primary.

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            Also, it’s not a “statistical dead heat”. The last SUSA poll was DP 35 TR 27 CG 30 with a 4.5% margin, which (assuming a pol 50 days before is accurate) gives about a 89% chance of Patrick win, 9% chance of Gabrieli win. My weighted poll average is DP 35.27% TR 26.81% CG 28.95% with a 23% margin of error (based on a 2 week poll accuracy half-life), which gives Deval an ~55% chance to win and Chris a ~25% chance, so I don’t think the result is as solidly decided as individual polls indicate, but the term “statistical dead heat” is not valid.

      • …Don’t spend your own money.

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        Look, Gabrielli’s great, but this canard of how wonderful it is that he spends his own money on his campaign is bunk. It’s not a merit, it’s not (necessarily) a problem; it’s a tactical decision because Gabs got into the game late and needed all the campaigning time he could get, no time to waste fundraising. Deval got in early, with different financial resources, and made a different tactical decision; Sept 19 will tell who was smartest.

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        Til then, let’s take the non-issue of “Rich Deval doesn’t spend his own money” off the table. It’s pointless.

    • it’s pretty easy to see that the Patricks aren’t particularly loaded.  Certainly, not in comparison to Mr. Gabrieli.

      • What is Mr. Gabrieli worth?  Compare it to how much he will spend on his campaign.  Could it be as much as 5%?  Probably not, but I wish we knew, because Mr. Patrick may already have exceeded that percentage with his own contribution to his campaign.

          • One can give donations in unlimited amounts to one’s own campaign, but loans (which the committee would pay back) are limited to a specific amount based on the office sought. (I just tried to find the actual number for governor at the OCPF website, with no luck.)

  3. “Tacky” is a word wealthy women use to demean other wealthy women, isn’t it? This is an example of Deval’s whiny midwestern way of speaking that I don’t see playing well on the air here at all. I know it bugs the shit out of me.

  4. It just seems absurd to me that Deval is complaining about Gabrieli’s $ and strategy at this point.  Yes, Deval sent that email before the convention when Mr. Inclusive was trying to exclude everyone but himself from the ballot, but this quote is more overt, for a broader audience, and for the record. 

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    I work with investments quite often and one mark of a franchise worth considering is if and to what extent management puts their money where their mouth is.  No one can question Gabrieli’s commitment to this campaign based upon the time and $ he has put into it.  It does not guarantee success – otherwise Steve Forbes would be President – but it does show that he is not afraid to put his $ on the line.

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    This reminds me of when a Red Sox management type or fan complains about the Yankees/Steinbrenner’s money when they are in fact both filthy rich.  It must sound so hypocritical to Royals, other small/mid market teams & their fans – and I am a life-long diehard Boston fan in the biggest way.

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    Money in politics and its potential to provide a tailwind is nothing new.  You need look no further than our senior Senator, Bill Weld, or Mitt Romney to have a reminder of that.

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    The point is they are both incredibly blessed and fortunate when it comes to wealth – well near the top of the board.  So Deval’s complaint about money and Gabrieli’s use of it is a bit of a reach.  I wonder what Joe Minimum Wage thinks of this – especially when he eventually hears/learns about the Taj Deval (note – probably one of Reilly’s best & only noteworthy lines of the campaign so far).

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    Yes, Gabrieli is more wealthy than the very rich Deval Patrick, but Gabrieli has also been far more generous when it comes to giving back to others than Deval has (e.g. community, state, nationally, less fortunate, public ed, stem cells… I could go on, but I think the point is made). So his spending is not all about them.  Gabrieli has an ingrained sense of public service and would make a great governor empathetic to the needs of those in need of help.

    • …wouldn’t you also be concerned about a company that was making little to no revenue compared to its expenses, but was being funded almost exclusively by an extraordinarily wealthy “angel investor” with a strong personal involvement with the company? Would you be concerned about whether that company really had a strong product?

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      Now, if there were another company of about the same size which also had a wealthy owner, but which funded itself solely with its own revenue, wouldn’t that company look a little more solid?

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      That is the relevant analogy; simply saying “Gabrielli puts his money where his mouth is” misses the boat.

      • Will, what you are describing is succession planning and depth.  To answer your question, yes I would be concerned about a company that had one key player.  I would ask questions along the lines about who supports you, do you have the market covered, who’s your successor and what steps are you taking to make sure that he/she is ready to take the helm, what happens if the unexpected occurs (i.e. the hit by the bus question). You get the idea.

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        Your analogy breaks down because Gabrieli is not an “angel investor”, he is more the equivalent of the CEO of his campaign. 

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        Cash flow is always a concern in business and campaigns – Gabrieli has no problem there.  He will be able to fund his campaign with absolutely no concerns through September and God willing to victory in November. 

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        Succession planning is not as big an issue – it could be in 4-8 years for whomever wins if they want to pass the torch -because one person either wins or loses (e.g. if Reilly continues to struggle, they can’t announce a successor prior to election day at this point and still call it the Reilly campaign).  As goes Gabrieli, Patrick, and Reilly go, for the most part so go their respective primary campaigns. The depth of the campaigns is clearly relevant – especially as it pertains to field organization, response, GITV, etc.  The fields could be worth anywhere from 1% to 5%/6% on election day.  We have all heard about the vaunted Patrick field.  Reilly’s field has not got much good press on this front and may not be as deep as it needs to be.  That noted, he has some big “institutional” support (e.g. Menino).  I am involved as a volunteer for the Gabrieli campaign.  I admire the passion and growth of this team.  You and anyone else in the other camps who underestimate the depth and passion of the Gabrieli team do so at your own great political peril come September 19th.

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        Have a great weekend.

        • …and please keep on employing lofty jargon while completely missing the point at hand.

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          Yawn.

          • Sorry Will, it’s you who misses the point.  I wrote the original post, so I know the point at hand quite well.  Maybe it will become clearer in a little over a month.  “Lofty jargon” – if that’s what you consider what I wrote, then perhaps you should consider going back to school.  It was not that hard to decipher.  Maybe that’s why you’re a little confused and don’t get it.

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            Bottom line – Deval got a little nasty and he looks a little hypocritical.  Do you get that or perhaps we should work on counting to 10 and the alphabet for you? 

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            I better watch out because your friends will say that I am angry or getting personal.  That seems to be the MO for some of you (that’s modus operandi “genius Will” – were you the guy that they based Good Will Hunting on?).  Get a little personal, receive a response with some bite to it, and then talk about how the level of debate is dropping.

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            Remember, I wished you a great weekend and then you were a little bit of a jackass. So take that – perhaps that yawn signifies it’s time for your nap little boy.

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