Who Doesn’t Want Change in Massachusetts?

Massachusetts is a curious anomaly.  We enjoy a well-deserved national reputation as a place of progressive and enlightened ideas. We are known for our free thinking, open minded electorate.  To most of the country we are the “bluest of the blue states”, and in some corners, that is not a bad thing. 

Yet we have a political system that is as entrenched as any in the history of American politics.  Tammany Hall?  Chicago under Mayor Daley?  Even our neighbors to the south, in the land of Buddy Cianci, have nothing on us when it comes to machine politics.

A long line of skillful legislative leaders, from Flaherty to Bulger and Finneran, and now to Travaglini and DiMasi, have ensured that the Massachusetts legislative process is locked down and buttoned up tight.  Reform is an insider’s joke.  It is a one party system that consistently delivers uninspired decision making and bureaucratic inertia.  The Big Dig debacle wasn’t an accident, it was a foreseeable consequence.

It is the system that in 2005 offered Tom Reilly as the anointed front runner in the race for governor. 

But something went wrong.  Tom Reilly self-destructed in spectacular fashion.  In a quick series of political missteps and public relations gaffes, he shot himself in both feet.  Our sitting Attorney General dropped from front runner to back of the pack faster than the Red Sox in an August swoon.

What presumably should have led to a groundswell of new support for the other Democratic candidate, Deval Patrick, did just the opposite.  It produced a stronger Democratic opponent for him, Christopher Gabrieli.

The party power brokers, fearful that Deval Patrick’s candidacy would gum up the works, reached out to wealthy businessman Gabrieli.  And Gabrieli, an eminently decent man with a less than stellar political résumé, answered the call.  Although Mr. Gabrieli was already a two-time loser with no experience in government, he was embraced by many as the party’s savior.  Why?  He was wealthy, yes, and reasonably articulate.  He had no “strong negatives”.  Still, it didn’t add up.  Why did the political playmakers in Boston scramble to make a place for Gabrieli at the primary table, with last minute back room deals at the convention? 

Make no mistake.  Christopher Gabrieli’s appearance was not unsolicited.  It grew directly out of Tom Reilly’s demise.  Every supporter of Gabrieli is a former Reilly guy.

What was so frightening about the prospect of Deval Patrick as the party’s candidate in the general election?  Most of the early explanations focused on his ability to successfully carry the party’s banner in November.  He was consistently dismissed as not electable, despite the fact he had won a large majority of the delegate vote at the convention.  “Deval can’t win in November (he’s black)” was an oft heard comment.  “He is too liberal” was another.  “We can’t risk another four years of Republican rule”.  These reasons, although sincerely held by many, served as a bit of a smoke screen for the actual back story. 

Which is this:  The Massachusetts Democratic machine doesn’t so much fear Deval Patrick the nominee as it fears Deval Patrick the Governor.

Two years ago Deval Patrick had the nerve to take on Tom Reilly when he was the Democratic party’s consensus candidate.  This is not the action of a man who pays homage to the political machine.  As Mr. Patrick often says on the campaign trail, “I was told ‘It is not your time’”.  When Patrick began his campaign for governor in 2004, he was regarded by many party regulars as merely a curiosity.  A nice guy with no chance.

He was then, and remains now, to a large extent, an outsider to the Massachusetts Democratic political machine.  Machines fear outsiders.  People with power will go to great lengths to preserve it.  A Democratic governor who does not play by the rules presents enormous difficulties for the legislative bosses.

The rapid rise of Chris Gabrieli, with his waves of television advertising, could well have swamped the Patrick quest, but it did not.  Instead, the campaign soldiered forward.  Patrick continued to build a broad base of support, including an impressive and growing number of endorsements from political leaders who were not beholden to the state’s political machine.  These supporters, including a majority of  Massachusetts congressman and some enlightened and increasingly emboldened state senators and representatives, recognize that Patrick is not only a man who would make a great governor, but the Democratic party’s best hope for victory in November.

What do they see that others do not?

Perhaps it is their understanding that the voters of Massachusetts have built up a deep resentment to how legislative business is conducted in Boston.  What some Democrats tout as widespread dissatisfaction with 16 years of Republican gubernatorial leadership may, in fact, be a more generalized impatience with “business as usual” politics. 

The Republican party understands this.  In fact, the best argument that can be made for putting Kerry Healey in the governor’s chair is that Massachusetts needs some “balance” in government.  It is a recurring theme on the Healey campaign trail.  It is a theme that is sure to resonate with Massachusetts’ many unenrolled voters this fall.

But it really isn’t “balance” that the voters crave, it is a change in the way the system operates.  Real change, not just lip service.  And Kerry Healey doesn’t offer that.

In reality, Deval Patrick represents our best hope for that balance and change.  As a Democratic governor, he will be in a position to forge alliances with other open minded Democratic (and Republican) legislators who dare to break the stranglehold of a legislative process that is hopelessly gridlocked.  With Deval in the corner office, our current legislative “leadership” will no longer have the convenient excuse of struggling with an intractable Republican governor.  It will be time to put up.  Actual solutions, not appeasements and accommodations.

Just wait until the voters of Massachusetts, Republican, Democratic and unenrolled,  view the prospect of real change on the horizon.  It won’t even be close.