Deval Patrick said last night that Kerry Healey is better than the campaign she has run. I think that’s probably true. But in politics, you make your bed, and then you lie in it.
It appears, in light of today’s Globe story, that Mass. Republicans are feeling sufficiently confident about Healey’s losing next Tuesday that they can speak out about her wretched campaign without fear of serious consequences.
Doubts are voiced on Healey tactics
Some in GOP question focus on crime issue
By Lisa Wangsness, Globe Staff | November 2, 2006
With Kerry Healey trailing in the polls, some Massachusetts Republicans are beginning to second-guess the campaign’s strategy and the decision to air widely criticized advertisements focused on crime….
“I would say that strategic blunders by her handlers have left her with no good options,” [GOP strategist Todd Domke] said….
[Republican ex-Treasurer and Gov candidate Joe] Malone called Healey’s parking garage ad “very high-risk,” and he said that sending campaign workers to Patrick’s home dressed in orange prison jumpsuits only seemed to validate accusations that Healey was “going over the line.”
“Deval Patrick’s comment that she is much better than her campaign, I think, rings true,” he said. “I have great respect for Kerry Healey, but the campaign has done her a disservice.”
Even Healey herself seems at a loss to explain what happened.
Healey said she never intended that so much attention be paid to the [parking garage] ad.
“The media has spent too much time focusing on this one issue, and therefore we as a campaign have ended up spending more time talking about this one issue than about . . . the many other substantive issues,” Healey told the Associated Press.
Oh, I see. It’s the media’s fault. PUH-LEEEEEEZE!! Talk about not wanting to take responsibility for ANYTHING!
It’s either the media’s fault, or the Legislature’s fault, or the AG’s fault.
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True leadership? I think not!
Democrat Paul Watanabe was making more points for her!
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WHO is this clown?
is not a clown. He is a political science professor at UMass Boston, with a Phd from Harvard. I’ve taken his classes, he’s a terrific professor and a wonderful guy.
I had him back in the late 80s at UMB. He’s a nice man also.
He is an excellent professor. Top notch.
Watanabe did a GREAT job – as I said, he stood up for Healey more than once. Very fair minded.
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Domke, the alleged Republican – HE is the clown.
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Then again, the Herald has Jim Rappaport and Holly Robichaud, Healey opponent and his campaign manager respectively, commenting on ‘how good was Healey’s campaign’.
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Let’s call up Tom Reilly and ask him how Deval’s doing, shall we, Kim Atkins?
My bad…I thought you were criticizing Watanabe for sticking up for Healey.
Take away the attack ads, the sleazy orange-jumpsuited tactics, the distortions, the arrogance, and what does she have?
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Nothing.
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Nothing, apparently, except taxes (but oops, NOT property taxes, they don’t count, you see), immigration (oooh! those scaaaary brown people! You’d think this was New Mexico and not Massachusetts) and crime (Patrick – gasp! – actually defended criminals! Shocking! Why, the idea!)
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When not going negative, she beat those three drums to death and still had nothing. There was absolutely no “there” there, except perhaps the overwhelming sense that she thought people like her ought to be Governor, and therefore should be Governor.
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I actually had to think longer and harder about whether I would vote for Ross or Mihos than for Patrick, because they at least seemed like the type of candidate who would work with fellow legislators instead of making pronouncements from on high.
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Next she and/or her handlers will blame Mitt. I can’t wait to see that.
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So who thinks she’ll try running for something else? This will be her third failed candidacy in three tries. Is there a place for Muffy Healey anywhere in state government? If so, where?
She won’t blame Mitt. Not ever. That would violate the first law of robotics. Mitt is sacred. And to answer your final question, he is probably connected to wherever her future lies, if she chooses to hold a job again.
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I personally don’t think that Healey has nothing. She has certainly put forth a lot of ideas for this state, particularly her “50-point plan”.
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I can’t quite figure out if people of this state are reacting unfavorably to her as a person, are recoiling from her campaign tactics, or if they are rejecting her ideas and philosophies.
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I seriously hope that it is the latter. While I can see how some people would be attracted to the whole “cut taxes, get rid of government, don’t reward failure'” philosophy, I hope that people are really starting to see those policies as destructive to majority of people this state.
The other big thing to judge Healey on was her record. She has run as the incumbent of an administration that the people of the state are fed up with. I think that’s the main reason for the initial negative opinion of her. Even for those who like her goals, she has offered no reason to believe she could accomplish them.
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I suspect voters aren’t so much convinced Deval’s plan is better as willing to give it a shot. So as far as philosophy goes, a lot is at stake over the performance of the next governor.
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actually tells us all we need to know about Ms. Healey. The campaign, in its totality, actually served the voters quite well in many respects. For example, if Ms. Healey didn’t really think the parking garage ad represented her campaign well, SHE should have yanked it. She didn’t. She defended it and let it run. Now she blames the media for making too much of it? A perceptive candidate would have realized the ad was over the top and demanded it be yanked. But not Muffy. Consequently, we can conclude she is a) tone deaf b) lying c) lacking backbone or d) a combination of some or all.
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Simiarly, if the jumpsuited “volunteers” didn’t speak for her, then she should have spoken more loudly and more clearly about the tone and tenor of her own campaign. She didn’t. She denied involvement and failed to substantively address the issue for three days. Consequently, we can conclude that she is a) a weak manager and has no idea what’s happening on her watch b) is a poor communicator unable to establish her needs, vision, and ethics to those around and beneath her or c) both.
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No, she is not better than her campaign. Not at all. Her campaign, paradoxically enough, is an accurate reflection of her shortcomings and values (or lack thereof) and that exposure, ultimately, is in the best interests of all voters.
…can never admit they’re wrong. So even if she started to see the huge mistakes she made, she had to stay the course. Eventually, someone like that convinces themselves they are never wrong – it’s much more comfortable, or rather, it would be devastating to their psyche if they didn’t.
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Sound familiar?
I think there’s merit in the authoritarian personality notion here, but only the context that she is unable to acknowledge or admit the shortcomings I’ve outlined. Some authoritarian personalities do you have good judgment; she, however, does not.
She wasn’t able to close the gap in the polls until she started pushing the scary black man meme. I’m unconvinced she could have done better without this theme. I think it’s kind of an excuse for her failures as a candidate.
The huge gap between the candidate caused the desperate ads, not the other way around.
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I said this before and was challenged by those who believe the negative ads were an “anvil around her neck.” I continue to disagree. I agree with Melanie that the relatively desperate ads were a reflection of her weakness as a candidate rather than the reason for her loss. Her off-putting public persona (people simply don’t like her) and lack of political vision doomed her candidacy. The ads didn’t work well enough but, despite the Patrick spin, I don’t believe they hurt her.
Honestly, the poll numbers were getting better with the Songer stuff. If she went positive or to more traditional attack ads after that, she probably would have faired better. Instead, she drank the kool-aid that says all negative ads are good, and aired the most heinous ads I’ve ever seen – especially the infamous LaGuer one.
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So I don’t think it was negative ads that killed her campaign, per say, just how far out of line she went with them.
…the level of public discourse in the Commonwealth will benefit immensely!
Sorry Jane Swift, once again the Romney Healey administration has pushed you aside to become an “expert” commentator.
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So Kerry, how sucky does this campaign compare to yours in ’06? Should the candidate stay negative. I know in your case, it didn’t go as well as you’d hoped….
Really, it wasn’t the Republicans’ fault. Voters were supposed to be so ashamed of the dark feelings roused by that ad that we would never actually talk about those feelings (just let them fester).
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It’s clear that the news and entertainment media did not do their job in this campaign. It’s proof of the naked power of the special interests in Massachusetts that things broke differently here than they have done in other elections–that crime and immigration and the income tax should be trumped by things like competence and leadership and local taxes and services.
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There is no dishonor is losing under these circumstances, a perfect storm, a fluke, and the Republicans should not be discouraged from running a similarly bold campaign again. (Not to do so would give the Democrats a permanent advantage.)
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Indeed, in four years a Healey-Patrick “Rematch”
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I’m sorry. I just can’t keep that up.
Masterful. Simply masterful.
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Unfortunately, it’s likely that is just what the Republicans are telling themselves now.