So, I had a soundbite today in WBUR’s report on the Ameriquest call. I was critical of Gov. Patrick’s judgement in this case.
I should point out a couple of things: One, when Bebinger called me, the first thing out of my mouth was “Why don’t you call me when Deval Patrick does something right??” I was being facetious, but I kinda meant it. Bebinger (a very fine and valuable reporter) asked me if I detected a “troubling pattern” of behavior in the Governor’s recent PR woes, and I said no, not yet. She pressed me on “yet”, and I reiterated that I have not seen a “pattern”. And I meant it.
We didn’t start this site to be the Deval Patrick Show. My basic motivation was to help improve the quality of life, the “reality” of Massachusetts. Gov. Patrick can help, but it’s not about him. Never was. That’s why I bristle so much at the attention to stupid “celebrity politics” garbage: That’s not why I’m in it. And I think that applies to most folks who supported Patrick, and do “progressive” stuff.
Personally, I haven’t given up on the Governor one bit. People say he got “political capital” from the election, but the fact is that he can get political capital any time he opens his mouth. He’s extremely bright, well-meaning, well-spoken and charming. He connects with people. And people will know through his actions as Governor whether he’s looking out for their interests, or not. In fact, history is chockfull of public officials with much worse flaws than Patrick’s (Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Buddy Cianci of Providence) who nonetheless took care of business and were rewarded by the electorate. This is just to say that the silly stuff is just that.
For all that the wiseguys say that “he’s got a lot to learn about politics”, in many ways he knows a hell of lot more about politics than they do. That’s how he got elected. And I hope that’s how he’ll govern.
It’s March of 2007. Talk to me in 2010 and we’ll see if it’s time to “give up.”
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But, of course, running a campaign and actually governing are two completely different things. So far, Patrick has decisively demonstrated that he’s excellent at the former, and the jury is still out on the latter, but it’s clear he needs to improve on what has happened so far.
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Kennedy, Clinton, and Cianci all has their problems, but they are all great examples of politicians who understood what needs to be done to maintain their political capital. Here’s hoping that Gov. Patrick shows us that he understands this as well.
and I still am not.
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A business leader with a resume in sales, marketing or line management–rather than corporate counsel–would perhaps remember something important about how to make a sale.
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First you set them up. Then you knock them down.
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Patrick knew months ago that the Commonwealth would face a huge deficit. But he shared that news in small, factual doses. There was no campaign to, say, build public anger at the Romney Administration for its chicanery.
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He knew months ago business would have to step up to the plate. But the news about our business tax standing among the states only got a little play, and much too late.
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In short, if you want your proposals to be accepted as the answer, you must be the one to define the problem.
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He never set us up. So he’s having trouble making the close.
I got a call a few hours ago from a Berkshire Eagle reporter basically asking the same questions, and I answered much as you did.
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I never expected Deval to be perfect (I didn’t even always agree with him during the campaign), and I do believe “the call” was a mistake. Still, that and office decor are not what I want to talk about. Let’s see how he does on more substantive things, like education and healthcare, and then we can talk about how he’s doing.
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First challenge is to get this budget mess that he inherited on the path to recovery. Let’s all pitch in and support that effort, and let’s look forward to the good struggles ahead.
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Charley, your efforts in the healthcare area are fine examples of what this blog can be used for. Let’s not get bogged down in these gotcha games when there’s so much hard work to be done!
Some good points as always Michael…
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I guess my one concern is that an inability to deal with the gotcha politics is either (a) evidence of a lack of political skill among his current aides, (b) will derail the administration’s efforts in any number of substantive policy areas we all care about.
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I don’t think that the drapes/car/call are really part of a pattern of a regal governorship or a distancing from the Gov’s values. But they do demonstrate a tin ear on the part of someone. I wish these weren’t issues, but so long as MSM picks up on stuff like this you need someone around who can raise the alarm. I know that part of changing the political discourse involves making stuff like this matter less. But how do we do that?
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My problem boils down to this: the Gov and his supporters (and I include myself in that group) are playing in the same game as everyone else. That includes gotcha politics, wiseguys getting their shots in through anonymous quotes, and all the rest. How do we change the rules while still remaining relevant? If we’re playing in the game, how do we change the rules without looking like whiners?
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In a sense I am beginning to realize that as scary as it is, the election was the easy part. The votes get counted, the winner is declared (in states other than Ohio and Florida) and things are pretty clear cut. If the grassroots are part of a governing strategy, how do we help the Gov to get away from the gotcha game that the MSM finds itself bogged down in?
After the election I accepted an appointment to my town’s finance committee. I spent close to four hours at town hall last night in meetings trying to figure out how the town’s going to avoid another devastating round of budget cuts. I’m more concerned at this point about what the Governor is able to do to help us deal with rising municipal health care costs and inadequate Chapter 70 funding than I am about how much he spent redecorating his office or that he made a phone call that he probably shouldn’t.
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On the things that really matter in my world right now Deval is off to a good start. If he’s still making these rookie mistakes six month’s from now I’ll start to worry, but I think he’s smart enough to figure out where the lines that he shouldn’t cross are.
your town administrator asked every department to find between five and ten percent of their budgets they could cut, and then went out and redecorated his office? Its about setting a tone, so that when he comes before you on the finance committee you know that hes doing his absolute best to save money where he can.
getting political capital by opening his mouth (in fact lately it’s been just the opposite).
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Unfortunaley Deval spent his political capital on drapes and cars (neither a big deal to me).
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The only way to recapiture it is by action.
But surely the best way.
If the average person in Massachusetts hears about what I am about to do, will he or she say, “Same old Massachusetts politics,” and check back out?
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The chief motivating factor of campaign was to ask people to check back into the political process because Deval Patrick was going to be different. If he does not start asking himself now what effect his actions will have on those people who checked back in because they believed he was being sincere, then he will continue to have problems.
If this appears on Page 1 of the Globe or Herald, will I be embarassed about it, or proud of it?
That one is harder. Mitt Romney spent $25k on redecorating the office, the Globe turned it into a positive PR piece. Patrick does the same thing and he gets vilified.
I hadn’t heard that. Have you got a link?
Romney asked for $25,000 in the FY 2003 budget. The Lege said ha, ha – too bad for you. THEN he spent the money on the stuff he took home with him at the end of his term.
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Deval went out and spent the $25,000 and THEN asked for a rubber stamp.
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Do you see why this would annoy them?
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Truth to tell, they probably would have GIVEN him $50k! BUT he didn’t play Please-Mother-May-I in the approved fashion.
Anyone?
http://www.bluemassg…
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Mitt says he furnished the office. Deval says Mitt furnished the office. Most of the other links I can find from 4 years ago are expired and/or broken.
Apologies for my rapidly-failing memory.
Yes, we went through this last month. You asserted that Romney bought his own furniture, and provided a link to a subscription-only Herald article. I couldn’t read the article, but the link said that the caption to the photo said
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I used your article’s May 20, 2004 date to find a similar article in the Globe (also un-linkable, but I have access to Globe archives via my library). That article said:
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I called you on this multiple times, but you’re still repeating the half-truth/lie that Romney bought his own furniture. The Globe article said he replaced “some”, but spent $25k to replace it in 2004.
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So in 2004, Romney’s furniture was “bedraggled” (a jocular word), but in 2007, furniture that was falling apart in front of the press is never described as such, and replacing it was considered high treason?
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Remember, in 2004 Romney had just come off a fiscal year where he cut off a lot of poor people at the knees with his budget. But no cries about his $25k furniture expense.
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That’s a double-standard if I’ve ever seen one.
How does the song go?
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‘Always wished that I’d be an Apostle
Knew that I could make it if I tried
Then I retire, I can write the Gospels
And they’ll still talk about me when I die”
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Chaley, this statement of your’s below is one of a few troubling lines you wrote in this post.
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“People say he got “political capital” from the election, but the fact is that he can get political capital any time he opens his mouth. He’s extremely bright, well-meaning, well-spoken and charming.”
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yuk
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I need to take a shower.
saying Deval is “well spoken” is the same as saying he is articulate.
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You’re on probation, buddy
I attended a Patrick Committee Kitchen Cabinet meeting last night, and can report that the “Movement” and the “Politics of Hope” and all that is “Deval” is alive and well, and moving forward. This was the heart of our involvement, and it continues, it’s exciting, and “Together we can” do all those things we were ready to do.
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Let’s remember that no massive slabs of concrete have crashed down and killed anyone, followed by blaming other people.
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Governor Patrick has many wins ahead of him. Wins that will really change life here. So let’s not get cynical, and end up missing the boat when these wins come. We have work to do too.
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It was never all about one man anyway. It was about all of us together.
“Governor Patrick has many wins ahead of him. Wins that will really change life here. So let’s not get cynical, and end up missing the boat when these wins come.”
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Before you begin you victory dance SheilaMacArthur . .
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Let’s hear some of these “Wins” Because the only thing I have heard was negative stories from the VERY liberal leaning Boston Globe . . .
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1.) His use of the state Helicopter
2.) The Caddy
3.) Thousands spent on office furniture
4.) 72K salary for a full time assistant for a part time worker.
5.) ACC Capital Holdings / Citigroup phone call fiasco
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AND THIS IS THE BOSTON GLOBE!!!!!!
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Come on Dival Patrick can’t even furnish his office with out looking like a “screw up.”
Regarding the phone call, I don’t understand all of the “he’s naive,” “it’s a learning curve,” “he’s not used to gotcha politics,” “this is the flip side of his outsider innocence,” “he doesn’t have political calculators on staff,” etc. etc.
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A person with Governor Patrick’s experience and intelligence and integrity should have the judgment to not make that phone call, period.
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The only explanation I can think of is that the tendency toward arrogance in his tone indicates a real flaw, one that is very common in people as successful as he is. I don’t assume it’s a dominant aspect of his personality, but if it has the capacity to override obvious good sense in a case like this, then it’s something to watch out for.
No snark intended here. Really.
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All this business about “change” and “mandate”. What are the top say, 1 or 2, 5 or 10 priorities on Mr. Patrick’s “agressive agenda”. Cause I don’t think anyone can fix everything.
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In your opinion. For example, I think Jodie Rell’s thing is “landmark education”: jack the income tax rate by 1/2% and spend a bunch on education over the next 5 years. Eliot Spitzer: rebuild an economy (i.e. hang onto the security business) that can compete internationally.
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Deval Patrick?
…set priorities.
Patrick was very explicit about not saying what his first priority was — never mind priorities 2 through 4. There are certainly a lot of things that need fixing. He has highlighted themes like the economy, education, fairness, tax policy, and housing. I leave it to him to boil that down into specific initiatives.
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Personally I expect him to do good, but I don’t know what specific good can be practically accomplished and I mostly trust him to figure that out. Part of why I trust him is becuase of the slogan “Together We Can”. His emphasis on consultation, transparency, and seriousness are part of that trust.
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Note: My goal in this comment is not to convince you so much as it is to make my tribe’s understanding comprehensible to your tribe.
“Bebinger (a very fine and valuable reporter) asked me if I detected a “troubling pattern” of behavior in the Governor’s recent PR woes, and I said no, not yet. She pressed me on “yet”, and I reiterated that I have not seen a “pattern”. And I meant it.”
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Come on Charley…… Helicopter rides, the Caddy, Thousands of dollars spent on Drapes, $72K salary for a “full time” scheduler for a Part-Time working Mrs. Patrick, AND now this ACC Capital Holdings / Citigroup fiasco?
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And you don’t see a “troubling pattern” of behavior in the Governor’s recent PR woes”? Come on Charley….not even a little pattern here.
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The pattern is the media painting all these negative pictures without telling us how much previous governors have spend on these sorts of things.
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Did Cellucci or Weld or Swift do any redecorating? How much did that cost? How active were their wives in state politics and governance?
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The ACC thing is the only really troubling issue, unless you can seriously tell me that nobody’s ever bought drapes for the Corner Office without a stink being made over it.
As did Jan Cellucci. Susan Roosevelt Weld was/is a successful attorney and spent more time with her law practice (ring a bell?). All four of them were available and gracious on ceremonial ocasions. None of them had a chief of staff.
“The pattern is the media painting all these negative pictures without telling us how much previous governors have spend on these sorts of things.”
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Sure blame the media…..(infact I think you should shoot the messenger)
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The truth is Gov Patrick did buy a Caddy and to my knowledge Mitt did not.
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It’s a fact my friend, and you can blame the Boston Globe for reporting it all you want. Just remember the story doesn’t have legs for nothing. People are pissed at the Gov. and that is why you guys are talking about him.
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