So everyone seems to be out with their 100-days-of-Deval evaluations, including the Guv himself. And it must be said that Frank Phillips’ piece for the Globe was quite fair to the Governor, even mildly flattering, seeing as it took so much from Patrick’s own words.
Here’s what struck me most about that article, since it squares with my sense of what’s been going on in Patrick’s world:
Patrick brushed aside suggestions that he has squandered an opportunity to make a dramatic stamp on state government and his legacy during his early days in office, due to his nearly single-minded focus on budget details. He maintains that, as a newcomer to state government, it was important for him to mire himself in financial minutiae and that this meant he had less time to travel around the state or make flashy announcements.
I had suspected that Mastering The Budget had dominated Patrick’s attention for the first part of his term. After all, smart people told him that was the thing to do. And indeed, he doubtless knows the various levers of influence and negotiating chits better than if he had gone the Spitzer route of proposing sweeping new initiatives.* Sure, that would have kept the electoral momentum going, but Patrick always said he wanted to “do the work of governing.” And had he kept up a full-force PR front, whipping up support for a few popular initiatives (more cops, or property tax relief, say), DiMasi and Trav/Murray might still have given the “negatory” sign. Hey, they won by landslides, too.
Let’s face it, Patrick wasn’t going to make many friends trying to balance a $1 billion-deficit budget. But it’s not too much to say that Patrick’s homework has already paid off in his battle over closing the corporate loopholes and local option meals taxes, for example. He’s got influential press, policy advocates, the progs-n’-blogs, and most importantly, jes’ folks on his side. I don’t claim to be able to predict how this will shake out, but that looks to me like he’s in a pretty strong position. Sal? He’s got Rick Lord.
And regardless of what one thinks of the general structure and long-term viability of the new health care law, Patrick deserves nothing but praise for his efforts in driving down the costs of coverage and still preserving some important preventative measures, even in the more stripped-down plans. I still have serious reservations about the law as it stands, but I’m damn sure that it’s a heck of a lot better with an involved and engaged Gov. Patrick. For me, that’s a major reason why I supported him.
In some cases, Patrick has been a bit more cautious than one would hope. Like Scot Lehigh and sco, I would have thought that he would jump at the chance to force municipal unions into the state’s health insurance system (GIC), but he seems reluctant to step on toes. Frankly, this does not bode well if he’s going to take on the more entrenched interests of the Big Dig Culture. But we’re expecting him to take leadership on exactly this kind of issue. Perhaps he’s keeping his powder dry for the upcoming battles with the legislature over moving more of the quasi-independent agencies under executive branch control, as they should be. Patrick seems to have a free hand from the local opinionators on shaking up the hackocracy. (Note: edited for clarity.)
And bigger, nastier fights are still to come. To me, the Grand Unifying Theory of state government is controlling the cost of health care. It’s health care costs that are destroying local budgets, raising property taxes, and retiree’s health care costs which threaten the state’s long-term fiscal health. Costs exacerbate the already high cost of living in the state, and already threaten the viability of our health care law. If we’re paying too much, that means we want to pay less, and someone’s not going to be happy about that. The Governor is going to need to take on special interests, from doctors to hospitals to PhRMA to insurers, to create incentives to provide quality care rather than quantity of care. (Maybe there are some lessons from the Netherlands in making a multiple-payer system work.)
I’m not terribly surprised that there’s a sense of disappointment — or more properly, unfulfilled expectation about Patrick’s governance. I think most people expected to see more of the public side of the Governor, engaging the public, advancing popular causes in the face of special-interest opposition. You just can’t do both the heavy lifting of budget and health care wonkery and be the head cheerleader for reform, however necessary. Patrick has indicated some rueful distaste for the latter, which I hope he will reconsider. Indeed, his public persona is his ace-in-the-hole, the single best tool he has to advance his agenda. That’s not “photo-op”, superficial politics — it can be real governing, real civic engagement. Going forward, one hopes he’ll judiciously delegate the wonky stuff to resident policy geniuses, getting involved as a political bulldozer as much as a policy architect.
*(When comparing Patrick to Spitzer, let’s keep in mind that New York has a divided government which is arguably way more screwed up than Massachusetts, capable of even more logrolling-enabled hackery than even our single-party political culture.)
Agreed that there is a certain sense of disappointment, but the first 100 days or so aren’t always an indication of how the rest of the term will go. President Clinton was a disaster for the first year or so, and he wound up having (IMHO) a very successful presidency. Governor Romney actually had what I thought was a pretty good start, (to his credit, I think he was shrewd enough to surround himself with more political veterans than Patrick did initially) but he wound up being completely ineffective in the long run, so you never know.
Quincy mayor Phelan published an op-ed on this topic in today’s Patriot-Ledger
Mayor Phelan’s comments regarding the Municipal Partnership Act, FAILS to accurately capture it’s scope and purpose, as to how it pertains or does NOT pertain to CURRENT contract negotiations in the City of Quincy.
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The Municipal Partnership Act provides cities and towns with the option to raise additional revenue and to assist them in controlling costs, in an effort to minimize the pressure that has been placed on property taxes.
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The Municipal Partnership Act does NOT absolve elected city officials of THEIR responsibility to engage in collective bargaining, negotiate fairly, or attempt to settle disputes with ANY union.
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The Municipal Partnership Act was NOT established or submitted to the legislature to provide an option to stall, avoid responsibility, or as a justification for publicly issuing ultimatums to city employees.
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I refer to the only “2 viable solutions” that appeared in the piece.
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1. Take the city’s proposal and acquiesce the right to bargain.
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-OR-
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2. Focus your energies on Beacon Hill.
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I am STUNNED by Mayor Phelan’s assertion that this is somehow… someone else’s problem to solve.
That is NOT LEADERSHIP!
His first 100 days seem like a real coup to me, he’s already got some good accomplishments under his belt and he’s put himself in good position to make Sal cave on at least the corporate tax loopholes (I think the local meals tax is almost as important, but a slightly inclined – if not uphill – battle).
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The only things that dampened him were the mostly silly Globe stories, which were taken to the extreme even in the cases when they really were disappointing. That said, he’s yet to repeat any of them since that series of early blunders, so I’m hopeful they won’t be repeated. Like I’ve said on my blog, he’s a smart man, but even smart men have learning curves.
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If Deval keeps up his pressure on corporate tax loopholes, keeps plugging away at health care, crime and education (of which he has a big plan coming out somewhat soon) – I expect his approval rating to go back up to the 55-60 range and for him to start winning over even some of his critics. Even if he isn’t out there as much as we’d like in the public, people will ‘get it’ as long as he’s notching accocmplishments… and I even think the media will begin to like it and hopefully report on it instead of manufacture stories because they’d rather report on fake pension scandals than real reversals of policy the green house gas initiative (to this day, I don’t even think the Globe wrote a story about that).
the drapes and Cadillac may have been a little silly, but I believe you even said once that his wife has no official state duties, which underscores how dumb it was to have such a pricey assistant for her. Also, the call to Rubin on behalf of Ameriquest was no Globe-exaggerated gaffe, that was a major F-up, which many Patrick die-hards on numerous blogs even admitted to.
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That having been said, I agree that there is a major learning curve for a job like this, and I think he will do just fine in the long run.
For the second time in my life I had been proud to be a Democrat, a progressive, and genuinely excited about a candidate, and unlike the first time (Howard Dean) Deval actually won and would govern and get progressive things done for the state!
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Unfortunately it has been a disappointment, granted several things were out of his control, the massive budget shortfall and being saddled with Romneycare among them. But little things like the drapes, the car could have been handled faster and better. The staffer for the wife should have been nixed but again this was the product of a gotcha media rather than Deval.
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Than he really fucked up with the Ameriquest thing, I mean in a climate where the gotcha media got him on minor items he then made a major screwup in that environment and he deserved all the heat he got for that. Even then I was confident he could still govern but it showed the establishment he was weak.
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Then he gave into legislative pay raises, and the whole thing with his wife as sad as it is makes him look weak since he should continue to do his job even if his wife is sick, hell John Edwards is still campaigning and his wife is terminal. I think it was just a chance for Deval to duck the spotlight, and it really is tragic since his personality and charisma are his assets, he is trying to be another efficient technocrat like Dukakis when he really should be the visionary leader we elected him to be, the political rock star he is, not a shadowy but competent governor, but an excellent and visible governor. If I wanted a wonkish technocrat I could’ve voted for Gabrielli, if I wanted a guy who could hang with the hacks I wouldve voted for Reilly, I didnt want that kind of Governor and sadly the Governor I voted for promised to be that guy and has failed to live up to those expectations.
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Have I written him off? No, my dad wants to take the bumper sticker off the car, but its only been 100 days out of a four year term, and if he rebounds maybe an eight year one, he just needs to get visible and we can’t merely make excuses for him anymore, we gotta put the coals to the fire and make sure he gets back out there and fights.
The Ameriquest incident happened at the same time as Drapegate, it was just that the Globe reported on it AFTER.
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Why shouldn’t the legislature get pay raises? We, as progressives, want government to be accessible to everyone – that any person could run and concievably win, not just the elites in society. You want them to do it for free or next to nothing? The average State Rep doesn’t make a 3 figure salary; they make what even some nurses and teachers make.
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Furthermore, you just don’t seem to have your facts straight. Deval Patrick did continue with his job, after Diane got sick. His announcment was that he was going to scale back on nights and weekends, but his night and weekend schedual was still pretty busy anyway. The fact remains that, unlike our previous governor, we had someone on the wheels 8-5 — and on call 24/7 — despite the fact that his wife was sick. He didn’t look weak because his wife was sick; people who thought he looked weak need to reexamine their morality and education when it comes to serious diseases like depression. It can effect anyone; it has nothing to do with “weakness.” Seriously, I don’t even really know how to respond to this post other than to say I’m pretty shocked and appalled by the attitude portrayed.
Diane Patrick having a personal aide. It was just a reorganization of the staff – as the staff has always been in charge of making a first lady’s schedual. Deval just wanted Diane to have a singular person, presumably to make it easier (or maybe because Diane Patrick intended to take on a stronger role than previous first ladies).
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The phone call was a stupid mistake – and that was something I said was stupid (I never criticized Deval for the aide) – but it wasn’t a huge scandal or a big deal, just a poor decision on his part.
That is an artifact of the first FDR administration and the idiot Newt Gingrich’s installation as speaker of the House in 1995. It is a totally irrelevant number.
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Let’s understand something. Patrick isn’t going to make a “dramatic stamp on state government” because the people who lead state government are the speaker of the House and the president of the Senate. And, when those two have a good working relationship, things will go smoothly (not necessarily in a direction that some might like to see, but smoothly). When they don’t have a good working relationship (as with Trav vs. Finneran) they won’t go smoothly. The governor is the final arbiter, but, if he has a good working relationship with, primarily, the speaker of the House, things will go smoothly for the governor. Not necessarily in the first 100 minutes, but eventually.
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Spitzer of NYS has other eggs to fry, and I’m sure that he knows how to fry them. The NYS legislature is, indeed divided, and it is unclear how the issues will be resolved. The more interesting thing is CA, which, apparently, requires something like a supermajority to implement a tax increase, but only a majority to implement a spending increase. Debacle, shall we say? And CA’s Prop 13 (late 1970s) is a prime impediment. Impediment benefitting corporate interests, of course.*
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*It took me a while to figure that one out.