1. Background: Both Patrick and Obama are from Chicago, and draw on stories from Chicago for their political or substantive life experience. Both have difficult relationships with their fathers.
Obama is from Chicago now, and he moved there after college to start a life there (with a three year trip to law school interrupting the trip). Obama’s father left his family for a Ph.D. program at Harvard when Obama was 2 years old, and then went back to Kenya.
Patrick was born and spent some of his childhood in Chicago, before coming to Boston for high school, college, and law school. His father left Chicago, and his family, to pursue a musical career in New York when Patrick was 3 years old.
2. Background-outsider status: Both Patrick and Obama draw heavily on how stories about how they didn’t “fit in”.
Patrick frequently told the story of coming to Milton Academy in a “jacket” which meant a windbreaker in Chicago, but a blazer in the rarified air of a rich private school in a wealthy suburb of Boston. He had a hard time fitting into the very different world of Milton academy.
Obama frequently tells stories about difficulties finding his way in high school and college, a “skinny kid with a funny name”. He writes about his difficulty understanding his multi-racial heritage and finding a place for himself in the world.
3. Education: both Obama and Patrick went to Harvard Law School, and Ivy League undergraduate institutions (Columbia for Obama, Harvard for Patrick).
4. Early Career: both Obama and Patrick worked in public service in their early careers and mixed in some work at law firms.
Obama worked as a community organizer after college and before law school, and worked at a Chicago law firm representing various clients including community organizers. He ran for, and was elected to, the State Senate in 1996.
Patrick worked for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and then a Boston law firm, doing pro-bono work for the NAACP Legal Defense fund, and others, and was appointed by President Clinton to be the Assistant US Attorney General for Civil Rights in 1994.
5. Political consultant and messaging tactics. This has been spelled out well by other people, but the “Hope” and “Yes we can” messages have a lot of fundamental similarity.
Both Obama and Patrick use David Axelrod as their message consultant or campaign manager, and he clearly has tremendous influence on their political message.
6. Personal charisma – there’s not much in dispute here, but clearly a large part of the appeal of both candidates comes from their ability to be liked as people.
7. Anti-establishment campaign strategy – both candidates ran [in Patrick’s case] or are running [in Obama’s case] against the establishment (and both had plenty of support from members of the establishment).
Patrick was supported by some members of the Mass. political establishment, including some State Reps and State Senators, and people like Tim Cahill, the Treasurer, and former Senate President Bulger.
Obama has been supported from a very early time by former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, and several other prominent political leaders.
8. Limited government experience compared to main opponent in primary election – both Patrick and Obama are/were involved in races against people who have a claim on experience, turning the election into a change v. experience campaign.
For Patrick, that meant campaigning against Tom Reilly [and to a lesser degree, Chris Gabrieli], who had years of government experience but much less charisma.
For Obama, it means running against Hillary Clinton, who has years of experience in government, but less natural charisma or speech making ability.
9. In addition to all these similarities, Patrick and Obama are good friends, and have been friends for over a decade, which has undoubtedly influenced each one to become more like the other.
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There are far more comparisons and far more parallels between the two candidates, and I’m sure others are willing to provide them.
Let us not go around pretending that they’re not people who share a lot of similarities, or that comparisons are unwarranted. That sort of thinking offends my intelligence, and that of the many other insightful people here.
that the reason why people get offended is that the comparison implies that there is something contrived with their narratives.
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p>But the evidence surely speaks for itself.
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p>My take is that Obama & Axelrod used the Patrick campaign as a model to take to the national stage. With skim public records and ambiguous rhetoric, both figures have run as Rorschach candidates in which voters are able to project their values and hopes onto said candidates.
Patrick’s background was tilted more to corporate service and Obama’s more to public service.
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p>Patrick ran as a true outsider, but Obama can’t make that claim as strongly.
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p>Obama also has a relatively more extensive liberal public record.
Clearly not all of them, like growing up in Chicago and certainly not friend of Obama right now.
Both are lying scum bag scam artists at heart.