I think last night Patrick showed snippets of why a lot of us liked him so much. But he needs to do more to refind his “campaign” voice — he needs to speak more directly to the people and not to the powers that be. If he can build a better public foundation for his policies he can turn heads on Beacon Hill. Without it he will be ignored.
I know this may sound contrary to people who think he has to play inside baseball (engage Beacon Hill better) to win over skeptical legislators, but I think what has been missing from Patrick’s approach this first year is that he has not built on the strengths he has – as a communicator, as uniquely able to engage people and make them feel better about Government and its ability to change lives. Obviously the stumbles of the first few months didn’t help, but those are long gone, now is the time to refind his voice and get people believing again.
He has run a conventional Governor’s office – has an idea, has policy staff develop it behind closed doors, holds a press conference, files the bill, goes to the hearing, talks to interest groups, meets legislators, gets ticked legislators don’t move fast enough, meets legislators more, still ticked, goes to hearings, prods them along and on and on. Inside baseball and lots of frustration.
I think he felt like that as an outsider he had to show he could master the usual routines of State Government – the minutiae of budgets, the Beacon Hill media, the interplay with legislative leaders. The solons on the Hill, using a media that wants to cover conflict, have goaded him into playing by their rules by criticising him as inexperienced over and over again. They want him to become like them – creatures of the building and ultimately beholden to its culture.
And yet the conventional style of Beacon Hill governance hasn’t got him as far he’d like because ultimately it doesn’t play to his strengths as a public communicator. He has to do the day job but should not do so at the expense of building relations with the public through creative engagement.
He needs to be having a conversation with the public and what I guess is somewhat disappointing for someone like me who is a big supporter, is that he really has not translated “Together We Can” into a philosophy of governing – yeah he passed the Commonwealth Corps Bill, but while I believe in the service concept, I think its small potatoes and has not been followed up by anything in the civic engagement realm. The slogan didn’t just mean together with Terry and Sal, I took it to mean a new relationship between citizens, their government and empowered communities and sadly I have not seen anything that would make that happen. Progressive government requires an engaged public to work – he needs to engage and not just count the number of bills passed.
Patrick has the biggest bully pulpit in the state but has not really used it very effectively if you ask me. He has a lot of good proposals but has approached them technocraticly and appealed using only the usual channels (despite trying the Podcasts) — not consulting or working with the people in trying to make his case. I know his platform but don’t understand where he wants to take the state – what is the vision.
Patrick ran as something different, but in trying to prove to all the insiders that he can master the job, he has lost a bit of what made him different. He has to stop worrying about what Rep. Duffus from East Duckworth says about him, stop micromanaging his administration (which I hear he does a lot of) and re-engage the public on the tough choices we face and what “Together We Can” can really mean.
