So when you see Charlie rooting for the Commonwealth’s failure, remember that it’s a political tactic — and it’s wrong. Most importantly, let it fuel you. Let it drive you out to vote and help on Election Day. Let it give you the strength to stand up for our vision. It’s a vision we have worked tirelessly to implement over the last four years — one that says we have a shared, generational responsibility to leave the Commonwealth better than we found it.
This will be a close race. Every vote will matter, and at the very least, please do the following:
- Vote.
- Get five people you know support us to vote. Call your elderly neighbor or single parent friend and offer to help them get to the polls.
- Get involved in our GOTV operation and ensure everyone who shares our values votes.
Together we can win. But make no mistake — if we do not stand up for what we believe, more than an election is at stake.
Sincerely,
Deval Patrick
Please share widely!
Called “I Remember”
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p>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…
In Arlington, there is a number to call and a schedule of folks who will give anyone who wants a ride to vote; a non-partisan effort. In addition, we are ferrying some students to where they can vote, and have made arrangements with others we know.
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p>I was glad to see the “offer a ride” to a single parent (or babysitting!) or elderly, and I would add those you know who don’t have transportation and have mobility challenges.
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p>It may just take a village voting, and reaching out, to have the results we hope for; voting is a physical act and does not occur on the internet.
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p>Though I had hoped to “take the day off” and focus on the election, this became impossible. However I will vote and have ensured that some who might not have voted will do so.
Governor Patrick was elected in 2006 by a landslide because he preached a message of hope – but that hope so quickly evaporated because once elected, he turned his focus to wasteful spending on things like drapes and a Cadillac and an expensive assistant for his wife, and people with SERIOUS NEEDS, people who were truly suffering, people who were sick of watching their neighborhoods destroyed by gang violence, lost all hope.
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p>And what did the Governor do? Well, his major priorities were to secure six-figure salary jobs for political supporters, like when he tried to hire Marian Walsh for a $175,000 job that had been vacant for ten years; or when he went to New York to sign a million-dollar book deal while a historic casino bill was being considered in the state legislature.
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p>Over the past four years, Patrick has cut 1,000 police officers and 3,200 teachers, yet Beacon Hill now has 6,000 state government managers earning over $100,000 a year while we have a three billion dollar budget gap. Folks, we need a new direction, new priorities – no more resorting to EIGHT tax hikes to pay for those bloated state managers’ salaries while we’re cutting local aid.
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p>This is Patrick’s vision for our future, for the next four years– and I CANNOT support it! Let’s give someone else a chance to get control of this budget, cut the bloated salaries for Beacon Hill managers, restore local aid so we can put more cops on the beat and more teachers in the classrooms, and stop raising taxes – what we need more than anything in the world right now is JOBS, and Charlie unrolled a 13-point, comprehensive plan to attract more businesses to Massachusetts. What kind of plan does Patrick have? The big GOOSE EGG!
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p>Well, that’s just not good enough – Massachusetts residents deserve better, and BETTER is just within reach if people just remember to get out and vote tomorrow for the real change agent, the real deal, our next Governor, Charlie Baker.
How in the world can you argue with that? Thanks for the GOTV pep talk.
Yet we’re first in education, health care, and job creation. We’ve had overall drops in unemployment including some of the best months in years. As for those cops and other things promised, sure we could have raised taxes more to cover that and you’d still complain!
about those numbers? Governors don’t lay off teachers, or even control that many, local mayor and superintendents do. The same goes for police beyond the state police. It’s nice to toss out numbers that make you feel good, and fuel your self righteous anger, but really? What we deserve is a political discourse that includes a candidate who does more than stand beside a turncoat with no scruples, that can admit that his signature claim to fame was accomplished with a great deal of state help, and can also admit the poor outcome of some of his most significant decisions while in the highest echelons of state government.
You spout at every opportunity.
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p>The Governor has led the Commonwealth to a series of firsts in the last four years – first in the nation in student achievement; first in the nation in healthcare coverage for our citizens; first to permit offshore wind power (Europe has 40 offshore wind farms, 20 more under construction; we have an opportunity if we’re wise enough to reelect Governor Patrick to lead in an industry that will give us not just cleaner energy but also a major new source of jobs); first New England state to score in the top five of CNBC’s best states for business.
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p>Under Governor Patrick, we’ve had four on-time, balanced budgets – more than many states can say; a AA bond rating, a better rating than Baker ever achieved when Secretary of Adminstration and Finance; and lower growth in state spending year-over-year than during either Baker’s time at A&F or during the Romney administration. Baker also architected the disastrous financing plan for the Big Dig which will burden state finances for another 20+ years. Republicans like to talk about reigning in spending and managing the state budget; Democratic Governor Deval Patrick actually did it. Just like he enacted, instead of just talking about, reforms to end pension abuses, consolidate and streamline transportation agencies, tighten ethics and lobbying rules, open the auto insurance market to competition, and allow civilian flaggers.
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p>The Governor also stood up when it counted for equality for GLBT and transgendered citizens. Baker says he is supportive of marriage equality, but was nowhere to be seen when the fight was on in 2004-2007, and he has thrown transgendered people under the bus, promising to veto a bill giving them protections and calling it by the offensive name “the Bathroom bill.”
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p>Finally, the Governor has shown has the steady temperament and values to lead. In contrast, in addition to displaying an inappropriate irritation when questioned, Baker has repeatedly shaded the truth, such as denying his central role in the Big Dig financing debacle and denying appearing at a Hudak event, just before pictures surfaced of him there!
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p>Don’t come to this site spewing Baker talking points. Here, we know what a good job the Governor has done during extremely difficult times, and what a disaster Baker, with his airy ungrounded promises of tax cuts, would be in his place.
I thought cutting government jobs was a good thing?
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p>Aren’t you with “Let’s cut 5,000 state employees” Baker?
that’s NOT good government. That’s not what we need.
Plus you do know that teachers and most cops don’t work for the state, right?
you clearly haven’t been paying attention. If were really focused on change, instead of just blindly supporting a party that does not have your back, you would vote for Jill Stein.
for you to produce a legitimate link to back that one up.
This is the biggest joke of all. You REALLY believe that Charlie Baker is going to do this?
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p>He’s got all sorts of plans I’m sure, but they don’t include these.
Come on folks! Wake up!!!!!!!!!
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p>It’s not about left or right anymore!
Standing up for what we believe?
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p>In the last debate, you claimed that you hoped you hadn’t belittled the participation of any of the candidates. But from my view as a citizen of this great Commonwealth, you absolutely belittled Dr. Stein’s participation when you agreed to participate in debates that excluded her from participating. Standing up for what you believe in means actually believing in something first. I happen to believe in the concept of democracy, of government of, by, and for the people, not the wealthy and well-connected few. You seem to think it’s acceptable for private corporations to use the public airways to exclude ballot-qualified candidates from the very forums that determine who will become our elected leaders. You seem to believe in a pay-to-play political system that gives voice to those who can buy influence, and puts an undue burden on families and people trying to make ends meet.
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p>And if you genuinely believe that we have a shared, generational responsibility to leave the Commonwealth “better” than we found it, how do you explain your private role in some of the most exploitative, destructive corporations we have ever seen?
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p>What exactly WAS your role in the global economic collapse? When you were making $360,000/year as part of the five-member board overseeing Ameriquest, which was using its predatory loans and subprime mortgages as the raw material for worthless mortgage-backed securities and selling them to Wall Street as your business model, were you aware of your business model? Are you aware this was a key piece of what brought down the global economy? Do you see any link whatsoever to the horrible housing and foreclosure crisis that continues to unfold?
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p>THIS is vision:
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As I write this, workers are on my roof finishing installation of a photovoltaic solar panel system that will give me independence from the carbon-fueled electric grid for the rest of my life. I have wanted to do this for years, but could not afford it, until Governor Patrick’s energy policies made it possible. By actually doing something to promote alternative energy, he has earned my vote.
I see it only getting worse under unquestioned Democratic control. The emphasis has been on higher taxes which hurt business and incomes, and a response for the poor in the form of government programs which seem designed primarily to support the high salaries of administrators and associated lawyers.
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p>There has to be some recognition that the middle class cannot survive on faddish industries hooked up to perpetual life support while you continue to pile burdens on the regular people who are paying for it all.
While closing some corporate tax loopholes.
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p>This year the state was ranked in the top 5 for business by CNBC and also led in job creation.
How about a little truth for a change? Deval Patrick’s vision for Massachusetts is no different than that of Charlie Baker. These attempts to spin Patrick into some progressive hero is really wearing a little this. Patrick is a corporate apologist to his core. Remember:
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p> He was the top anti-environmental lawyer for Texaco Oil Company and worked to get them off the hook after devastating oil pollution in Ecuador.
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p> He was a $360,000/year employee of Ameriquest, the predatory lendor, and even made a lobbying call for them after he was governor.
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p> He’s enthusiastically adopted the Republican dream of lifting the charter school cap and making it legal to tear up teacher contracts and fire teachers en masse.
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p> He’s promoting the Republican’s “expedited permitting” concept for shoving aside local citizen boards trying to defend their environment.
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p> He’s told everyone that if the sales tax cut passes, he’s going to cut schools, the environment, and health care. He hasn’t told his corporate friends that any of their big tax breaks are in danger.
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p>He’s slick, I have to hand it to him. I’m sure he was worth every penny of the $360,000 that Ameriquest paid him.
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p>If you have any backbone at all as a progressive, then vote for Jill Stein. Or write in someone else with character. We’re in for a rough ride with either Patrick or Baker, and every vote of rejection they get will help us a little in our fight against them over the next four years.
Jill Stein may get 2% of the vote today. The more progressives vote for her, the more likely we are, in a close election like today’s, to get a slash-and-burn administration from Baker, who is running on cutting taxes when the state budget already faces tremendous challenges due to the drop off in revenues.
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p>In contrast, Deval Patrick has worked hard, effectively and pragmatically on progressive priorities: the environment, education, economic growth, civil rights and equality.
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p>He negotiated between education reformers, parents of kids in troubled school districts and teachers to secure an education reform bill they could all support. Although teachers unions such as the MTA didn’t agree with him on every issue, they endorsed his reelection, saying that he listened to their perspectives, took input, protected state education funding and secured federal stimulus funds for education. As a result of the ability of these groups to work together on reforms, the state was able to win a much-needed $250M in federal funding in the Race to the Top challenge.
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p>There’s nothing wrong with my progressive backbone: Deval Patrick is the leading progressive candidate in this race, and the only progessive candidate that doesn’t represent a wasted vote.
Anyone who says Patrick and Baker are the same is not thinking. I proudly voted for Patrick/Murray. My backbone is just fine.
When these same folks thought Bush and Gore were the same?
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p>(Just don’t tell that to anyone on the Justice Roberts court. Or to the mother who lost her son in Iraq. Or to anyone who cares about the environment. Or to anyone in the middle class who didn’t get their tax cut so the wealthy could get theirs… otherwise, exactly alike.)