[Cross-posted from the ProgressMass blog. Like ProgressMass on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.]
One of the major flaws of Republican Charlie Baker’s failed 2010 candidacy for Governor was his harshly negative tone. Even Baker himself says:
“I violated all of my own standards and rules for management and leadership,” Baker said of the last race.
Friends approached him after the 2010 contest and told him, “The guy I knew, I didn’t see him,” Baker said.
“I even felt that way,” Baker’s wife, Lauren, said, laughing as she sat next to him in the foyer of their Swampscott home where the interview took place.
Republican Charlie Baker’s failed 2010 candidacy was so negative, even his own wife felt that she didn’t see the man she married in ‘candidate Charlie Baker.’
Because of Baker’s relentless negativity in the past, his campaign has stressed how positive and optimistic and cheerful – to the point of being cloyingly saccharine – the 2014 Baker effort is going to be. We saw that in recent days with headlines like The Boston Globe’s “GOP candidate Charles D. Baker debuts more upbeat image” and The Boston Herald’s “Charlie Baker will try to shed image as ‘angry guy’.”
There is, however, one major problem for Republican Charlie Baker and his new ‘Operation Optimism,’ we can call it. That problem is that he has kicked off his campaign with a handful of policy proclamations that pessimistically stress what can’t be done as opposed to what can be done.
First, Baker snubbed his nose at southeastern Massachusetts:
Baker expressed doubts about one of Patrick’s transportation priorities: commuter rail service from Boston to Fall River and New Bedford.
“I’ve never really understood how you can get the environmental permitting done,” he said. “It’s a two-billion project, and the big question in my mind: Is that best way to spend $2 billion to support the southeastern part of Massachusetts.”
As the New Bedford Standard-Times’ website points out, the “SouthCoast has been talking about commuter rail service to Boston since the early 1990s.” And Charlie “Can’t-Do” Baker will guarantee that, if he’s Governor, the SouthCoast will remain without commuter rail service for years to come.
Second, Baker insists that a popular major renewable energy project can’t be done:
Baker noted he still opposes Cape Wind, saying there are far cheaper and more efficient ways to deliver clean energy to state ratepayers. “It’s just not an economically viable project,” he said of the proposed Nantucket Sound wind farm, calling it a “windfall” for the project’s developers.
More negativity from Charlie “Can’t-Do” Baker. (Note: Massachusetts residents have routinely shown Cape Wind overwhelming support.)
Third, there isn’t just negativity from Baker on casinos, but also listless resignation:
He also said he probably would have vetoed the casino bill that Patrick signed in 2011, but said he now views the issue largely as settled law.
So, he would have likely said “No” to casinos without working to make the bill more to his liking – working to get to a “Yes” – but, he also wouldn’t use his clout as Governor to change or improve the policies with which he disagrees. That’s when Charlie “Can’t-Do” Baker becomes Charlie “Won’t-Bother” Baker.
The point of this post, mind you, isn’t to argue for or against SouthCoast commuter rail, Cape Wind, or casinos in Massachusetts. The point of this post, keep in mind, is to point out a major disconnect in Charlie Baker’s nascent 2014 gubernatorial campaign.
Republican Charlie Baker appears to be attempting a purely cosmetic overhaul. People – including his own wife! – found him far too negative in 2010. So he’s telling everyone who will listen that, in his upcoming campaign, he will be Mr. Positivity. Baker is desperate to portray himself as “that really enthusiastic, hard-charging, set-the-bar-high, let’s-go-get-it-type leader.”
However, the scant few policy positions that Baker has offered so far have revolved around what can’t be done (or what he won’t bother trying to do) rather than what can be done. He won’t bother thinking creatively, for instance, to figure out how to achieve commuter rail access for the SouthCoast. As he said, he can’t understand the permitting, so he’s not going to bother trying.
(Messaging and optics are not proving to be strong suits for Baker ’14 so far. After all, besides being too harshly negative, Baker was also criticized in 2010 for being too dull and boring. So, of course, his 2014 campaign headquarters is stationed in a former sleep lab. No joke.)
Time will tell how voters regard Republican Charlie Baker, version 2014. But one thing is for sure. While his early rhetoric betrays an urgent desperation to grab the mantle of optimism, his policy mindset remains rooted in a pessimism and negativity that helped sink Charlie Baker, version 2010.
