According to the New York Times, Deval Patrick is considering entering the race and he would need to file by Friday to make the ballot in New Hampshire.
Mr. Patrick has told party leaders that he doesn’t think any of the candidates running have established political momentum and that he thinks there is an opening for somebody who can unite both liberals and moderate Democrats, according to Democrats who have spoken to him.
I wonder what “party leaders” here means. Seems like it probably means major donors. Polls have shown that primary voters are satisfied with the current field and excited to vote in 2020. Almost all of the current candidates have high favorability ratings among Democrats. I think what major donors want is some hypothetical person who they think can capture the enthusiasm of the left while also thrilling establishment donors. I don’t think Deval Patrick would do that. A fine but not great record as governor with his corporate background and the mortgage lender and Bain baggage doesn’t seem like it would propel him to the front while playing catchup with field work. What do others think?
Also interesting to learn that Doug Rubin is working for Tom Steyer’s campaign.
There seems to be quite the round of hand-wringing over the quality of our field and I’m not sure why. We already have an embarrassment of riches IMO and the two frontrunners ably represent the two wings of our party. I like our former Governor and strongly supported him, but don’t see a lane for him or a path to the nomination.
I think there is only one thing to say.
+10000 for Laugh-In references. Need more.
Wonder if Deval will get the Joe Kennedy treatment around here for having the temerity to challenge a BMG favorite like Warren. Hopefully this can finally settle the question of whether he’s a progressive or a centrist. He could never figure it out while he was governor.
Can you translate this for us, minus the meaningless catch-phrases?
Deval Patrick is not challenging a leading incumbent in his own party. Ms. Warren will not lose her Senate seat if Mr. Patrick is successful. Mr. Patrick is running based on his own stature as a two-term governor instead of as a member of a family dynasty. Mr. Patrick will run to the right of Ms. Warren — there will be no allegations from Deval Patrick supporters that Ms. Warren isn’t vocal enough, isn’t visible enough, or isn’t energetic enough. There is no comparison between Deval Patrick and Joe Kennedy.
If the Democratic Party is truly unable to break the grip of its deep-pocketed donors, then I prefer Deval Patrick over Tom Steyer, Michael Bloomberg, or Joe Biden. I see the rumored entry of Mr. Patrick as reaction to the threatened entry of Michael Bloomberg more than anything else.
I think Elizabeth Warren is the stronger candidate and will make a better President. I don’t care whether she defeats Deval Patrick, Joe Biden, or anybody else in getting the nomination. I suspect that Mr. Patrick will widen the rift in Massachusetts Democratic Party circles, though. I think he is a candidate of the past while Ms. Warren is the way of the future.
I much prefer Elizabeth Warren. If the nominee ends up being one of the centrists, then I prefer Deval Patrick over the others.
Has there ever been a ticket with the two top spots both from the same state?
Not really. There’s a potential constitutional quirk that could come up in a close election in that electors from a state could not vote for a Pres and VP from the same state. In a close election, the VP might not hit 270. There would have to be some bs residency workaround to make it happen, like what happened in 2000 when Cheney, who lived in Texas, claimed Wyoming as his state.
Looks like it is happening.
Probably a good time to think about his work like this.
Very hard pass for me. This is 100% rich donors not trusting Biden to win and terrified of what a Warren or Sanders administration would do to their wealth.
This certainly is shaping up to be a contest for the soul of the Democratic Party.
It’s going to be funny if this works out to have the effect of more establishment-leaning voters splitting among more candidates and potentially causing a situation where Warren and Sanders end up in the top two spots in both Iowa and NH.
Still sore about the attempt to bring the Olympics to Boston – really?!
Not sore at all. Happy it failed.
Just pointing out that since he left office, not only has he worked at Bain but was also a highly paid shill for that silly Olympics bid. Not sure that type of stuff will play well with a large group of Dem primary voters.
You said it was a hard pass for you, which sounds like being a sore winner since you got your way on that matter. Wanting the Olympics to come to Boston does not make one a bad person.
Being a highly paid shill for a sham developer-driven process lets you know where some of Patrick’s values lie, and they aren’t what we need in a nominee for 2020.
This is an excellent place for you to stop your personal attacks.
I don’t get personal. I think my reputation around here is pretty clear on that.
Imagine if Deval Patrick won the nomination. Oh, never mind, it is just unimaginable. I wonder what he is thinking? This is so far-fetched. Can anyone list any of his accomplishments? Local meals tax? Casinos? Really, with democrats like him, who needs republicans?
He’s had an interesting life. (I read his book). But like far too many people involved in public policy, there is no meat, no insight, no vision. Their personal journey clouds any objective analysis and they go from prey to predator without context. Massachusetts is not half as good as it could be, and it is really the fault of the democratic governors for not taking their opportunity to lead. They have vote dominance in the House and Senate, and put nothing on the table. Imagine it took a republican to pass health care reform in the state.
If he thinks he has so much sway and a powerful vision, then he should pick a candidate and get to work supporting them rather than diluting the primary process more. Ah democrats, never passing up the opportunity for a circular firing squad.
I agree with much of this and up-rated it.
I disagree with the contention in the second paragraph that Democratic governors are at fault for not taking their opportunity to lead. There have been just three Democratic governors in the past fifty years (since 1965) — Mike Dukakis, Ed King, and Deval Patrick. Of those three, Ed King was arguably a Republican posing as a Democrat.
Mike Dukakis and Deval Patrick each put a lot on the table — it was our allegedly Democratic supermajority in the legislature that would have nothing of any of those progressive offerings.
No Massachusetts governor of either party will have any success enacting a progressive agenda so long as the Massachusetts legislature remains as it is today — and as it has been for the last fifty years.
Wow, you’re right! The last truly democratic governor was Dukakis, and those were far more innocent times. Deval Patrick was a lot like Obama. They talked a good game, but no real policy breakthrough. Incrementalism is better for conservatives. FDR would be scratching his head about the corporatist do-nothing that has become the acceptable status quo. Why does Massachusetts have a reputation for being liberal, again? Maybe you are referring to something I missed.
As I said, I mostly agree with you.
It seems to me that the legislature plays a more dominant role in all this than you’ve so far acknowledged. I think that so long as we have the current legislature — and in particular, the current House leadership on Beacon Hill — nothing will change.
I think our issue is with the legislature, not the governor.
Our reputation for being liberal is well-deserved in a lot of ways. We elect the likes of Kennedy, Kerry, Markey, and Warren for the Senate. We were the only state to vote for McGovern in 1972. We were at the vanguard of abolition, public education, child labor laws, gun control, and marriage equality. Our elected officials are overwhelmingly Democrats, and while BMGers understand that doesn’t necessarily mean all liberals the average voter outside MA may not. Even our Republicans are folks like Bill Weld, Charlie Baker, and Ed Brooke.
He can be Warren’s VP…..otherwise, I wish he’d get out of the way.
That will make things awkward for MA electors.
My understanding, from elsewhere here, is that one of the two would have to establish residency outside MA in order for this ticket to be constitutionally possible.
Since Mr. Patrick is not currently serving in public office, he is the obvious choice.
It’s constitutionally permissible to have both parts of the ticket from the same state. The problem is that MA electors specifically would not be allowed to vote for both of them.
In his first interview with CBS, Patrick lays out some core ideas for his campaign.
– Firm no to Medicare for All.
– Yes to Public Option
– Supports some kind of student loan reductions
– Says wealth tax is right “directionally” but wants simpler tax system overall
– “I don’t think wealth is the problem, I think greed is the problem.”
– He says the field is leading with nostalgia candidates and my-way-or-the-highway candidates – he doesn’t name names but the implications are crystal clear.
Here is Patrick’s announcement video. He doesn’t discuss policy priorities or his record at all.
Patrick has a lousy policy record, so it does not surprise me he won’t discuss it.
Frequent Gripes about the Baker record:
-He doesn’t do anything for the T
-He supports charters
-He supports casinos
-He busts unions
Patrick’s record:
-He did nothing for the T
-He supported charters
-He supported casinos
-He signed a bill taking away union pension and health insurance benefits in the dead of night
Baker’s Record on DCF:
-Increases funding, staffing, and accountability
Patricks Record on DCF:
-Cuts funding to balance the budget, puts unqualified people in charge, refuses to fire them when they fail
Baker’s record on Film tax, taxpayer funding for Olympics, and vaping:
Opposes taxpayer funding for those boondoggles and bans vaping.
Patrick’s record:
Supports funding those boondoggles and did nothing about vaping
Bakers record on opiods:
Task force, funding, harsher penalties for pushers, cracks down on methadone mile
Patricks record:
Does nothing
I firmly believe Charlie Baker is a mediocre governor. He is also a better governor than Deval Patrick was.
8 years with a Democratic supermajority!!!
Romneycare is still the most consequential and progressive legislative achievement in MA in recent memory.
You’re awfully down on him. He was certainly a nice reprieve from the GOP and the most progressive since Dukakis.
@most progressive since Dukakis:
That’s a very low bar, my friend.
Let’s be specific about who we’re talking about: Ed King, Bill Weld, Paul Cellucci, Jane Swift, Mitt Romney, and Charlie Baker. I don’t think any of them can be described as “progressive”.
Deval Patrick was hugely disappointing to me — even more so than Barack Obama. At least Mr. Obama faced a racist and hostile congress for most of his tenure.
Mitt Romney’s creation of Bain Capital — a classic hedge fund — was rightly viewed as a significant indicator of his attitude toward wealth and antipathy towards working-class men and women.
I see no reason to view Mr. Patrick’s tenure there any differently.
@”I don’t think wealth is problem. I think greed is the problem”:
This is absolute nonsense. There are mountains of data and analysis to show that reality is just the opposite. Wealth concentration IS the problem, and has nothing to do with greed. The mechanisms that show how wealth concentration harms the economy have been understood and documented for more than a century — those mechanism have nothing to do with greed or any other moral failure.
Mr. Patrick offers no evidence at all that wealthy people are any more greedy than anybody else. That’s because there is no evidence to cite.
Some people are more greedy than others. The overwhelming majority of greedy people, like the overwhelming majority of men, women, redheads, blonds, or right-handed people, end up without wealth in today’s economy. Greed does not produce wealth.
It is particularly ironic to hear this from Mr. Patrick given that he has been a managing partner at Bain Capital from 2015 until a few hours ago.
Correct. A rigged system, such as the one we have, creates this gigantic degree of wealth disparity.
I have to add, at this point, my favorite quote about the wealthy:
If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire. George Monbiot
It is highly implausible that Patrick will qualify for the Nov 20 debate and only slightly more plausible that he will qualify for the December debate. I will be interested in seeing how he does in the next NH poll.
Today:
“I’m getting in because I think there is an opportunity now for big ideas, as big as the challenges we face”
Also today:
We need “a little humility” about health care re: why he doesn’t support Medicare for All.
Any Democrat not behind Medicare for all, or whatever you want to call getting rid of private insurers as the primary coverage for all Americans,…..is a Democrat I will vote for ONLY if there is no other option.
Any approach to health care that has the effect of allowing the majority of healthy Americans — especially healthy young Americans — to have high-quality health care at no cost (or at a cost comparable to today’s Medicare premiums, typically $75-150/month for Medicare plus a private “advantage” plan) will make it impossible for private health insurers to survive. The presence of such a plan destroys the fundamental value proposition for private health insurance.
That means that the candidates that talk about “both” — especially the “Medicare for all who want it” approach — are effectively lying. Either they don’t understand the economics or they don’t want voters to understand the truth.
Private insurers are what make American health care so expensive. It is not possible to provide health care as a fundamental right while private insurers continue to exist.