Deval Patrick quietly forges ahead in gubernatorial race

Howard Manly

The candidacy started as a whisper at first, slowly building momentum, an endorsement here, a donation there, and all of a sudden, it appears that Deval Patrick, without much help from the state democratic political insiders, many of whom believed and said publicly that he should wait or take his time, has shown why he couldn’t wait.

“Lets be candid about our politics,” Patrick told a spellbound crowd at Faneuil Hall over the weekend. “Here in Massachusetts, we have the latest in a series of governors who seem more interested in having the job than actually doing the job.”

“And let’s be clear,” Patrick went on, “We have two other candidates in this race today who were also in power while Big Dig costs soared, the health care system broke down, property taxes skyrocketed, classrooms became over-crowded, gun and gang violence increased, homelessness rose and wage and hour laws were un-enforced.”

No, Patrick couldn’t wait: the stakes are too high for him to simply sit back and rest on his individual successes to allow the state to continue hemorrhaging people, corporations and brain power.

After all here is a man who came out of the Chicago projects, and through sheer determination, worked his way through Harvard and Harvard Law School to reach a seminal moment in his life when the president of the United States, Bill Clinton, had a meeting in the Oval Office and turned to Patrick, at the time the nation’s lead civil rights attorney, and asked, “What do you think?”

Oh no, Patrick couldn’t wait, not for another four years of bland leadership.

“A lot of us seem resigned to accept the same lack of imagination and creativity that over many years and many administrations got us to where we are — which is stuck in neutral and sliding backwards.”

The facts are the facts.

“We have a health care system that is not just grossly inefficient and seriously inadequate, but a moral disgrace — a system that you and I pay $300 million every week to administer, but still leaves over a half a million of fellow souls with no coverage at all,” Patrick said.

“We are the only state in the nation to have lost population in each of the last two years,” Patrick said. “The people leaving are mostly young and well educated — our future is walking right out the door.”

It’s not just the best and the brightest that are leaving. “In the past few years we have seen Gillette and Fleet and Filenes and John Hancock leave the state, taking jobs and civic leadership with them — exposing just how poorly we have been building capacity and opportunity behind them,” Patrick said. “And we are failing to train the workforce we need for the technical and health care jobs we have.”

But every political candidate should be able to determine the problems. And the good ones should be able to devise solutions.

The magic about Patrick, however, is that he is tapping into the intangible, the state’s subconscious, that things should be better but aren’t because of the political inertia on Beacon Hill. Patrick likened the situation to his heroin-addicted uncle.

“Cynicism is an opiate, too, a comfort drug,” Patrick explained. “It helps us brace ourselves against the pain of disappointment, to endure the letdown we have come to expect. Some of our politicians and some of the media, frankly, are dealers peddling cynicism by tearing down anything positive and hopeful… It leads us to expect less and demand less of our leaders and of ourselves.”

Patrick’s message is taking hold. In last month’s Democratic caucuses, for instance, Patrick crushed Attorney General Tom Reilly by a two-to-one margin, and won in Middlesex County by a nine to one margin. Recent polls are also showing that Patrick is gaining solid strength, and would probably beat Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey, the Republican candidate.

The reason is pretty clear. Patrick, a former high-ranking corporate executive for several Fortune 500 companies, is more than a cheerleader for democratic political ideology. He is a leader, a problem solver, a man who doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty in the business world.

Patrick said he got his hands dirty at Texaco and at Coca-Cola and at Ameriquest.

“And it will take getting my hands dirty and forging unlikely alliances to build the collaborations with other problem solvers on Beacon Hill, in business, in nonprofits and in communities to get Massachusetts moving forward again,” he said. “I have helped solve more problems in more different settings than any other candidate in this race. And that matters because the challenges facing us today are not ordinary challenges.”

But Patrick understands the political realities here in Massachusetts. By all accounts, he is an extraordinary man running at an extraordinary time. It’s unclear whether the state is ready.

“In this race,” Patrick said, “it may not be our turn, but it is our time.”

He might be right about that, but at least he didn’t wait for his time to pass by.

For excerpts from Deval Patrick’s speech, click here.