Up from Springfield

Reilly trudges along the governor’s campaign with help from a Budd

Howard Manly

By all accounts, state Attorney General Tom Reilly was positioned quite well last winter to become the first Democratic governor in the last sixteen years.

Then all media hell broke loose.

There were reports of telephone calls that Reilly made to Worcester District Attorney John Conte, who was investigating a drunk driving case that involved the daughters of one of Reilly’s campaign contributors. Reilly said he called Conte last November to urge him to withhold the girls’ autopsy and toxicology reports from the media.

Fair enough, but then came the disaster over his hasty naming of State Rep. Marie St. Fleur as his Lt. Governor. The day after his announcement, media reports detailed St. Fleur’s delinquent tax debts, forcing her to drop out. Making matters worse, Reilly tells the public that “politics are not my strong suit.”

So much for what appeared to be an insurmountable lead. Now that multi-millionaire Chris Gabrieli has joined the Democratic race, Reilly no longer has the luxury of having only one opponent, Deval Patrick, a former corporate executive and White House civil rights attorney.

And given all the political missteps, Reilly has provided Republican gubernatorial nominee, Lt. Gov. Kerry Healy, plenty of ammunition to use in November.

Throughout all of the ups and downs, Reilly, 63, has depended on a nearly fifty year-old friendship to weather all sorts of storms. The funny part about their relationship is that when all of the mess about St. Fleur was being played out in the Boston media, Wayne Budd, the former general counsel for John Hancock and Republican U.S. Attorney, was on a cruise somewhere in South America.

“I felt awful,” Budd said. “I couldn’t get through if I wanted to. And I wanted to. But here’s the thing that I know about Tom Reilly. He is not a quitter. No matter what, he will never quit.”

Budd should know. They grew up together in Springfield, and there were plenty of times when Reilly should have quit. He never did, largely because of Budd’s father, Joe Budd, an ex-Marine who fought in the South Pacific during World War II and became a Springfield Police captain.

“Mr. Budd believed in me,” Reilly said during a recent interview. “He always told me that I had talent and a lot of potential. He played an incredible role in my life. He taught me to never give up. He told me that I could be somebody. I don’t think he was talking about governor.”

Reilly can laugh about those days now. He wasn’t laughing much back then.

His father, Mortimer “Murty” Reilly, was found dead at home from a heart attack when young Tom was 16 years old. Two months before Reilly was born, one of his brothers, John, 13, was hit by a truck while riding his bicycle. He died just before Christmas in 1941. Another brother, James, died when he was involved in a construction mishap at Westover Air Force Base in 1956.

“Nothing seemed to be going right,” Reilly said about those days. “And certainly not at school. I wasn’t getting any sort of positive reinforcement.”

Like the time when Reilly asked his guidance counselor at Cathedral High School if she could recommend him for college. Not only did she tell him no, she also strongly recommended that he attend a trade school to study oil burners.

Or the time when Reilly, who ended up at St. Francis Xavier College in Nova Scotia, hitchhiked home for Easter Weekend and was promptly told by his mother that he could spend the night but would have to leave in the morning because he had not finished his freshman year.

“I learned an important lesson,” Reilly said. “Finish the job.”

His new job is becoming the first Democratic governor since Michael Dukakis left office sixteen years ago. As he tells the story, Gov. Mitt Romney and Lt. Gov. Healy have provided many reasons for change.

“My campaign is about opportunity and education,” Reilly said. “Under the Romney Administration, the state has lost about 160,000 jobs since 2001. That’s going to be difficult for the Republicans to explain.”

“What I’m hearing,” Reilly continues, “from people across the state is economic uncertainty. People can’t afford to live here. They can’t see a future here. That’s a very bad sign. A lot of these folks are the young and the talented. Our future is leaving Massachusetts. Gov. Romney likes to argue that people are leaving because of the weather. Well, Mr. Governor, it’s not the weather. It’s you.”

Reilly is equally tough on Democratic rival Deval Patrick. Political pundits have credited Reilly’s sharp criticism with forcing Patrick to resign from the board of the firm that runs Ameriquest Mortgage Co., one of the nation’s largest lenders, which was recently accused of predatory lending practices.

Reilly and other attorneys general reached a $325 million settlement with Ameriquest that resulted in a $12 million payment to Massachusetts homeowners who said Ameriquest had victimized them.

“One of the major differences between Deval Patrick and me comes down to one word — Ameriquest,” Reilly said in a statement. “While I fought them and helped get millions of dollars back… he was on their payroll. I find his ‘mission accomplished’ declaration very troubling because there is no evidence that this predatory company has changed…”

To his credit, Patrick has always said that he has never left his conscience at the door of corporate America. “I said all along I would stay on the board until I was satisfied that reforms to correct past practices and prevent future missteps were in place and underway,” Patrick said. “That is now the case… I am proud of my role in helping to set a better course.”

That very well may be true, but something strange is happening. Reilly, the prohibitive favorite last winter, is now the underdog, fighting against two millionaires in the Democratic primary, and proclaiming to be champion of the “regular people.”

And that is where Reilly is most comfortable—against the odds and underestimated.

Budd likes to tell the story of the two playing touch football in the North Shore. “Tom was the only white guy playing in those games,” Budd said. “And we were for the most part all lawyers. But invariably, Tom would make a big play and was considered a threat. So now, the opposing team would yell out, ‘Who’s covering… blue eyes?’”

Budd and Reilly chuckle about those days. Reilly just hopes that come November, one of his football buddies is calling him “Gov. Blue Eyes.”