Patrick shows grace under pressure in recent debates

Yawu Miller

When it was Deval Patrick’s turn to give the first answer to a question during last week’s debate at Roxbury Community College, it seemed like he caught a bad break.

WBUR reporter Delores Handy asked the former assistant U.S. attorney general for civil rights a question on the Big Dig, eliciting hardly sympathetic snickers from the other candidates. Attorney General Thomas Reilly showed mock compassion, patting Patrick on the back.

Without missing a beat, Patrick delivered one of the gubernatorial race’s most telling moments.

He turned to Reilly and shot back, “I should be patting you on the back,” then used his answer to the question to chide Reilly for lax oversight of the project.

Although Reilly blamed the Republicans who have been in office for the last 16 years for the mishandling of the project, the Big Dig charges seemed to follow the Attorney General into the televised debate held the following night at the Kennedy School of Government.

Despite going into attack mode, chiding venture capitalist Chris Gabrieli for allegedly leaking damaging information about the finances of state Rep. and former Lt. Gov. candidate Marie St. Fleur, Reilly seemed to sully himself with his mudslinging.

But Patrick, who played to a largely supportive crowd at the standing-room-only RCC event, managed to stay clean.

With Gabrieli tagged as the millionaire candidate trying to buy his way into the corner office, Patrick portrayed himself as a candidate who has carefully assembled a statewide grassroots organization with thousands of volunteers and thousands of donors.

The background chatter ceased in the mostly African American, Latino and Asian audience assembled in RCC’s Media Arts Auditorium last Wednesday as Patrick described how his campaign effort is aimed at reinvigorating the state’s political environment.

“We have a grassroots campaign because we want to ask people who’ve checked out to check back in,” he said. “This is about asking you to see this as your turn to take control of government.”

Patrick drew the strongest applause during the debate when he came out in favor of allowing the foreign-born children of undocumented immigrants the right to pay an in-state tuition rate for attending public colleges and universities.

Gabrieli, on the other hand, garnered boos and hisses when he spoke against giving the in-state rate to undocumented children.

“I think there are other challenges that face our state that we have to prioritize,” Gabrieli said.

Patrick also garnered a favorable response for his critique of the Romney administration’s tax cuts, which he said cut local aid and forced property taxes up 33 percent. Patrick is the only Democratic candidate who is not calling for a tax rollback.

Green Rainbow Party candidate Grace Ross, also opposed to a rollback, drew applause as well for drawing attention to what she said was the state’s unfair tax system.

“When they don’t increase corporate taxes or income taxes, they increase taxes on the rest of us,” she said. “Increasing MBTA fares — that’s a tax.”

The RCC forum was organized by a coalition of nonprofit organizations including the Civic Engagement Initiative — a coalition of organizations working to increase voter turnout in traditionally low-voting communities. The debate was translated into Spanish and Chinese.

The thoughtful debate organizers provided limited day care services for those parents in attendance. They also kept the debate on time and candidate’s answers within the designated time limit.

Other sponsors included the Boston Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., the Boston chapter of the National Black MBA Association, the Boston Branch of the NAACP, the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts and the Boston Association of Black Journalists.

The capacity crowd that turned out for the debate demonstrated increased political participation in the city’s communities of color, according to longtime political activist Louis Elisa.

“The fact that we jammed this place represents a real sea change for our community,” he said. “You see there’s a new consciousness in the communities of color.”