Healey’s negativity repelled state voters

Alex Bloom

Her dark roots came out early and often.

Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey tried for weeks to tarnish Deval Patrick’s image with negative campaign ads and mudslinging, but in the end, she failed.

Part of her failure can be explained by the unpopularity of the national Republican Party and the Bush administration’s tortured policy in Iraq and Afghanistan. But most of the blame, analysts say, lies squarely with Healey — particularly her inability to separate herself from the unpopular Romney administration.

Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., said that Healey’s “politics of negativism” was “completely rejected” in Massachusetts.

“The people here do not want to go back to politics of fear and personal destruction,” Kennedy said. “Deval Patrick was able to overcome the viciousness by staying on the high road, keeping his wits about him and using his inner strength, faith, integrity and character.”

It wasn’t supposed to go this way for Healey. But from the very start, she miscalculated. Back in September, she launched attack ads against venture capitalist and Democratic corner office hopeful Chris Gabrieli, who lost to Patrick during the Democratic primary.

Once Patrick became the Democratic nominee, Healey was the underdog. Every poll — from the Boston Globe/CBS4 poll, to the 7News-Suffolk University poll, to the Wall Street Journal poll — consistently put Healey at least 10-15 points behind Patrick. Her attempts to make up ground by going negative only hurt her public support and put her party out of power.

Healey came out firing as early as the State Republican convention back in April, calling Attorney General Tom Reilly, then a candidate for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, a “political chameleon.” On primary night, when Patrick locked up the party’s nomination with a landslide victory over Reilly and Gabrieli, Healey addressed supporters at a rally following her primary election victory with Patrick attacks.

“Deval Patrick will change spending,” said Healey at the time. “He’s already promised to increase state expenditures higher than they’ve ever been before. Is that the kind of change we want?”

“She had little choice but to go negative,” said Jeffrey Berry, a political science professor at Tufts University. “Patrick’s poll ratings were so astronomically high, there was no way she could beat him by staying positive.”

Her most memorable attack came in a television ad lambasting Patrick for petitioning the Massachusetts parole board on behalf of convicted rapist Benjamin LaGuer. The ad, which Berry called “tasteless,” showed a defenseless white woman entering a parking garage with a voiceover criticizing Patrick’s support for LaGuer, claiming “he should be ashamed, not governor.”

“The negativity of the ad became the story, not Patrick’s record on crime,” said Berry.

The ad reminded political observers of the notorious Willie Horton ads that helped sink Michael Dukakis’s 1988 presidential campaign and drew sharp criticism, both in the media and from fellow candidates.

Healey defended the ads in the third debate, held at Faneuil Hall.

“What makes Massachusetts less safe is when you advocate on behalf of a brutal rapist you’ve never even met,” said Healey.

Another Healey spot criticized Patrick’s defense of a convicted cop killer.

“While lawyers have a right to defend admitted cop killers, do we really want one as our governor?” the ad asked. The ad produced a public outcry from fellow lawyers and criticism in the media.

Healey tried to bring Patrick down in debates by bringing up the issue, but Patrick managed to stay above the fray, increasing his appeal. His few responses were sharp and biting, as in the third debate when Healey criticized Patrick’s support of LaGuer.

“If you’d come down off that high horse of yours some time and see how it actually works in the streets, I’d be happy to show you around,” said Patrick, lecturing Healey on the job of a prosecutor.

Patrick stayed out of the mud and continued to trumpet his campaign themes of change and cooperation on Beacon Hill.

“He made a decision very early on [of] offering a vision — one based on what we can do together rather than fear and scaring voters into voting for him,” said Patrick campaign spokesman Richard Chacón, who said that Patrick and running mate Tim Murray wanted a return to “politics as they should be.”

The negative media backfired for Healey. A 7News-Suffolk University poll released on Oct. 24 showed that 61 percent of voters said Healey’s negative tone made them less likely to vote for her and 53 percent of voters viewed her unfavorably. The poll showed Patrick comfortably in the lead with 53 percent to Healey’s 26 percent.

“We’ve seen at least so far from the polls a reaction of voters that has turned away from the kinds of negativity and destructiveness from one of the candidates and that voters don’t want to vote for someone who builds themselves up while tearing others down,” said Chacón.

Healey also tried substantive policy attacks, attacking Patrick for his position on the state’s Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) system and for supporting driver’s licenses and in-state tuition for immigrants. The issues gained traction, but couldn’t bring down Patrick’s poll numbers.

She also returned to the “Republican right-wing playbook,” as Patrick called it, accusing her opponent of advocating $8 billion in new spending. Healey also harped on Patrick’s refusal to support a 2000 referendum to decrease the state income tax rate from 5.3 percent to 5 percent.

“I think in the year 2006 that charge has lost some of its bite,” said Berry. “The national Republican Party has been the ‘tax cut and spend’ party and hardly exercised much fiscal responsibility.”

The Republicans once again went back to the theme of balance on Beacon Hill, claiming Patrick’s election would lead to one-party rule and a rubber stamp for the Democrats in the State House and Senate.

Patrick responded to the attacks by accusing the Romney-Healey Administration of stagnation for their constant fighting with the legislature.

The moves helped Patrick gain the support of the critical independent demographic, which makes up 49 percent of the Massachusetts electorate.

“I don’t think they see it necessarily as balance,” said Chacón. “The need for counterweight in the Legislature by party isn’t necessarily as strong an argument anymore.”

Healey’s position as the state’s lieutenant governor also hurt her gubernatorial bid. Her association with Gov. Mitt Romney dragged her down.

Since Romney has hit the campaign trail for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, his poll numbers have plummeted and reflected poorly upon Healey. Asked to respond in the third debate to Romney’s negative comments about the liberal Massachusetts atmosphere during his presidential campaign stops, Healey refused to weigh in on the situation.

“I think he’s probably heard your message loud and clear,” said Healey.

Romney has also been derided for his administration’s handling of the Big Dig and ineffective dealings with the Legislature. Among likely voters in the Oct. 25 7News/Suffolk poll, only 31 percent graded Romney’s job performance over the past four years as excellent or good, while 67 percent said fair or good.

Chacón called Romney a “Republican recreational governor” after the governor showed a calculated interest in the Republican presidential nomination. Berry noted that Romney started campaigning for president one year after entering office.

“The people of this commonwealth have grown weary enough of that kind of governing that it’s been a reflection of the legacy of Mitt Romney and Kerry Healey,” said Chacón.

A final thorn in the side of Healey was Independent candidate Christy Mihos, who constantly berated the candidate in every debate despite the fact that Patrick was the clear frontrunner.

The two had testy exchanges in many of the debates, including the final one where Mihos directly asked Healey to drop out of the race because of Patrick’s large lead in the polls.

In the end, Healey will go down in history for her gubernatorial campaign, but not for being the first woman nominated for governor by Massachusetts Republicans. She will be remembered for turning control of the governor’s chair over to the Democrats after a 16-year Republican stranglehold on the office.

“The larger issue is that she’s Republican in a very Democratic state in a very Democratic year and there was probably nothing that she could to do to overcome that,” said Berry.