Ron Bell: A symbol of the ‘invisible voters’

Howard Manly

There was a moment on election night when Gov.-elect Deval Patrick said he wanted to thank both John Walsh and Doug Rubin, two men that helped orchestrate one of the most successful grassroots campaigns in state history.

From out of nowhere, a woman shouted, “Don’t forget Ron Bell.”

Patrick didn’t miss a beat. He said he wouldn’t forget Ron Bell nor would he forget her.

It was a classic moment in a campaign that saw all sorts of people, of all sexes, ages, races and religions, from all across the state, come together to elect a candidate that political experts considered a novice and long-shot. Conservatives called him worse.

For Bell, Patrick’s deputy campaign manager, the moment was a bit embarrassing. He knew how hard he had worked. He knew how many miles he had traveled. He had the holes in his shoes to prove it. But he also knew that Patrick was going to win.

“From the first day I met him,” Bell said, “I knew that he was for real. And I decided early on that I was going to do everything in my power to help this brother get elected. And when this woman shouted out my name, I know what she really meant. I’m just a symbol. What she was really saying to Patrick was to not forget all of the invisible voters.”

More than most, Bell has the ability to see the invisible voters. And according to an analysis of election night, those voters became very visible.

Take the city of Boston. Despite all sorts of ballot problems, precincts in Boston’s African American, Hispanic and Asian neighborhoods saw an increase in ballots cast of 43.5 percent.

The largest increases occurred in Jamaica Plain (20.6 percent), Grove Hall and Dudley (18.5 percent), Mattapan and Franklin Field (17.3 percent), Upham’s Corner (17 percent) and Chinatown (16.9 percent).

Those numbers are in stark contrast to predominantly white voters in precincts such as South Boston, Charleston, West Roxbury, Back Bay and Beacon Hill, all of which showed a decline from the number of votes cast during the 2002 gubernatorial election.

In all, the city of Boston showed an only 1.9 percent increase in overall turnout. That figure belies a 17.4 increase in African American precincts, a 15.2 increase in Latino precincts and a 10.9 percent increase in Asian precincts.

According to MassVOTE, the non-profit, non-partisan community organization, the increase in voter turnout can be explained by the several factors. The most important is that Patrick struck a deep chord in ethnic neighborhoods across the state and his campaign invested heavily in grassroots organizing.

Patrick was able to tap into the community organizing that has occurred in minority neighborhoods since 1999. The Civic Engagement Initiative, RoxVotes, Boston Vote, the League of Women Voters and the Massachusetts Immigration and Refugee Advocacy Coalition did a significant part of that work.

Bell has worked with them all.

From his days as a community activist in Mission Hill to starting the widely successful “Dunk-the-Vote,” Bell knows how to manage the streets, from registering new voters to making sure they actually vote on Election Day.

In one weekend alone, Bell and more than 1,000 campaign volunteers and staff covered the city on foot, distributing 100,000 blue 6-3/4-inch-by-9-1/2-inch cards bearing Patrick’s “Togeher We Can” slogan. They placed them on cars and on windows, anywhere and everywhere. “We painted the town blue,” Bell laughs.

He had to. “When I first came on, we had a lot of challenges,” Bell explained. “For one thing, I live in Milton, and I had never heard of Deval Patrick. A lot of people were calling him Patrick Deval.”

All that changed. “I remember having breakfast with him,” Bell said. “And we had an immediate connection. He told me about his days on the South Side of Chicago. I told him about Mission Hill. We clicked from then on.”

And then Bell heard Patrick speak at different events and was simply blown away. “I kept saying to myself, ‘This brother is for real,’” Bell said. “He was able to bring people from all walks of life together for the common good.”

The deal was sealed last spring. “I looked up to h im. He is articulate and intelligent,” Bell adds. “I looked up to him as a role model and some one who could move the state forward. Because I have done most of my work in the streets, I’m always the one telling others that they can do something with their lives. But when Deval told me that I could do anything that I wanted, that was it.”

Bell wanted to start an institute that prepared African American and Latino men and women to run for elected office. When he was asked to work on the Patrick campaign, Bell immediately agreed.

The impact was almost as immediate. During the Democratic primary, the Patrick campaign had set a goal of 35,000 votes. That was going to be difficult, especially considering that Patrick was running against the machine of Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who had pledged his support to state Attorney General Thomas Reilly.

Patrick shocked the city and even his own campaign staff. He earned 50,000 votes.

Bell said part of that success came from Patrick’s decision to open an office on Grove Hall. “People were coming here from all over the state,” Bell said. “We really became a legitimate satellite office to the main one in Charleston.”

But Bell didn’t spend much time in the office. “We had a lot of unsung heroes,” he said. “People like Rose Arruda, a long time community organizer. We would go to where the people were. In churches. In bars. On playgrounds and in gyms. We are at bus stops and T stations. We were everywhere.”

Bell traveled to Springfield and Worcester, New Bedford and Fall River. “I never told anyone what to do,” he said. “But we did make suggestions on some things that we knew worked.”

Election night was bittersweet for Bell. On one hand, he explained, he was overjoyed. On another, he was saddened that so many minority voters were unable to vote because the city failed to provide enough ballots.

“I’ll never forget it,” bell said. “It was around 6 p.m. and one of the local television stations said they did an exit poll and that Deval only had an eight point lead. Now that was too close. So we ran out and redoubled our efforts. We never had a sense of complacency, but anything can happen on an election night.”

Bell hit the streets, only to be told that voters were angry because the city had failed to provide enough ballots at as many as 30 different precincts.

“A lot of people had left and never had the chance to exercise one of the most cherished rights of being an American,” Bell said.

At a rare moment in the VIP section of the Hynes Convention Center, Bell met with Patrick and told him about his mixed feelings.

“Deval told me that he was proud of me,” Bell said. “And that everything was going to be alright.”

It was more than alright.