With all due respect to my diligent fellow liberals at Blue Mass Group, but why the hell are they still jonesing for a Deval Patrick run for governor? Why does .08 Acres think Patrick and Reilly equally uninspiring? Just take a look at yesterday’s Herald (nothing in the Globe yersterday… some days it could care less about local politics).
AG rips lack of urgency on fixing ‘Big Dig’
What this tells me (and I can’t be the only one) is that Deval Patrick is looking at an issue (Romney) that will win the support of progressives in the state, where Tom Reilly is looking at issues that will win him support of a winnable coalition in the state. After all, in sum, most voters don’t get all that worked up about gay marriage nor even Romney’s coziness with the “right wing of the national Republican party.” (Though more stories like this, and they may) They care about the Big Dig corruption, they care that Romney’s platforms of reform and economic development have taken a backseat to national political ambition, and they care about the bread-and-butter issues. This is especially true of the 2002 Romney voters Democrats need to win over in 2006.
On one side, you have a candidate who’s charismatic, experienced and almost tailor made to take on Romney on the reform platform. On the other you have an unknown, out-of-state candidate whose only raison d’etre is that progressives find Reilly too moderate in both style and substance. Look, I find Reilly too moderate, too, and am especially leary of a governor that opposed gay marriage vociferously. I even find his opposition to the wind farm craven NIMBYism. However, there is a time it’s useful for progressives to be demanding more from their candidates, and the election after four Republican governors in a row is not that time. Last time the Dems failed because the party hacks got too greedy and thought they could get one of their own elected without changing the nature of their message. This time it’s likely the progressives will do the same thing. I’m not against a primary run between Reilly and Patrick or Coakley or whoever, but it’s that lack of electoral perspective that scares me.
It even looks like Reilly is willing to compromise on gay marriage to get party support. Let progressives extract our pound of flesh and get behind him. As Blue Mass Group said in a different context, let’s not win a few battles but lose the war on this one.
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