Point 08 Acres has a good summation of Deval Patrick’s interview on Greater Boston last night. I myself caught only the last half of the segment, but have to say that Patrick was pitch perfect in his answers to Emily Rooney. I think his poised and down-to-earth demeanor helps ground his at-times lofty rhetorical tendencies. (By the same token, he’s not the "only one talking about effective and responsive government," he’s the only one talking about those things as matters of abstract principle.)
I particularly like sco’s point that
The important thing to take away here is that Patrick is focusing his efforts on organization. This is something that Democrats have failed to do for about twenty years here in Massachusetts. The Mass Dems never adapted from the city machine model when people started to drift out of cities and into the suburbs. For some reason it’s taken them this long to try to assemble an outreach effort that reflected the state’s changing demographics. All the TV money in the world isn’t a substitute for face-to-face voter contact. It’s good to see that at least one candidate, and the party as a whole are addressing this.
We shouldn’t overstate this: the reason Mass Dems have been slow to lose the city machine model is that in reality the machine hasn’t done all that badly for them: they still have a lock on the legislature and most statewide elected offices. It’s the governorship that keeps giving them a hard time. After four Republican governors now, that’s no small thing, and perhaps you’ll start to see even party insiders loosen up their thinking.
On the flip side, while strong volunteer/grassroots organization is better than no organization, if your phalanx of support is from a narrow sociological niche, all that organization can be counterproductive. I remember cringing when seeing a Robert Reich intern/volunteer on TV mispronouncing "Worcester," and thinking of all the votes lost in that one moment. I was a Reich volunteer myself, of the very same profile: non-native import, moved here for my education, talking in that clipped Valley speak which seems to be the marker of the Ivy educated these days. Let’s just say that a bunch of folks like me canvassing door to door is probably just as likely to persuade voters to throw their lot to the other candidate.
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