I’ve been silent on Tom Reilly’s missteps so far, partly because they’ve been coming too fast to fully digest, in part because I didn’t have anything to say over what Adam Reilly, the writers and commenters at Blue Mass Group, sco, and others were already pointing out: that Reilly’s political judgment has been shown to be seriously lacking over the last few weeks. Curiously, as a political junkie, I don’t feel the need to make a decision for the gubernatorial primary til summer at least, but at this point I’m highly disinclined to support Reilly. Deval Patrick is looking more and more attractive by the minute.
Since I threw down the gauntlet for Reilly last February, I need to eat a little crow: I’m hardly the only one taken by surprise by Reilly’s stumble, but the fact remains I did overestimate his political savvy. But part of my worry from last year still stands: Massachusetts progressives strike me as more eager to use the governor’s race as a struggle to flex their collective power relative to the party apparatchiks rather than focus on the ultimate task of getting a majority of votes, and that includes a) convincing voters who have voted Republican four elections in a row to vote Democratic without b) losing any who voted Democratic. We can certainly disagree on what will best acheive that and how we diagnose the political landscape, but it is what we should genuinely be focused on. Bloggers-vs-Establishment narratives verging on schadenfreude in my book aren’t about getting Democrats closer to possession of the corner office.
Clearly this is a boon for Deval Patrick and those who have been his ardent supporters to date. But there is a danger that a hobbled Reilly or a last-minute centrist/establishment candidate entering the race would mean less engagement with the Democratic primary all around, which in my book would not be a good thing.
UPDATE: The schadenfreude spreads.
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