Kossacks, I bring you greetings from the blue - but not yet blue enough - state of Massachusetts. Now that the CT, RI, and NY primaries are done, it's time to look to next week's round of state primaries on Tuesday, September 19. On that date, Massachusetts Democrats and independents (we have open primaries) have the opportunity to nominate an extraordinary candidate who has built a true grassroots candidacy for Governor:
Deval Patrick. He can win, both in the primary and in November. But he needs your help.
We have a three-way Democratic primary going. Patrick, the former civil rights chief in Bill Clinton's Justice Department (read his whole bio
here), has run his campaign the right way from day one. When he started out, he was a total outsider to state politics, never having run for office here before, and having spent a good deal of his career elsewhere - and in Massachusetts that's a very good thing. He started early by going around the state and just listening to what people had to say about their government; he built a statewide grassroots movement that swept the Democratic caucuses back in February by bringing thousands of people into politics who had never participated before; as a result of winning the caucuses he was endorsed in a landslide at the state convention; he has thousands of active volunteers; and he's raised over a million dollars on the internet alone from thousands of small donors. It's exactly the kind of movement that this site is all about.
Patrick's opponents are both respectable Democrats, but neither (IMHO, anyway) represents the opportunity for the real change so desperately needed in our hack-ridden state government that Patrick does. Tom Reilly, the current Attorney General and former county District Attorney, is old school. He's a moderate Dem who isn't terrible (but isn't great either) on the issues, but whose inside-the-building history will make it hard for him to shake things up. And Chris Gabrieli, the fabulously wealthy venture capitalist who has already dumped a state record $8 million of his own money into his campaign (and this is just the primary!), is a technocrat with some good ideas on some issues, but who has so far shown no interest in standing up to the legislative leadership. Example: a couple of months ago, the legislature passed a bill creating a special state pension for a legislator who wouldn't otherwise have been eligible. Classic hackery. Patrick, correctly, spoke out against the bill. Gabrieli, however, declined to comment, lamely saying that he "had no desire to interfere" and that it "was not an issue in the campaign." Weak.
Up until yesterday, polling had tended to show Patrick with a small lead, but that it was anybody's race. Two polls released yesterday, however, showed Reilly fading, Gabrieli flat, and Patrick's lead widening. But it's still a tight race - the final televised debate is tonight, and a lot can happen in the next week. Unfortunately, there are now indications that Gabrieli is prepared to go quite negative against Patrick - and he's got unlimited wealth, so if he wants to start carpet-bombing the airwaves he can do it.
There's a lot of local netroots interest in this primary, fueled largely by Deval Patrick's campaign. My blog, Blue Mass. Group, has been following this primary for months. With the approach of the primary, our traffic has exploded - we've gone from around 2,000 unique visitors a day just a couple of weeks ago to 3,500-4,000 a day now (not exactly Kos level, but not bad for a local blog). Here's hoping that, at least for the next six days, we can broaden the interest beyond Massachusetts' borders. Massachusetts has had a Republican Governor for the last 16 years. We have an excellent chance to reclaim this seat for the Democrats - and Deval Patrick is the kind of Democrat the netroots movement is all about.
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