Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

The Deval difference is that he is "a forthright candidate" who is unusually clear where he stands on a range of issues notably education, health care and the environment. Dean believes that the key to winning back the House, the Senate and some key governorships in a time of GOP popular decline is, as Patrick said: "We are not going to win by just not being the other folks."

The DFA endorsement comes in the midst of an exciting three-way race for the Democratic nomination, between Patrick, two-term Attorney General Tom Reilly, and Chris Gabrieli, the party's 2002 candidate for Lt.Governor who jumped into the race last week. The excitement intensified today as CBS4 (a Boston TV station), announced its first poll results since Gabrieli got in -- and Patrick is leading the pack.

SurveyUSA asked 426 likely voters "If the Democratic Primary for Governor of Massachusetts were today, and you were standing in the voting booth right now, who would you vote for?"

36% said Patrick.
33% said Reilly.
19% said Gabrieli.
11% are undecided

What's more, the Patrick campaign announced its first ad buy would not be on television -- but on the internet. According to The Boston Globe the ads began running on news sites today, including "Boston.com, NECN.com, CNN.com, masslive.com and Univision.com. The campaign plans an initial run of four weeks at a cost of $50,000 to $100,000."

Reilly had been widely considered the all-but-certain party nominee until a series of disasters earlier this year made even Reilly loyalists take a second look at the viability of his candidacy. After protracted negotiations, Reilly backed off of a commitment to select Gabrieli as his running mate. Gabriell pulled out, hours before the press conference to announce that he would join the Reilly ticket.

Reilly's next choice, a state epresentative, turned out to have serious tax problems and pulled out within 48 hours of her selection. It turned out she had mentioned to Reilly that she had tax problems -- but he did not further inquire and she did not disclose anything further. But it didn't take the press long to find them. In explaining to reporters why he did not more thoroughly vet his proposed running mate, the political veteran claimed: "politics is not my strong suit." His explanation turned out to be as damaging to his campaign as his profile in bad judgement.

A week later, Patrick's now legendary field organization delivered at the party caucuses by more than by more than 2-1, including sweeping every delegate slot in Reilly's hometown of Watertown, and making deep inroads in his childhood home city of Springfield. Many state party officials, are automatic delegates, and it is thought that some of these will support Reilly and some Gabrieli, although Patrick is known to already have a respectable share as well.

Patrick is expected to come out of the June  convention in Worcester with a majority of the delegates, and be formally declared the party's choice in the primary. Reilly and Gabrieli are also likely to receive the necessary 15% of the delegates on the first ballot necessary to be included on the Democratic primary ballot. The winner of the September primary will face Republican Lt. Governor Kerry Healey, and businessman Chrisy Mihos, a former Republican who has announced that he will run as an Independent. The incumbent, Republican Mitt Romney is not running for reelection, while he considers a run for president.

Deval Patrick has a compelling personal story. He came up from poverty on Chicago's South Side; went to Harvard and Harvard Law School; and spent a decade with the the NAACP Legal Defense Fund before being named by President Bill Clinton to head the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. He went on to work as a top corporate lawyer with Texaco and Coke.

Once generally treated as a very long shot by most in the small and insular Massachusetts political community, Patrick is now treated as a serious contender, and has earned the endorsement of two members of Congress (Jim McGovern and Mike Capuano), 28 state legislators among many others, a number of labor unions, and such national figures as Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) and former Clinton Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich -- and there is still six months to go til the primary.

Patrick won the early endorsement of Progressive Democrats of Massachusetts, a statewide network of electoral activists that grew out of Reich's 2002 Democratic primary campaign for governor. (PDM members provided critical early field support for the fledgling Patrick campaign and PDM members continue to play prominent roles in the campaign. (Full disclosure: I am a PDM member and have been a Patrick supporter from early on.)

The race for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in Massachusetts is unquestionably wide open. After being spurned by Reilly in the ticket forming fiasco in February, Chris Gabrieli announced that he will run for governor himself. His record as a candidate for public office includes spending more than $5 million in losing a multicandidate Democratic primary for Congress in 1998. He then spent $7 million of his own money in his losing race for lieutenant governor in 2002. It is believed that the venture capitalist will largely self-finance his own campaign this time.

Reilly, who has been raising money for this race for years reportedly has $4 million in the bank. But in a sign that years of raising money from fat cats has not guaranteed Reilly the nomination, in less than a year, Deval Patrick has raised more than $2 million from more than 10,000 donors - most of it from people giving less than $100. About $400,000 of the total has be raised via an innovative, web-based fundraising effort.  

The DFA endorsement is expected to help both Patrick's fundraising and grassroots campaign efforts. Jim Dean said that in addition to contributing directly to the campaign, they plan to send out a national email highlighting Deval  and the rest of the DFA-List. Experience has shown that this will help raise money, increase public exposure, and attract more campaign volunteers. DFA has a fundraising page where members can contribute to the campaigns of DFA-endorsed candidates.  

After starting out rather stiffly as a first-time candidate, Patrick has emerged as as skilled and inspiring orator and an easy going campaigner with a knack for listening. He has also issued a series of position papers on the economy, education, the environment has set the pace in bringing matters of public concern to the fore instead of emphasizing inside-baseball matters like polls and fundraising numbers. He is also the first African-American to run for governor in Massachusetts.

As the DFA endorsement indicates, the race for the Democratic nomination for governor of Massachusetts is shaping up as a bellwether for the Democratic Party not only in the Bay State, but nationally.