Left In Lowell

Dem candidate for governor Deval Patrick, as you might have read, talked to some bloggers recently. Sco of .08 Acres, and Charley and David of BlueMassGroup, have now posted their impressions. If you haven’t already read them, go! I’ll give you some previews.

David writes:

He is extremely articulate and well-informed on a wide range of issues; he is not afraid to say things that he knows will irk some people and probably even lose him a few votes; and yet he comes across neither as an overbearing know-it-all nor as a politician staking out a position for the sake of staking out a position, but rather as someone who truly believes that government can serve the people of this Commonwealth better than it’s been doing for the last bunch of years. I was impressed.

[snip]

…Deval is running not only a money-raising insider-endorsement-garnering operation which, as he recognizes, is a necessity these days, but also a true grassroots operation that he expects to be capable of reaching voters in every precinct in the state, and through which he hopes to re-engage those voters who have given up on politics.

Patrick seems to have the same ideas for reviving this state’s Democratic party as DNC Chair Howard Dean - run in every district, engage every voter. It’s a huge, unwieldy task, ambitious, and will take some great amount of effort and commitment. It would be gratifying to see it work, and I hope it does. This might be a good time, readers, to think about volunteering (for any of the candidates). The next 6 months, I think, will see a lot of movement.

Charley asks, “Does Patrick Do Details?”:

It’s been mentioned that Deval Patrick, while charismatic and inspiring, has been a bit lax in communicating the specifics of exactly what he would do as Governor — particularly on his website. This is to be expected: it’s early in the campaign, and the more specific one’s ideas, the more they will be scrutinized and attacked. So it’s important to know that someone is actually comfortable with — and is capable of making decisions based on — the details. In our conference call today with Deval Patrick, David, Bob and I all tried to get the candidate to talk about his experience and goals with some specificity.

They did chat some details, which you should go read. The details are again, not as detailed as us political junkies want, but probably about where they should be at such an early point in the campaign.

Sco says:

It’s one thing, though, to talk about what you want the state to be and another to talk about how you’re going to get there, so I mentioned to him that one of the criticisms of him that I’ve seen online (and occasionally made myself) was that it was difficult to find out where Patrick actually stands on a particular issue. He said that he didn’t think such a characterization was fair, but that he understood it.

[snip]

While other candidates may try to pick out the center and hope that’s where the votes are, Patrick is actually asking people what’s important to them, and taking what he hears into account. Even the very fact that he contacted a number of Massachusetts blogs to talk about issues shows that he’s interested in hearing from a variety of people.

Patrick also mentioned to both Blue Mass Group and sco that he will launch a campaign blog by Labor Day, a two-way communication between Patrick, volunteers, and voters. Should be interesting to say the least, given that the Mass Democratic Party pulled their blog for reason(s) unknown, but that one might infer was from the criticisms that arose there of the way the party leaders ran the state issues convention in May. Two-way communication always sounds good in theory, but the practice of it can sometimes be messy.

It will also be interesting to see if Reilly and Galvin follow suit, either in talking to bloggers or having web presences that go further than bios and donations. And, I myself might get a chance to talk to Mr. Patrick next week, so if you have a question for him, post it here or send me an email!