Left In Lowell

Why I’m Endorsing Deval Patrick for Governor

14 Responses to “Why I’m Endorsing Deval Patrick for Governor”

1. Tim Little Says:
   December 14th, 2005 at 12:15 pm

   My wife and I have been on the Deval bandwagon for a little while now for very reasons you mention. Fundraising seems to be the major hurdle at this point — Reilly has a significant head start by all accounts.

   I’ll be very interested in peoples’ thoughts re: Lt. Governor. Goldberg, Kelley and Silbert all seem like solid candidates at first glance, but I’m afraid I haven’t gotten to know much about them as of yet.

2. Lynne Says:
   December 14th, 2005 at 12:18 pm

   Deval is catching up, actually…as Blue Mass Group mentioned.

   I’ll be looking more carefully at the Lt Governors’ race as we go, too. I like Silbert so far, Goldberg I don’t know much about so would like to find out more, and Kelley - I agree with others’ assessments in the blogosphere…good guy, awfully nice, but he doesn’t seem to be a completely viable candidate. Not that I’m ruling him out. I only met him for a short amount of time so I didn’t get the chance to ask many questions. And don’t forget Worcester mayor Tim Murray, who is also in that race now.

3. Pat Says:
   December 14th, 2005 at 5:03 pm

   Good call in endorsing Deval! There’s little doubt that he is by far our best hope in getting
   state government back to where it needs to be. Fake no tax pledges, ignoring public schools
   and higher ed, no committment to the enviroment and energy independence and letting 750,000
   of our friends and family go without health insurance is not the way to go.
   Deval Patrick is out there listening to citizens concerns and working through issues to come
   up with concrete plans to improve the lives of Mass citizens. Government is something we all
   need to invest in.
   I’m happy to help out in Lowell with planning and organizing.
   BTW, this is first response to a blog. I hope I’m doing O.K.

4. Lynne Says:
   December 14th, 2005 at 5:10 pm

   Welcome, Pat! Always happy to see new people here. You’re doing fine!

5. Qane Says:
   December 14th, 2005 at 5:51 pm

   Thanks for joining the fight, Lynne. It will be fun, and I hope it will be a good, honest, open conversation about issues over the next 10 months up to the primary.

   Make sure you also make a Team Patrick page to put your reasons for your support on the Deval website, and maybe even raise a couple of bucks for him in the process.

   https://secure.devalpatrick.com/pages

6. Readville Roger Says:
   December 14th, 2005 at 9:25 pm

   Aren’t you people tired of losing?! I know I am. Since I graduated
   college in 1999, I’ve been campagning for Democrats in NH, MA, and
   FL. I’m tired of losing. I’m simply not convinced that Deval Patrick
   is our answer this year. Why did we lose in 1998? 2002? The Democratic
   candidate had no appeal to independents. Do you think Deval is going
   to be an option to Independent voters in MA (who are now the majority)?!
   Of course not! And while I may not agree with Tom Reilly’s stances on
   the death penalty and taxes, do you think he’s actually going to spend time to
   push for a death penalty in this state? Or push for a tax cut once he sees that the programs
   he wants cost money? He said he would only pursue the cut if things keep
   looking up. Tom Reilly is the candidate that can win in the general. We are
   not giving up on Democratic ideals by supporting him. He’s a DEMOCRAT. He may
   not be as liberal as you people, or as liberal as you want him to be,
   but I’ll take him over Healy any day. I’m sick of losing. I want to finally win.

7. Qane Says:
   December 14th, 2005 at 10:29 pm

   Wow, Readville, I have no idea where you’re coming from.

   Why did we lose in 1998 and 2002? How about because we picked the most whitebread boring centrist Democrat we could find. Shannon? Harshbarger? They had no support from the base. Many Democrats just didn’t even bother coming out to vote for either of them, because nobody could get excited about their campaigns, about their personalities, and about their positions. Why didn’t they appeal to Independants? Because they looked like Republican lite. Less so harshbarger than O’Brien. Harshbarger’s problem was more about the Democratic machine not supporting him because he’d investigated to many of their members.

   Reilly is same ole same ole. No personality. Republican light. Why vote for the Democrat pretending to be a Republican when you can get the real deal?

   Deval tells you what he thinks. He tells you why he thinks it. He’ll convince you why his position makes sense. He will invigorate every crowd he speaks in front of. He is an exciting candidate and I think THAT is what brings the independent voters. They want someone who has ideas, who is outside the norm, and who will provide invigorated and exciting leadership.

   Watch him speak, watch his crowds, and you’ll be surprised how many independants and even Republicans are supporting him.

8. Michael Forbes Wilcox Says:
   December 15th, 2005 at 5:55 am

   Bravo, Lynne! and welcome aboard.

   I was stunned when I heard Tom Reilly at UMass [http://www.mfw.us/deval-at-umass]
   say that the Party platform “is a useful document but it should not be a binding document.”

   In other words, if Reilly wants to oppose gay marriage or favor the death penalty,
   a little thing like being contrary to the wishes of his Party should not get in his way.

   Why doesn’t he just run as a Repuglican?

   MFW

9. Lynne Says:
   December 15th, 2005 at 9:10 am

   Agreed with Qane…Deval will appeal the most to independents, Reilly is uninspiring and wishywashy and Healey is just lame.

   What, appealing to independents is being pro-death-penalty and anti-gay-marriage? Please…don’t lump all independents together, because I suspect a great majority of them aren’t going to be thrilled with some of the stances Reilly has taken.

   Deval has a weird combination of being able to appeal to the activists in the party AND to the regular voter who just wants to see someone in the state house who’s honest, smart, and a good leader who listens. People are tired of Romney-stylelying and sneaky I’m-moderate-no-wait-I’m-not. Romney only appealed to “independents” because he pretended to be moderate and the Dems had an uninspiring choice on the other side. Deval is nothing if not an interesting, engaging candidate.

   Look, I don’t endorse someone just because he’s progressive or good on the issues. I’m endorsing someone I think would be a great governor, someone who can work with lots of different people not just the ones who agree with him, and who WILL balance the legislature, even if it’s his own party that runs it.

   I’m not scared that Dems will have total control with Deval at the corner office. I might be leary of a Reilly governship if I were an independent though, because he is part and parcel of the machine which puts many Dems in office.

   The Dems are only as machine-oriented as WE let them be. If the grassroots spoke, the machine will only be forced to listen. I honestly believe it’s a better use of our time to hold our party and our government accountable to good governane then to throw our hands up in the air and say, “We CAN’T elect a Dem for governor, think of the balance!” Feh.

   You want change? Get your ass involved in some aspect of civic life. Whether that’s as a party activist or someone who works locally to improve the lives of others, it doesn’t matter. Do more than vote!

10. waittilnextyr Says:
    December 15th, 2005 at 11:15 am

    I consider myself in the independent category, and I am still open with respect to my support for Governor. Lynne stated some rationale for not supporting Reilly, but I don’t think those are strong enough reasons in themselves.

    The first one, the ballot initiative, can be looked upon as disenfranchment of the voters were he not to certify the petition, but maybe I am misreading the proposal.

    I agree that the death penalty should stay abolished, not that I am against that penalty in itself, but the process is flawed. Tookie Williams probably deserved to die for what he did, but that execution should have been at least 20 years ago. Now, when he is supposedly rehabilitated, they put him to death. Some will say it is his, or his lawyers, fault for the great delay, but that is our system. And, indeed it does help mitigate some false convictions.

    The tax cut can only be supported if indeed the costs of unnecessary expenses could be cut. Transferring those costs to local property taxes is worse, although Reilly does imply support to cities in his statements. I think I agree with Lynne on this one, although I would want to hear the whole plan.

    Deval Patrick sounds very good, and he certainly deserves attention. It may be some time before I could make a commitment, but this forum may help clarify positions a lot faster than the ordinary media.

11. Renee Says:
    December 15th, 2005 at 11:58 am

    Lynne, Thanks for posting that article on Chelmsford Public School. The quote from the article disturbing though, which was,

    “The group’s key message, said Doherty, is that closing Westlands to save money will reverberate across the town’s educational system and ultimately affect property values.'’It trickles into the property values,” he said, ‘’and that’s why it affects everybody in the town, because, as the education of a town goes, so goes the town.”

    It went on to mentioning the greying of Chelmsford, which meant my parents who are in their 50’s with no children. I can’t speak personally for my parents, but they pay taxes gladly because people paid taxes when I went to school in Chelmsford. But with the greying of Chelmsford there are more households that don’t have children in the school system, and more childless households contributing to the schools. So why is there a deficit? Never mind the snobbery that they don’t want anyone who can’t afford a 500k home in their town.

12. David Says:
    December 15th, 2005 at 1:10 pm

    Tim L.: we over at Blue Mass. Group have been doing a lot of coverageof the Lt. Gov. race - stop by and check it out!

13. Tim Little Says:
    December 20th, 2005 at 10:04 pm

    My Deval Patrick for governor lawn sign arrived today! Yay!
    I guess I need to wait til the snow melts and the ground thaws before I can put it out, tho. (March?)

14. Lynne Says:
    December 21st, 2005 at 9:24 am

    Or use a really big drill!

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