CLT UPDATE
Thursday, March 8, 2007
A bad time for moonbats
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Boston Herald Front Page Photo |
Gov. Deval Patrick is facing a potentially lengthy
ethics probe after a formal complaint by GOP critics who say his
controversial phone call on behalf of Ameriquest Mortgage constitutes
undue “influence of the highest order.”
The complaint, which triggers an automatic review by the State Ethics
Commission, creates more problems for the shell-shocked governor, who is
seeking to end weeks of negative headlines. Patrick urged his supporters
to stick with him yesterday, even as some of them questioned his
political judgment....
Patrick was asked to make the call by Ameriquest lawyer Adam Bass, who
contributed the maximum $500 to his gubernatorial campaign....
A spokesman for Patrick dismissed the complaint as a partisan attack.
“We’re not surprised by the Republican Party’s political grandstanding,”
spokesman Kyle Sullivan said. “We are confident that there was no
ethical violation.”
But Pam Wilmot of the watchdog group Common Cause said an investigation
is needed to “clear the air.”
The Boston Herald
Thursday, March 8, 2007
GOP calls in review of gov’s ethics --
Deval: ‘Don’t give up on me’
The least of Gov. Deval Patrick’s problems now is that he has
a political tin ear.
His intervention in a private financing deal on behalf of a campaign donor and
former employer with an entity with vast state interests is, on its face, a
breathtaking ethical breach. The State Ethics Commission has imposed hefty fines
and issued far harsher rebukes for far lesser transgressions.
No matter what else he does in the next four years, Patrick’s administration
will be hobbled by the fact that he sashayed across an ethical line as clear and
bright as any out there....
When I first read the above-the-fold front page Globe story on Patrick’s call,
my reaction veered from disbelief to that sick feeling you get in the pit of
your stomach when you know something is really bad.
The Boston Herald
Thursday, March 8, 2007
It’s time to call gov on the carpet
By Virginia Buckingham
With the latest headline, dissent erupted in the blogosphere.
"The caddy didn't matter. The drapes don't matter. This matters," wrote Charley
Blandy, a cofounder of Blue Mass. Group, the state's leading left-wing blog and
a strong voice for Deval Patrick during last year's gubernatorial campaign.
Some voters like Donald W. Bourne of Yarmouthport, who backed Patrick last fall
because of his populist appeal, worry that the governor has begun to lose that
touch....
Nine weeks into his four-year term, Patrick is struggling to keep his balance
amid a wave of mini-scandals and bad press days.
The normally composed governor seemed rattled yesterday when asked what he would
say to core supporters who may have begun to question his judgment. "Don't give
up on me yet," he said.
Many grass-roots supporters haven't; they remain fiercely loyal to the chief
executive they helped elect. His missteps, they say, were at worst innocent
blunders that should not eclipse his positive agenda....
"I myself and people I talk to around here are just as strong," said Paul Hush,
a campaign volunteer from Brewster. "They still see a real person behind all
these stories and are convinced he's going to be a wonderful governor."
But there are emerging hints of displeasure and unease among some supporters.
"He was going to shake things up," said Lisa Willis, 36, of Waltham, who voted
for Patrick. "I knew he was a lawyer and he had money, but he seemed to be able
to talk to people and to take an interest in a grassroots approach. Now, that
all seems to be gone. It was a facade." ...
William G. Mayer, a political science professor at Northeastern University, said
that if Patrick continues to make unwise decisions, not even the strongest
grass-roots network in recent memory can shield him from the consequences.
"If you make a call that is purely illegitimate, or you seem to be using the
resources of your office to pamper yourself, merely saying 'I've got these
people who support me on the issues' is not going to carry a whole lot of
weight," he said. "A grass-roots network, however extensive it is, represents a
very, very narrow slice of the electorate."
The Boston Globe
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Missteps test faith of Patrick devotees
'Don't give up on me' is response
Pass the Xanax, please! What happened to Divine Deval, man of
hope, the man who was to restore holier-than-thou progressives -- dare I say
liberals -- to disinfect the Corner Office after 16 years of nasty, greedy,
let-them-eat-cake-crumbs-and-like-it Republicans?
“It started with the (inaugural) parties,” says The Uber Moonbat of Roslindale,
Erik Gehring. I first met him last fall, on his Trek 700 bike, Centre Street,
Jamaica Plain, the belly of the moonbat beast by the Blissful Monkey Yoga
Studio, the Wonder Spice Cafe, Boomerangs Aids Action Thrift Shop and the Milky
Way Lounge with the Bob Marley mural.
“Then,” says Moonbat Gehring, “it was the drapes, the DeVille. Then you have the
helicopter. He’s living large. Now this,” he says, as in a full scuba dive into
the tank of predatory, sleazy corporate America.
“I don’t know what’s going on. I am perplexed,” says the legendary Vince Petryk,
owner of the equally legendary J.P. Licks Homemade Ice Cream, kosher now for
eight years at the mother ship J.P. cafe. There, many a moonbat first dreamed
Deval before the gas fireplace, wired and iPod-ed, with their sustaining bowl of
oatmeal cookie, lactose free....
But then of course there are the naysayers, who are gleeful. The ones with the
“Don’t Blame Me I Voted for Muffy” bumper stickers. The ones who ridiculed those
of us, including me, as we jumped all starry-eyed on the Deval bandwagon....
We in the swoon seats have had to snap out of our reverie.
As for the moonbats? Their innocence is lost. An American tragedy.
The Boston Herald
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Moonbats enter their blue phase
By Margery Eagan
Here's his problem. Patrick's ability to execute an ambitious
agenda is already diminished and he has no one to blame but himself. He made the
decisions to lease a Cadillac, go with the expensive office drapes, and hire a
$72,000 assistant for his wife. It was his call to contact Citigroup on behalf
of a lending company on whose board he once served. The people may be willing to
give him another chance, as he implored them yesterday: "I will make mistakes,
but don't give up on me, because I don't intend to give up on Massachusetts," he
begged.
But the Massachusetts Republican Party already submitted a letter to the
Massachusetts Ethics Commission requesting an investigation into Patrick's
actions on behalf of ACC Capital Holdings. Such an investigation, if undertaken,
is not something Patrick or any governor needs-- just ask Jane Swift, whose
tenure as acting governor was clouded by an ethics investigation....
If Patrick does not do something very quickly to regain the momentum,
particularly with legislators who supported him, he will lose control of the
issues he said he cared about during the campaign....
DiMasi's the man with the most opportunity to grow his power, while Patrick and
Travaglini try to keep theirs from galloping away.
The Boston Globe
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Power struggles on Beacon Hill
By Joan Vennochi
Contrary to appearances, Gov. Deval Patrick is no babe in the
political woods.
No veteran of the Clinton-era political wars in Washington -- not to mention an
18-month campaign in rough-and-tumble Massachusetts -- can credibly use the “Aw,
shucks -- I’m new at this!” response to such a long string of troublesome
mistakes.
Especially not when the mistakes are so obviously borne of arrogance, not
ignorance -- and are entirely of his own making.
A Boston Herald editorial
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Beneath surface, this one still stinks
For two weeks Governor Deval L. Patrick has been talking
tough about cracking down on companies exploiting what he calls corporate tax
loopholes to save over $300 million a year in state taxes.
But hoping to soothe some hard feelings among Bay State business leaders,
Patrick yesterday assured a powerful association of high-tech chief executives
that he's not saying they're tax-evading scofflaws.
"I am not associating any moral judgments" with how companies are interpreting
the tax code, the governor said at the annual meeting of the Massachusetts High
Technology Council....
Even after hearing Patrick, the new council chairman, MKS Instruments Inc. chief
executive John Bertucci , said: "If you increase taxes, it is certainly possible
to imagine that businesses will be driven out of the state or they'll be put in
such a competitive disadvantage that they'll stagnate and fail."
Bertucci said Patrick needs to consider how taxes affect business costs in
Massachusetts compared to not just other states but other countries with much
lower labor costs.
The Boston Globe
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Patrick eases tone to reassure executives
Governor argues tax changes will be for the good of all
Chip Ford's CLT Commentary
Candidate Deval Patrick's army of
moonbats
-- the true-believers and starstruck devotees -- were going to make the
difference in a new style of governing. They were going to swarm
about the state continuing to organize, be on-call to assemble and pressure the
Legislature for their agenda, changes they thought were coming, were
inevitable if they remained a united force and worked the political
process.
"It’s time to put our cynicism down," Deval intoned
on June 3, 2006 during his convention speech in Worcester. "Put it down.
Stand with me and take that leap of faith. Because I’m not asking you to
take a chance on me. I’m asking you to take a chance on your own
aspirations. Take a chance on hope."
"Yes we can!" the horde roared for months.
In his victory speech last Nov. 7, Governor-Elect
Patrick told his exhilarated acolytes: "This was not a victory
just for me. This was not a victory just for Democrats. This was a
victory for hope.... This has never been my campaign. It has always been
yours.... You transformed this from a political campaign to a movement
for change. I am honored and awed by what you have done. You made a
claim on history, and I thank you for letting me be a part of that....
Well, we have succeeded in raising each others’ hopes. I can’t wait to
get to work."
Gov. Patrick has since gone to work alright.
"Yes we can!" has been downgraded to "We thought we could,
we really did." It
appears that many who dropped back in are likely dropping back out
again, probably disillusioned for life. With a new dawn arising, the moonbats have begun
fluttering back to their caves.
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Chip Ford |
The Boston Herald
Thursday, March 8, 2007
GOP calls in review of gov’s ethics --
Deval: ‘Don’t give up on me’
By Casey Ross
Gov. Deval Patrick is facing a potentially lengthy ethics probe after a
formal complaint by GOP critics who say his controversial phone call on
behalf of Ameriquest Mortgage constitutes undue “influence of the
highest order.”
The complaint, which triggers an automatic review by the State Ethics
Commission, creates more problems for the shell-shocked governor, who is
seeking to end weeks of negative headlines. Patrick urged his supporters
to stick with him yesterday, even as some of them questioned his
political judgment.
“I will make mistakes, but don’t give up on me, because I don’t intend
to give up on Massachusetts,” he said.
“Of course I’m concerned,” Patrick said when asked about his loss of
momentum. “But it’s a four-year term. We have a very ambitious agenda.
We have put a lot of powerful proposals on the table ... and we just
have to keep working every day.”
The governor telephoned a top executive for Citigroup on Feb. 20 to
offer a reference on behalf of Ameriquest’s parent company, ACC Capital
Holdings, which was urgently seeking a cash infusion from the financial
giant.
Patrick was asked to make the call by Ameriquest lawyer Adam Bass, who
contributed the maximum $500 to his gubernatorial campaign.
The phone call raised ethical questions because Citigroup has
substantial business interests in state government and manages millions
of dollars in bonds for independent agencies such as the Massachusetts
Turnpike Authority.
Patrick reiterated that he had no financial interest in the Ameriquest
deal, but Republicans cited provisions of state law prohibiting public
officials from creating even the appearance of a conflict.
“A personal phone call from the state’s highest elected official to
Citigroup’s Executive Committee Chairman at the request of ACC Capital’s
vice chairman constitutes influence of the highest order,” wrote state
GOP Executive Director Brian Dodge, who filed the ethics complaint.
A spokesman for Patrick dismissed the complaint as a partisan attack.
“We’re not surprised by the Republican Party’s political grandstanding,”
spokesman Kyle Sullivan said. “We are confident that there was no
ethical violation.”
But Pam Wilmot of the watchdog group Common Cause said an investigation
is needed to “clear the air.”
The Boston Herald
Thursday, March 8, 2007
It’s time to call gov on the carpet
By Virginia Buckingham
The least of Gov. Deval Patrick’s problems now is that he has a
political tin ear.
His intervention in a private financing deal on behalf of a campaign
donor and former employer with an entity with vast state interests is,
on its face, a breathtaking ethical breach. The State Ethics Commission
has imposed hefty fines and issued far harsher rebukes for far lesser
transgressions.
No matter what else he does in the next four years, Patrick’s
administration will be hobbled by the fact that he sashayed across an
ethical line as clear and bright as any out there.
It’s also a shame that Patrick himself didn’t refer the matter to ethics
investigators immediately. It shouldn’t have taken all day Tuesday to
move from his stubborn defense to an expression of “regret.” Taking the
initiative of welcoming scrutiny would have given some plausibility to
his assertion that the call was simply a “stupid mistake.”
As it is, the state Republican Party has called for an investigation and
its partisan genesis won’t affect the ultimate result. How can the
Ethics Commission find otherwise than the governor acted improperly?
Nor is it plausible that Patrick, who served at the highest levels of
the U.S. Justice Department, made the call to Citigroup because he is
having trouble distinguishing between “my private self and my public
self.” The guy is no government naif.
So why’d he do it?
I have no way of knowing what went on in Patrick’s head or what
transpired in the call requesting his help or the call lasting “a few
minutes” to Robert Rubin. Maybe Patrick felt a leftover obligation as a
result of earning a hefty six-figure paycheck as a director for ACC
Capital. Maybe he wanted to put a marker down with the company’s top
officials to secure a soft landing if things in politics don’t work out.
Maybe he was simply feeling his oats as governor and wanted to do the
mover-and-shaker thing, calling up one of the country’s preeminent power
brokers, just because he can.
Whatever the motivation, it’s mind boggling that a man of Patrick’s
intelligence and experience could have made such a call.
Here are some lingering questions the governor ought to answer:
Has Patrick made any other calls to any other lenders on behalf of ACC
Capital?
If he truly was simply serving as a reference, did any other former and
current ACC board members make similar calls to Rubin during the
critical decision period?
Has he made any calls on behalf of any other private interests?
Has he taken any action or directed any subordinates to act in any way
on behalf of Citigroup?
Will he recuse himself from any matters involving Citigroup and
Ameriquest going forward that come before his administration?
Will he refuse future campaign donations from the two entities?
When I first read the above-the-fold front page Globe story on Patrick’s
call, my reaction veered from disbelief to that sick feeling you get in
the pit of your stomach when you know something is really bad.
No one who loves this state, no matter their party affiliation, wants
this governor to fail at all, never mind fail spectacularly. I sensed a
similar feeling in a post by blogger Car Pundit who wrote: “How much
more of this will we see? On one hand, I like it; it means he’s
squandering his political capital instead of using it for programs I’m
sure to oppose. On the other hand, if we’re going to have a governor
like that, let’s have a governor, not another empty suit.”
There’s plenty of time to fix things in this administration, but it
can’t be fixed if its fatal flaw is the arrogance of the guy at the top.
The Boston Globe
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Missteps test faith of Patrick devotees
'Don't give up on me' is response
By Lisa Wangsness
With the latest headline, dissent erupted in the blogosphere. "The caddy
didn't matter. The drapes don't matter. This matters," wrote Charley
Blandy, a cofounder of Blue Mass. Group, the state's leading left-wing
blog and a strong voice for Deval Patrick during last year's
gubernatorial campaign.
Some voters like Donald W. Bourne of Yarmouthport, who backed Patrick
last fall because of his populist appeal, worry that the governor has
begun to lose that touch.
"I hope he learns," he said.
Even Mr. Bartley's Gourmet Burgers in Cambridge has changed Patrick's
namesake burger from the optimistic "Together we can eat this," a play
on his campaign theme, to "The 'Cadillac' of Burgers," a reference to
his opulent official vehicle.
Nine weeks into his four-year term, Patrick is struggling to keep his
balance amid a wave of mini-scandals and bad press days.
The normally composed governor seemed rattled yesterday when asked what
he would say to core supporters who may have begun to question his
judgment. "Don't give up on me yet," he said.
Many grass-roots supporters haven't; they remain fiercely loyal to the
chief executive they helped elect. His missteps, they say, were at worst
innocent blunders that should not eclipse his positive agenda.
"I myself and people I talk to around here are just as strong," said
Paul Hush, a campaign volunteer from Brewster. "They still see a real
person behind all these stories and are convinced he's going to be a
wonderful governor."
But there are emerging hints of displeasure and unease among some
supporters.
"He was going to shake things up," said Lisa Willis, 36, of Waltham, who
voted for Patrick. "I knew he was a lawyer and he had money, but he
seemed to be able to talk to people and to take an interest in a
grassroots approach. Now, that all seems to be gone. It was a facade."
This is supposed to be Patrick's honeymoon period. But after a quiet
first month in office, February was overtaken by stories about the
$1,100-a-month Cadillac, the helicopter trips, the fancy drapes, the
pricey aide hired to handle his wife's schedule. March began with his
acknowledgement of a call he made on behalf of a controversial mortgage
company to a large bank with significant dealings with the state.
Yesterday, the Massachusetts Republican Party asked the state Ethics
Commission to investigate Patrick's Feb. 20 call to Citigroup.
William G. Mayer, a political science professor at Northeastern
University, said that if Patrick continues to make unwise decisions, not
even the strongest grass-roots network in recent memory can shield him
from the consequences.
"If you make a call that is purely illegitimate, or you seem to be using
the resources of your office to pamper yourself, merely saying 'I've got
these people who support me on the issues' is not going to carry a whole
lot of weight," he said. "A grass-roots network, however extensive it
is, represents a very, very narrow slice of the electorate."
As a relatively unknown, first-time candidate with little money to
launch his campaign, Patrick built a strong sense of loyalty among many
of his supporters during 20 months on the trail, getting to know them at
fund-raisers, town hall-style meetings, and house parties. By Election
Day, his grass-roots network had grown into a powerful machine of
thousands of volunteers who raised millions of dollars, propelling him
to victory.
Candidate Patrick tried to steel his supporters to eventual
disappointment, repeatedly warning them that he was not perfect.
Yesterday, asked what he would tell supporters who had begun to doubt
him, he said: "What I said all through the campaign, which is that I
will make mistakes, but don't give up on me, because I don't intend to
give up on the people of Massachusetts."
Most of the numerous hardcore supporters interviewed this week said
their faith had not been shaken. They viewed Patrick's phone call as the
forgivable mistake of a political neophyte. They also tended to see the
previous stories about Patrick's office decor and vehicles as unfair
stories overplayed by a voracious media.
"I just know that this is such a huge human being, a deep human being,
and one that has the best intentions for the Commonwealth and for the
whole concept of civic engagement," said Susan Wadia-Ells, a holistic
health educator from Manchester-by-the-Sea who volunteered on the
campaign. "There are so many people who are dying to trip him up and
give him a really bad bloody nose because he's trying to change some
systems here. And this is only the beginning."
But over the last couple of days, some of the liberal bloggers who were
Patrick's strongest champions in cyberspace sharply criticized the
governor for calling Citigroup, which has extensive business with the
state, on behalf of the parent company of the controversial subprime
mortgage lender Ameriquest, on whose board Patrick sat until last year.
"He simply cannot advocate to a company that does business with the
state, on behalf of a company that does business with the state, and
with whom he has a prior relationship in this way," wrote David Kravitz,
another cofounder of Blue Mass. Group. "At best, it's a major-league
'appearance of impropriety,' and he of all people should understand why
such appearances should be avoided. And, frankly, I wonder whether this
doesn't tread dangerously close to the dividing line between appearances
and the other thing."
Patrick himself seemed out of sorts yesterday morning, a day after the
Ameriquest story broke. During a breakfast speech to the Massachusetts
High Technology Council in Burlington, he uncharacteristically stumbled
over a few sentences. A few self-deprecating jokes fell flat. At one
point, he lapsed into coarse language as he urged business leaders to
get involved in government rather than "spend all day ... bitching and
moaning on the outside about what's wrong with the state of government."
When he spoke with reporters afterward , Patrick acknowledged he was
worried that his missteps may have cost him some of the momentum from
his victory.
"Of course I'm concerned about that," he said. "But it's a four-year
term. We have a very ambitious agenda. We have put a lot of powerful
proposals on the table; there are more to come. We just have to keep
plugging and learning every day."
Later this month, Patrick will relaunch his political committee and an
accompanying website and plans a fund-raiser.
About a week ago, the governor's former campaign aides also began
hosting a series of 14 "kitchen Cabinet" meetings with the campaign's
most active volunteers to discuss how they can stay involved and how the
governor's organization can assist their efforts. Liz Morningstar,
executive director of the committee, said neither the kitchen Cabinet
nor the committee's revival are related to Patrick's recent troubles.
The Boston Herald
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Moonbats enter their blue phase
By Margery Eagan
The moonbats are in mourning. In meltdown. In the muck, the mire.
De-mooned. De-pressed. De-swooned. Ma-rooned.
Pass the Xanax, please! What happened to Divine Deval, man of hope, the
man who was to restore holier-than-thou progressives -- dare I say
liberals -- to disinfect the Corner Office after 16 years of nasty,
greedy, let-them-eat-cake-crumbs-and-like-it Republicans?
“It started with the (inaugural) parties,” says The Uber Moonbat of
Roslindale, Erik Gehring. I first met him last fall, on his Trek 700
bike, Centre Street, Jamaica Plain, the belly of the moonbat beast by
the Blissful Monkey Yoga Studio, the Wonder Spice Cafe, Boomerangs Aids
Action Thrift Shop and the Milky Way Lounge with the Bob Marley mural.
“Then,” says Moonbat Gehring, “it was the drapes, the DeVille. Then you
have the helicopter. He’s living large. Now this,” he says, as in a full
scuba dive into the tank of predatory, sleazy corporate America.
“I don’t know what’s going on. I am perplexed,” says the legendary Vince
Petryk, owner of the equally legendary J.P. Licks Homemade Ice Cream,
kosher now for eight years at the mother ship J.P. cafe. There, many a
moonbat first dreamed Deval before the gas fireplace, wired and iPod-ed,
with their sustaining bowl of oatmeal cookie, lactose free.
Says Erik, who thinks it’s quite possible the NSA listens in on his
phone calls, “I hate to sound all schmaltzy about the hope thing, but I
was expecting a lot better.”
Says Vince, who has spent a lifetime voting against people. “(Mayor)
Menino and Patrick are about the only people I ever voted for.”
And now -- now? Did anyone see this coming?
Alas for DeVille Deval, it’s not just the moonbats -- you know,
passionate recyclers who think Halliburton just might have plotted 9/11
-- who are, to put it mildly, flummoxed today.
It’s also guys like state Rep. Michael Rodrigues, a conservative Fall
River Democrat who first met Deval nearly two years ago. By election
time, he could barely contain the accolades. “Inspirational magnetism,”
he said then. “Rock star status. Thinking about (a speech Patrick gave
at a New Bedford rally) it gives me the chills,” he said. The chills!
But yesterday? “I scratch my head to think, who’s he listening to?” said
Rodrigues. “Who are his advisers? Is he getting advice?” Rodrigues is
hoping for the best: that the man he still believes “has the intellect
and desire to be a great governor,” can put this mess behind him as
little more, he said, than gubernatorial “hiccups.”
But then of course there are the naysayers, who are gleeful. The ones
with the “Don’t Blame Me I Voted for Muffy” bumper stickers. The ones
who ridiculed those of us, including me, as we jumped all starry-eyed on
the Deval bandwagon.
He was our new and fearless leader, unbought and unbossed, as Christy
used to say, about Christy. Forget about it, the naysayers sneered. We
were voting with our feelings, like a bunch of girly men. We were
refusing to look too hard at the Taj Deval manse in the Berkshires or
the multiple Patrick revisions of the Ben LaGuer story -- lest we see
what we didn’t want to see.
We were a bunch of patsies, basically. And what are we now, seduced, and
abandoned?And it’s not even been three months?
Well yesterday, when reporters tracked him down after a speech in
Burlington, Deval Patrick told us not to give up on him, yet. He
apologized, again.
I guess that’s the good news.
The bad: We in the swoon seats have had to snap out of our reverie.
As for the moonbats? Their innocence is lost. An American tragedy.
The Boston Globe
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Power struggles on Beacon Hill
By Joan Vennochi
Power has a mind of its own. On Beacon Hill, you can almost feel it
deciding to switch horses.
The new governor is learning the job. The Senate president is allegedly
job hunting, while the speaker of the House settles in.
So, where's the power headed?
Governor Deval Patrick still has "the biceps," but they are weakened by
his recent stumbles, said Tom Finneran, the former House speaker turned
WRKO talk show host. The expectation that Senate President Robert
Travaglini will soon leave for a private-sector job weakens his Beacon
Hill power base. Meanwhile, House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi represents
"stability," said Finneran, whose loyalties naturally flow to the House.
Monitoring power is more than a parlor game. He who holds the power sets
the agenda -- that's what's at stake for Massachusetts and that's why
Patrick's early missteps are so costly. The governor's willingness to
apologize is appreciated, but apologies alone do not give him back what
he lost.
"It's a four-year term and I have a very ambitious agenda," Patrick said
yesterday after an appearance at the Massachusetts High Technology
Council.
Here's his problem. Patrick's ability to execute an ambitious agenda is
already diminished and he has no one to blame but himself. He made the
decisions to lease a Cadillac, go with the expensive office drapes, and
hire a $72,000 assistant for his wife. It was his call to contact
Citigroup on behalf of a lending company on whose board he once served.
The people may be willing to give him another chance, as he implored
them yesterday: "I will make mistakes, but don't give up on me, because
I don't intend to give up on Massachusetts," he begged.
But the Massachusetts Republican Party already submitted a letter to the
Massachusetts Ethics Commission requesting an investigation into
Patrick's actions on behalf of ACC Capital Holdings. Such an
investigation, if undertaken, is not something Patrick or any governor
needs-- just ask Jane Swift, whose tenure as acting governor was clouded
by an ethics investigation.
During the past 16 years of Republican governors, a great deal of power
resided in the Legislature, which is controlled by Democrats. It shifted
between the House and Senate, depending on the leader. The Senate under
William Bulger controlled much of the policy debate; so did the House
under Finneran. With a Democrat back in the corner office, the people
who elected Patrick had the right to believe he would have sufficient
clout to push his priorities -- and theirs -- on Beacon Hill.
If Patrick does not do something very quickly to regain the momentum,
particularly with legislators who supported him, he will lose control of
the issues he said he cared about during the campaign.
Travaglini's ongoing job quest helps Patrick a bit. The Senate is in
flux. As a longtime friend of the Senate president told me, "Once you
say you're leaving, instead of saying ' Good morning,' people say '
When?"' The timing is still a questionmark. Travaglini is believed to be
in the running for a job heading the Massachusetts Hospital Association,
but it's not a done deal. Meanwhile, if Travaglini is pitching himself
as a lobbyist for any industry, it would help to show a positive
relationship with Patrick -- and that might also help Patrick push his
agenda in the Senate.
But DiMasi has the most potential to call upcoming political shots,
particularly regarding the budget. That, too, may help Patrick, since
the two share some liberal ideology. It was DiMasi who insisted that
business step up and pay a portion of the cost of expanding healthcare
coverage in Massachusetts. On the other hand, DiMasi has opposed efforts
to expand gambling in Massachusetts, while Patrick seems open to the
prospect.
I agree with Finneran. DiMasi's the man with the most opportunity to
grow his power, while Patrick and Travaglini try to keep theirs from
galloping away.
The Boston Herald
Thursday, March 8, 2007
A Boston Herald editorial
Beneath surface, this one still stinks
Contrary to appearances, Gov. Deval Patrick is no babe in the political
woods.
No veteran of the Clinton-era political wars in Washington -- not to
mention an 18-month campaign in rough-and-tumble Massachusetts -- can
credibly use the “Aw, shucks -- I’m new at this!” response to such a
long string of troublesome mistakes.
Especially not when the mistakes are so obviously borne of arrogance,
not ignorance -- and are entirely of his own making.
Patrick apologized again yesterday for the phone call he made in
February to a top official at Citigroup, Inc. on behalf of ACC Capital
Holdings, parent company of Ameriquest Mortgage, which was seeking a
financial bailout.
It has been duly noted that Ameriquest is licensed by the state and that
Citigroup does substantial business with the state.
Now it turns out the Ameriquest official who asked Patrick to make the
call was a campaign donor -- maxing out at $500 to the Patrick campaign
in 2006.
And the phone call came after a memo circulated through the governor’s
office that warned staff of potential conflicts when dealing with ACC
Capital, the company that owns Ameriquest which, until July, paid
Patrick handsomely to serve on its board.
Do as Patrick says, apparently, not as he does.
Just to be clear, there’s no such thing as a governor making that kind
of call in anything but his capacity as the commonwealth’s CEO, a lesson
Patrick said he has now learned.
But surely any lawyer on his staff could have saved him that painful
comeuppance. Any good media adviser, too. That is, had the governor
bothered to ask.
Yes, Patrick was saying all the right things yesterday: Big mistake,
lessons learned. But one wonders whether he actually believes it. After
all, his first response when contacted by The Boston Globe about the
phone call was to defend it.
Sorry, folks, but this one is not just an error in judgment. It’s not
about spending $12,000 for drapes while asking other departments to hold
back on buying paper clips.
This is not just about the appearance of impropriety.
This was improper -- period.
And the Ethics Commission ought to make that clear to the governor in no
uncertain terms.
The Boston Globe
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Patrick eases tone to reassure executives
Governor argues tax changes will be for the good of all
By Peter J. Howe
For two weeks Governor Deval L. Patrick has been talking tough about
cracking down on companies exploiting what he calls corporate tax
loopholes to save over $300 million a year in state taxes.
But hoping to soothe some hard feelings among Bay State business
leaders, Patrick yesterday assured a powerful association of high-tech
chief executives that he's not saying they're tax-evading scofflaws.
"I am not associating any moral judgments" with how companies are
interpreting the tax code, the governor said at the annual meeting of
the Massachusetts High Technology Council. He noted that when he was a
top attorney for Coca Cola Co. and Texaco Inc., he constantly hired tax
lawyers and accountants to find ways to shave tax bills.
"I am not talking about it being morally bad," Patrick said. "I am
talking about this as an aspect of modernizing the tax code so we can
make the kinds of investments we need to make for individuals and
corporations in the Commonwealth."
Every big-business association in the state, including the High Tech
Council, has blasted Patrick's seven proposed tax-code changes,
including higher taxes on multistate corporations operating in-state,
calling them job-killing tax hikes.
Even after hearing Patrick, the new council chairman, MKS Instruments
Inc. chief executive John Bertucci , said: "If you increase taxes, it is
certainly possible to imagine that businesses will be driven out of the
state or they'll be put in such a competitive disadvantage that they'll
stagnate and fail."
Bertucci said Patrick needs to consider how taxes affect business costs
in Massachusetts compared to not just other states but other countries
with much lower labor costs.
But Patrick, in his remarks, said he is confident his proposals won't
"hurt our ability to compete" and could actually help reduce tax burdens
on small and medium-size businesses that, he said, produce the most jobs
in the state. "Rarely do businesses make decisions about investment
based mainly on the tax code," Patrick said, but as part of an overall
equation that includes the quality of local education and
infrastructure.
Council president Christopher R. Anderson said he welcomed Patrick's
kinder, gentler tone -- but still thinks the governor needs to stop
using the word "loophole" because that "implies that you're doing
something you shouldn't be doing or that was completely unintended by
the law."
Despite the flap over the tax issues, a new survey by the council found
high-tech chief executives are feeling better about running a company in
the Bay State. A total of 75 percent call Massachusetts a good or
outstanding place to run a high-tech company, up from 70 percent last
year. More than two-thirds of respondents say their companies will add
jobs this year. But only 14 percent of CEOs -- who generally responded
before Patrick's tax and budget plans were revealed -- think the state
business climate is improving, down from 20 percent last year.
As a group, business leaders' top priorities for state policy makers,
according to the survey, are first implementing a long-term, tech-based
economic development strategy; second, improving education from
kindergarten through high school including higher academic standards and
better training for math and science teachers; and third, opposing new
taxes and ensuring tax policies make Massachusetts more competitive with
other states to attract businesses.
Their next most important priorities, in order, are lowering
unemployment insurance costs; improving transportation; strengthening
the University of Massachusetts system; promoting the biopharmaceutical
industry; and reforming medical malpractice insurance.
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