The Boston Globe
Wednesday, October 9, 2002
Many possibilities in 5-way debate tonight
By Mark Jurkowitz
Globe Staff
In a memorable moment during the last gubernatorial debate,
Republican candidate Mitt Romney remarked that voters could be "bored to tears" by more televised face-offs.
But Romney changed his mind, and tonight - facing a
distinctly different format and a far more crowded stage - the candidates will lock up in a debate that offers the prospect of
volatility, confusion, and confrontation. But it will almost certainly not be boring.
Tonight's event from 10:15 to 11:15 on WLVI-TV (Channel 56)
is the first general election debate to feature all five candidates on the ballot, and the first to ever include four
female gubernatorial hopefuls. It's an encounter expected to serve up an unpredictable mix of
personality, ideology, and strategy.
Former gubernatorial and congressional candidate George
Bachrach thinks the appearance of Libertarian Carla Howell, Green Party candidate Jill Stein, and Independent Barbara
Johnson creates potential peril for the front-runners, Romney and Democrat Shannon
O'Brien. "In the immortal words of Janis Joplin, `freedom's just another word for nothing left
to lose,"' he said. "And the beauty of these other candidates is that they're liberated."
"Anything can happen in that format. Anybody can say
anything," said veteran WBZ-TV political reporter John Henning. "I think that probably Shannon O'Brien will back away from
the fray a little and [Romney] might too. I think they'll both be a little more careful."
The debate will feature a dramatically different format from
the two recent face-offs between Romney and O'Brien. No opening or closing statements will be allowed. A single moderator,
political analyst Jon Keller, will pose a question to a candidate, then the others will be
allowed to answer, in sequence. After that, Keller will allow for a free-flowing
follow-up discussion before moving on to the next question.
Some analysts expect a debate with several subplots
featuring separate battles between Stein and O'Brien on the left, Romney and Howell on the right, and O'Brien and Romney in
the middle.
For the three candidates who do not represent major parties,
the forum offers a rare opportunity for desperately needed exposure to voters who may know little about them.
"This is a critical opening for us," said Stein. "It's obviously going to
be a challenge and it's only one hour. I look forward to really putting some good solutions on the table."
Johnson campaign manager Peter Van Oudenaren said that
during her "precious 10 minutes" of air time, Johnson wants voters to "be listening to her not as a curiosity, but as a
person who has something to say. Barbara has a different perspective than the other candidates on
the issues."
A statement from Howell said she would "contrast her 'small
government is beautiful' platform with the proposals of big government, high-tax Republican Mitt Romney and
Democrat Shannon O'Brien ... and contrast her pro-gun proposals ... with
Mitt Romney's and Shannon O'Brien's anti-gun positions."
For the front-runners, the five-person debate offers both
possibilities and pitfalls, with candidate interaction now a much more complex dynamic. "Obviously, it's more difficult
when you have five candidates as opposed to two," said O'Brien campaign manager Dwight
Robson. "After two debates with Mitt Romney, the two candidates were probably getting
fairly comfortable with each other. This is a very different environment ... I'm confident she
can distinguish herself from the four other candidates running for governor."
"There will be a new dynamic," said Romney deputy campaign
manager Eric Fehrnstrom. "The one thing we can say for certain is that there are fewer questions." He added that while
"Carla Howell has some pretty extreme ideas ... the main event will be
Romney-O'Brien," with the Republican stressing differences on economic policy with the Democrat.
Democratic political strategist Mary Anne Marsh, who worked
with O'Brien on past campaigns, said that no matter how many people are in front of the camera tonight, "there's
nothing that's going to end up helping the other three candidates. The
only influence the debates have on this race is if something dramatic happens to affect the polls. That only ends
up happening by something Mitt Romney or Shannon O'Brien does."
The debate was scheduled quickly. A day after O'Brien used
the Oct. 1 televised forum at Worcester Polytechnic Institute to ask Romney to participate in more than the three
scheduled debates, he agreed and his campaign contacted WLVI, which had
standing invitations to all the candidates to appear at a forum on the station.
A WB network affiliate, WLVI has already hosted debates
featuring the Democratic gubernatorial candidates, the Republican lieutenant governor foes, and the candidates for
state treasurer and Suffolk County district attorney. Still, landing the exclusive rights to air this
contest live is a coup for a station that typically attracts roughly 70,000 households
to its 10 p.m. newscast. (Tonight's debate will also be simulcast on WBZ-AM radio and may be
broadcast live on C-SPAN).
The reason for the odd 10:15 start time has nothing to do
with politics. Tonight's 9 p.m. premiere of "Birds of Prey" - a show featuring young female superheroes - runs 70 minutes.
The debate will also encounter stiff prime-time competition from two new medical series on
ABC and CBS, NBC's venerable "Law & Order," and a baseball playoff game on Fox.
The Oct. 1 debate, which was carried by Channels 2, 4, 5 and
7, and cable outlet NECN, attracted about 300,000 households.
One final wildcard is Keller, who is known for popping
unusual and unexpected questions. During the recent Democratic gubernatorial debate, Keller asked the primary foes to recall a
lie they told in the past and discuss what they learned from the experience. And, in the 1996
presidential campaign, he stumped Lamar Alexander by asking whether he knew the price of
a quart of milk and a dozen eggs.
Asked what the candidates should expect from him tonight,
Keller said, "they're wasting their time if they're wandering through the grocery store memorizing prices."
For his part, Keller said, "I want to see a spontaneous
interaction between the candidates and get a clear look at how they respond to that challenge."
* * * *
After tonight, 2 more debates
By Globe Staff
WLVI-TV (Channel 56) will host a debate tonight from 10:15
to 11:15, featuring the five gubernatorial candidates: Republican Mitt Romney, Democrat Shannon O`Brien, Libertarian
Carla Howell, Green Party candidate Jill Stein, and independent Barbara Johnson.
After tonight, two more debates are scheduled. One,
sponsored by New England Cable News and a media consortium that includes the Globe, will be at a still undetermined time
during the week of October 21-25 and also include all five candidates.
Another, sponsored by the Boston Herald, is slated for Oct. 29, but the paper has not announced whether it
intends to invite all the candidates. Both will be televised live by a number of
local outlets.
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The Boston Herald
Wednesday, October 9, 2002
Taxing questions must be asked in tonight's debate
by Howie Carr
Will somebody at tonight's TV debate please mention property
taxes and Prop 2½?
Forget all this touchy-feely stuff about their deeply flawed
personalities. Make Mitt 'n' Shannon and the other females whose names I can't remember talk about something
important, namely, our wallets.
For those of you not familiar with Proposition 2½, let me
ask you a question about your local property taxes.
Do you think you're paying too much or too little?
Too much? Well, consider how much more you'd be paying if
the local hacks could still jack up your municipality's property taxes without asking the voters first.
Basically, what Prop 2½ does is require the local hacks
to get a thumbs-up or thumbs-down from the voters before they hike property taxes. Not the Town Meeting, not
the city council or the board of aldermen, but the people who actually pay the
onerous bills.
Can you imagine how much the pols loathe Prop 2½?
For almost 22 years now, how many of their nieces, nephews
and close personal friends have been denied their rightful place at the trough because of Prop
2½?
For most of the past 22 years, 2½ has been a sacred cow -
which means the pols have been too timid to go after it. But if there's a Democrat in the Corner Office in January, well,
stand by for a barrage.
At least Jane Swift is technically a Republican, even if she
did tell ABC News last week, "I will celebrate the morning after the election if we have made history in electing women
governors." Hmmmmm. Forget her tepid endosement of Mitt, who do you think Swifty is
really voting for?
But even as a Republican-in-name-only, Swifty would have had
to veto any attempt to crank property taxes up into the stratosphere, and Tommy Taxes must have thought there were
still enough votes out there to sustain the veto or he surely would have put an
anti-2½ bill on her desk.
Now Tommy Taxes is with Shannon O'Brien, and everyone in the
Beacon Hill gang is sharpening their knives, waiting to carve up 2½. Sure, the Democrats may all genuflect
toward 2½, but where is their credibility? Look at what they've already
done to charitable deductions, the income-tax cut, Clean Elections, cigarette taxes, tolls, Registry fees, etc.
They haven't taxed us back into the Stone Age quite yet, but
the Bronze Age is within sight.
If Shannon wins, Tommy Taxes will announce with a long face
that in order to save Medicaid (or something else), he must slash local aid to cities and towns. That's the bad news, he
will say. But the good news, at least for the hackerama, is that the Legislature will gut
2½.
But even then they'll never admit that they're "gutting" it.
What the solons will claim instead is they're just giving
the cities and towns some budgetary "flexibility," should they decide to exercise it. And of course you senior citizens
shouldn't worry, because the abatements will make sure only the people who are working two or three
jobs to make ends meet will get pulverized by the endless tax increases.
And that's just what was happening before Prop 2½ was
passed, by the voters, back in 1980, when the Legislature still respected the voters' mandates.
Pre-2½, taxpayers were being ground into the dust. And
they protested. Then-Mayor Kevin White couldn't set foot in certain neighborhoods in Boston because the residents were
so angry about their skyrocketing property-tax bills.
Of course, if Mitt prevails, then the Beacon Hill crew will
just put Plan B into effect. Plan B involves, among other things, casino gambling in Bristol County and slot machines at
the racetracks. Why do you think Swifty set up a new "gambling commission" last Friday? If Mitt
the Mormon rides into town on his buckboard in January, no way will he sign off on Vegas
North. So if Mitt wins, look for a special legislative session to be convened in November for
the purpose of stealing everything that's not nailed down, which ain't much, after
Swifty's 18 months of serial kleptomania.
You don't believe me about the feeding frenzy? Well, maybe
you didn't believe me two weeks ago when I told you Swifty was voting for Shannon.
Howie Carr's radio show can be heard every weekday afternoon on
WRKO AM 680, WHYN AM 560, WGAN AM 560, WEIM AM 1280, WXTK 95.1 FM or online at
howiecarr.org.
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The Boston Globe
Wednesday, October 9, 2002
O'Brien's former CEO pleads guilty in tax case
By Stephanie Ebbert
Globe Staff
The former CEO of a bankrupt health care company where
gubernatorial candidate Shannon O'Brien worked as a vice president pleaded guilty yesterday to filing a false tax return
and overcharging Medicare and Medicaid.
Frederick Thacher, who headed both the psychiatric hospital
Jackson Brook Institute in South Portland, Maine, and its parent company, Wellesly-based Community Care Systems
Inc., where O'Brien worked, was also charged with violating federal tax laws by failing to
declare his consulting fees as income.
US Attorney Paula Silsby said Medicare and Medicaid programs
paid excessive sums to Jackson Brook as a result of Thacher's failure to disclose he had received $350,000 in
consulting fees from the company that provided physician services to the
hospital.
O'Brien, the Democratic nominee for governor, worked as a
vice president of external affairs for Community Care Systems from early 1995 - after she lost a run for treasurer - to
January 1997 and consulted for a few months afterward.
Though O'Brien has acknowledged she knew the company was in
financial trouble, she has said that she was unaware of any illegal activity and was not privy to details. She was let go
from her full-time job in January 1997, but O'Brien spokesman Adrian Durbin called it a
mutual decision; she worked part-time as a consultant for the company into the summer.
"By mutual agreement, I left CCS after two years because it
wasn't a good fit either for me or for the company," O'Brien said in a statement. "I am glad that authorities have brought
this matter to successful closure."
O'Brien failed to include the experience on the resume she
used in her campaign literature, leading aides to her Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, to criticize the omission.
Yesterday, Romney's spokesman suggested O'Brien is less
eager to root out private-sector mismanagement than she is to claim political credit for "blowing the whistle on the Big
Dig."
"It's revealing that Shannon O'Brien's only significant
experience outside the State House was as a senior executive with a bankrupt health care company whose CEO committed fraud
and put profits ahead of patients," said Eric Fehrnstrom. "I think it's fair to ask Treasurer O'Brien,
'Where was your whistle then?"'
Durbin countered that Romney was being hypocritical and
projecting onto his opponent criticism that had been raised about Romney. Romney headed Bain Capital, a venture capital
firm that buys and sells companies, sometimes resulting in layoffs.
"Could there be a clearer case of the pot calling the kettle
black?" said Durbin. "Throughout his business career, Mitt Romney has left a trail of cut benefits, layoffs, and
shareholder lawsuits, while pocketing millions for himself. His campaign's comments are disgraceful."
O'Brien has said she did not list all her prior jobs on her
campaign site. She also said in a statement that she owned no stock in the company and was not involved in decision-making
on either health care or finances.
Her duties included traveling to Jackson Brook Institute in
Maine and arranging meetings with officials there. She also met with health insurers to try to secure contracts and, as a
former legislator, served as a liaison between Massachusetts legislators and Community Care
representatives.
A fellow vice president, Bill TenHoor of Duxbury, who worked
in business development during O'Brien's tenure, said they were unaware of the depth of the financial problems - and
the allegations of mismanagement of Medicaid funds. "None of us knew there were these
kind of problems," he said. "We knew the company was having financial difficulties, and we
were trying to turn that around."
Thacher was prosecuted by the US Attorney in Maine and is
expected to be sentenced by the end of the year. He faces up to four years in prison and a fine of $350,000.
The plea centered on the tax year 1997, when he had also
failed to report his income.
Thacher's lawyer, Peter DeTroy, said Thacher had been
distracted and amended his return to reflect the income. "There were allegations that he had deliberately, intentionally not
done it, and in the end we pled guilty to failure to report that income," he said.
Community Care allegedly funneled $15.5 million in Medicaid
payments from the failing Jackson Brook Institute to its Massachusetts operations during O'Brien's time at the
company.
The state of Maine lost millions when the Jackson Brook
Institute went bankrupt in 1998. Community Care Systems also owed more than $1 million to Massachusetts state agencies
when it collapsed.
Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.
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