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Associated Press |
| The four candidates for governor square off in their last televised debate. |
Charges fly in fiery debate in governor’s race
Patriot Ledger State House Bureau / Nov. 2, 2006
BOSTON - The issue of truthfulness is increasingly emerging in the final days of the race for Massachusetts governor.
Republican Kerry Healey accused Democrat Deval Patrick of flat-out lying about his work as a prosecuting attorney in the final live televised candidates’ debate last night.
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Associated Press |
Kerry Healey |
“Deval, this isn’t about whether or not you were a prosecutor,” Healey said. “It’s about telling the truth, and that is something that a governor must do ... I will always tell the truth.”
Patrick, defending his work as a top prosecutor in the U.S. Department of Justice, said not all prosecutorial work is conducted in a courtroom.
“She doesn’t understand what prosecutors’ offices actually do,” Patrick said following the contentious debate inside the New England Conservatory’s historic Jordan Hall. “My job was to approve everything that went on in those courtrooms, including what charges to file and against whom and what sentencing decisions. I did that job.”
Patrick added that Healey has run a negative campaign and sought to distort and discredit his record.
“You spend all this time trying to distract us all from a record of failed leadership,” Patrick said during the debate, singling out last week’s revelation that the Romney-Healey administration hired embattled Big Dig contractor Bechtel/Parsons-Brinckerhoff to investigate its own work.
“You are better than the campaign you have run,” Patrick told Healey. At another point, he said to her: “Quit trying to scare people into voting for you.”
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Associated Press |
Deval Patrick |
Facing a 25-point deficit in the polls with less than a week’s until next Tuesday’ election, Healey is accusing Patrick of planning to raise taxes to pay for his ambitious agenda and to reward unions and other special interest groups that are backing his candidacy.
“Four years of Deval Patrick as governor is going to mean higher taxes, it’s going to mean weaker (criminal laws) and weaker standards in our schools,” Healey said following the debate.
Independent Christy Mihos accused the Romney-Healey administration of concealing cost overruns on the $14.6 billion Big Dig until after Tuesday’s election.
“Right after the election, when the cost and schedule update of the Big Dig comes forward, they’re going to announce someplace between a $500 million to a $1 billion cost overrun of the project, and you’re going to have to pay for it,” Mihos predicted.
Mihos also faulted Healey for property tax increases and for her plan to eliminate tolls on the Massachusetts Turnpike while backing a planned MBTA fare hike. “Is there anything you care about in your soul?” Mihos asked. “When government lies to people when it tells you we haven’t raised your fees, fines and taxes, and then you look at your tax bill ... why can’t you tell them the truth?”
Mihos accused Patrick of accepting contributions from special interests tied to the Big Dig, and said he’s the only candidate who has sought to expose mismanagement in the nation’s largest public works project.
“I’m just trying to appeal to the people that there’s one candidate in this race that has stood up for them time and time again, and taken a beating for it, and it’s myself,” said Mihos, a former member of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, which oversees the mega-project.
Green-Rainbow candidate Grace Ross scolded Healey for claiming she is the toughest candidate on crime, citing a Healey campaign ad that accused Patrick of being soft on an accused rapist. “Are you not the person who ran an ad that re-traumatized the women I know who have been raped?”
Ross, the only nonmillionaire in the race, said following the debate she’s the only candidate speaking up for the working class in Massachusetts.
“The people of Massachusetts know that I’m real and they know that when I say something I actually mean it,” Ross said.
The candidates will meet in a final, non-televised debate Friday morning at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth on regional South Coast issues.
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Last licks: Gov. candidates
enter final TV debate
Ledger State House Bureau / Nov. 1, 2006
BOSTON - Kerry Healey will play nice, Deval Patrick will stay above the fray and Christy Mihos and Grace Ross will try to shake things up one last time.
Tonight the four candidates for governor will face each other in the final televised debate of the campaign.
| The Patriot Ledger endorses Deval Patrick for Governor |
Political analysts say the candidates know what they have to do with six days to go before Tuesday’s election.
Patrick, the Democratic nominee from Milton, holds a wide lead in the polls over Healey, the Republican lieutenant governor, with Independent candidate Mihos and Green-Rainbow candidate Ross far behind.
Patrick will stick to his positive tone and will refuse to be drawn into a debate over the controversies that threatened to derail him earlier in the month.
Healey, who temporarily narrowed Patrick’s lead by attacking him over crime, taxes and illegal immigration, will adopt a friendlier, more issues-oriented style.
Her job is to appeal to the dwindling number of voters who have not yet made up their minds, and to ask those who have decided for one last chance to win them over.
Cyndi Roy, the state Democratic Party’s communications director, said Healey knows her strategy backfired.
“The way you run your campaign tells a lot about your character and your leadership style,” Roy said.
Republicans accuse Patrick of consistently refusing to be specific about his plans for running the state.
“Deval has been playing it safe and avoiding specifics, to the point where voters are starting to notice,” said Healey advisor Dominick Ianno. “He really doesn’t say much.”
In last week’s debate, Healey abruptly halted her accusations that Patrick is soft of crime and that he was wrong to support freedom for rapist Benjamin LaGuer. Instead, she stepped up her charge that Patrick is too vague.
“Playing it safe in the fourth quarter could be dangerous,” warned Republican strategist Ron Kaufman, a Quincy native and Republican national committeeman.
“The voters don’t know this guy,” he said. “They like the suit and the package but they really don’t have an idea what’s inside. He risks walking into Election Day with no one really knowing anything about him.”
Republicans also complain that Mihos and Ross have drawn attention away from the major party candidates.
Mihos, a former Republican, has faulted Republican leadership for failing to expose shoddy Big Dig workmanship and for allowing property taxes to skyrocket, while Ross has deflected Healey’s call for an income tax cut by saying it will largely benefit the state’s wealthiest residents.
“The biggest trouble with the debates so far is that there hasn’t been a debate between the two candidates who could be governor,” said Charley Manning of Hull, a longtime Republican consultant. “To have half the time taken up by candidates who are on the ballot but have no chance to be governor has made for less of an impact than we’ve seen in past campaigns.”
David Gergen, a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, also wants to see a head-to-head match-up between Patrick and Healey. He moderated the Faneuil Hall debate earlier in the campaign and said the hour-long session was too short for four candidates.
“You couldn’t go as deep as you might go if you had two people,” Gergen said. “I was having a hard time keeping them in the time frame.”
Democrats say that limiting it to major party candidates would be unfair.
“Deval has said from the very beginning that it’s not fair to exclude people who did the work to get where they are right now,” Roy said. “It was Kerry Healey who set the terms of these debates from the beginning.”
Political observers say Healey’s call for a one-on-one debate in the waning days of the campaign smacks of a desperation tactic. Last spring, Healey refused to debate until after the Democratic primary in September, and called for debates with all four candidates present.
,Jim Millikan, associate professor of political science at Stonehill College, said Healey is a recent convert to inclusion.
“If you’re ahead, you minimize political damage,” Millikan said. “You don’t want to give the opposition a chance to land any blows.”
Millikan said Patrick’s debate presence is consistent with the rest of his campaign: “What you see is what you get.”
Paul Watanabe of Weymouth, a University of Massachusetts-Boston political science professor, said Healey has tried a variety of stances during the debates, moving from aggressive to more issues-oriented.
“That’s usually the sign of someone who believes they are trailing and needs to fire on all cylinders,” Watanabe said.
“Kerry Healey is stuck with having tried virtually everything and not being able to break through.”
Tom Benner may be reached at tbenner@ledger.com.
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Healey, Patrick search
for votes
west of Boston
Associated Press / Nov. 1, 2006
HUDSON - Gubernatorial candidates Deval Patrick and Kerry Healey launched a final push for votes in central and western Massachusetts, and Healey predicted that she will do well in traditionally Democratic areas of the state.
“I’m going to campaign in every region of the state. I’m not going to give up any area,” the Republican lieutenant governor said yesterday in Hudson before she headed west to campaign at a Springfield restaurant.
Patrick, the Democratic nominee, planned to host a community meeting in Amherst later in the day. He was scheduled to campaign today in North Adams and Pittsfield before returning to Boston for an evening debate.
As the race entered its final week with Healey trailing by double-digits in recent polls, she said she expects to make inroads in fishing communities and Democratic strongholds like Gloucester and New Bedford. She said Patrick offended voters there during a September debate when he said the communities have been hurt by unfair federal fishing regulations, but that they also suffer from a lack of treatment options for “very serious” drug and alcohol addictions.
“The fishing community is strongly with me,” Healey said. “They were deeply offended by Deval Patrick’s comments characterizing their community as being plagued with drug abuse and alcoholism. The only thing the community is plagued with is terrible federal regulations that are trying to drive them out of business.”
Healey slammed Patrick as being beholden to special-interest groups, noting that the Massachusetts Teachers Association and the Service Employees International Union have been airing TV ads on his behalf.
“People need to ask the question, ‘What are they going to get in return?’ You don’t spend $4 million if you’re not expecting this to pay off for you,” Healey said, referring to a report in the Republican of Springfield yesterday that said unions were paying that sum in special advertising for Patrick.
Patrick spoke to several hundred students at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst at Hicks Cage. Patrick struck a popular chord when he noted that mandatory fees at the school exceed its tuition.
Patrick said one remedy is to create an endowment for public colleges and universities through a bond bill, the way California did for stem cell research. He said he didn’t know how big the bond would be.
“That is how the private colleges and universities build themselves, by creating a nucleus that attracts other grants and the researchers,” he said.
Patrick dismissed Healey’s latest criticism and said he had no control over ads produced by unions or other groups.
Meanwhile, independent candidate Christy Mihos visited public schools in Stoneham and Bolton. He and Green-Rainbow candidate Grace Ross have been languishing in single digits in recent polls showing Patrick leading Healey by roughly 25 points.
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Candidates for governor
talk up their economic plans
Associated Press / Oct. 31, 2006
FRAMINGHAM - Launching their final full week of campaigning for governor, Deval Patrick and Kerry Healey both emphasized their economic platforms at business-oriented forums yesterday.
Addressing a coalition of business leaders in Framingham, Healey, the Republican lieutenant governor, said Massachusetts taxpayers need a GOP governor to counterbalance the Democratic Legislature’s penchant for taxing and spending.
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Associated Press |
| Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey speaks at a campaign appearance with state Rep. Jeffrey Perry, R-Sandwich, left, in front of the public library in Sandwich. |
“The taxpayers need to recognize this: What they’ve had in the corner office for the past 16 years is a stop sign,” she said, referring to the fact that Republicans have held the governor’s office since 1990. “In a democracy you need two voices. We need some balance.”
Healey told a group of MetroWest business leaders that Democrats on Beacon Hill can’t wait for Patrick to take office if he wins.
“The Legislature expects Deval Patrick to be a rubber stamp for whatever it is they want,” she said.
Patrick, speaking in Franklin to Dean College students and faculty members at a Chamber of Commerce forum, said Massachusetts does not effectively train its students to fit the work force needed by its businesses.
“The best of our community colleges are connected to the business community,” he said, adding that he wants to promote more links between the business and academic worlds.
At the Framingham event, Healey said she favors targeted tax-break incentives to attract new industries. She also proposed getting Massachusetts businesses more involved in coming up with a school curriculum geared, in part, toward producing a homegrown work force tailored to the state’s needs.
Toward that end, Healey said the state should adopt a loan-forgiveness plan for students in state colleges who agree to pursue academic degrees in high demand by industry - degrees in science and engineering, for example.
She said businesses and the state would assume the responsibility for repaying the loans if the students graduated and committed to working for in-state companies.
During a question-and-answer period, Patrick again defended his stance on illegal immigration. He said he has favored issuing driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants because it would help law enforcement officials keep track of who was in the country.
“We ought to know who is here. We ought to have their names, addresses and photographs,” he said.
He also acknowledged that a new federal identification program may more effectively deal with the issue.
Healey came under fire yesterday from some members and advisers of the Governor’s Commission on Sexual and Domestic Violence, a panel that Healey heads. About 18 members of the commission sent a letter to Healey accusing her of “a fundamental lack of understanding and sensitivity to the needs and vulnerabilities of crime victims” and calling on her to step down from the panel.
The letter pointed to a Healey television ad featuring grainy images of a woman walking alone in a deserted parking garage. The ad was meant to highlight Patrick’s past support for a convicted rapist.
Healey campaign officials dismissed the letter, saying others on the commission, which has about 300 members and advisers, have supported her.
Healey, who is trying to close a wide gap in the polls with Patrick, got a boost when she won the endorsement of the Boston Herald yesterday. The paper announced the endorsement on its Web site.
Herald publisher Patrick J. Purcell called Healey “clearly the strongest candidate for governor,” saying “on every education issue, on health care, and on taxes, Healey is thoughtful, clear and principled.”
Earlier in the day, several prominent Republicans who support Patrick held a news conference at the State House. The list included several officials from the administration of former Gov. William Weld.
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GREG DERR/The Patriot Ledger |
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| Deval Patrick, Democratic candidate for governor, talked with The Patriot Ledger editorial board yesterday. | ||
Patrick backs tougher MCAS standards
Vows to build on program he says has helped students
Patriot Ledger State House Bureau / Oct. 31, 2006
BOSTON - Democrat Deval Patrick says that if elected governor, he’ll want a new state education commissioner to continue toughening the high-stakes MCAS test that high school students have to pass to graduate.
In a Patriot Ledger editorial board meeting, Patrick praised the state’s outgoing education commissioner, David Driscoll, for his work in making the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System test a statewide graduation requirement.
In searching for a replacement for Driscoll, who is 64 and announced his retirement yesterday, Patrick said he will look for “someone who is first of all willing to honor the progress that we’ve made, instead of just starting from scratch, because we have done some good things in education reform.”
Patrick said yesterday he supports efforts to increase MCAS passing scores and to add history and science to the test, as does his Republican opponent, Kerry Healey. Independent candidate Christy Mihos and Green-Rainbow candidate Grace Ross want to eliminate MCAS as a graduation requirement.
Some parents and educators oppose the MCAS requirement, saying it fails to measure a student’s overall learning and that it discourages students already at-risk of dropping out of school.
Patrick said he became sold on MCAS as a graduation requirement after speaking to parents in low-income communities.
“They said, ‘Our kids have been passed along, they can’t read, they can’t complete a sentence,’” Patrick said. “They see the MCAS as an accountability for their kid.”
The Massachusetts Teachers Association, the state’s largest teachers union, opposes the MCAS graduation requirement, but supports Patrick’s campaign for governor and is spending about $2.3 million in pro-Patrick advertisements. MTA president Anne Wass said the union supports MCAS as a diagnostic tool but not as a graduation requirement.
“We may not agree with Deval on every single issue, but we appreciate his willingness to listen to educators and everyone on the front line with students,” said Wass, a Marshfield resident and a sixth-grade Hanover teacher on leave from that job.
The Healey campaign says Patrick’s support for MCAS is lukewarm, given his financial backing from the teacher’s union.
The front-runner heading into the Nov. 7 election, Patrick declined yesterday to criticize House Speaker Sal DiMasi for getting a lobbyist’s help in buying two luxury cars for tens of thousands of dollars less than their estimated value.
“I was disappointed, and I think the ethics commission will look into it and should,” Patrick said. “There is a different kind of tone I want to set in the executive branch, I think there is kind of a Caesar’s wife behavior (above reproach) that we have to have.”
Patrick refused to name specific cuts he’d like to make to the state budget, despite his claim that he can find some $730 million in “savings and efficiencies” in it. Patrick said if elected, he wants to negotiate budget cuts directly with lawmakers, and not through a newspaper.
Patrick said he will raise state revenues by cracking down on Medicare fraud - which amounts to $500 million a year, a state audit shows - and enforcing the prevailing wage law, something he says will mean $200 million a year for the state.
Patrick also promises to curb the legislative practice of sneaking pet projects, or “earmarks,” into the budget. The budget for the current fiscal year includes some $500,000 million in legislative earmarks.
Patrick said he’ll vote against a a measure that would allow grocery and convenience stores to sell wine, saying he worries about making it too easy for minors to obtain alcohol.
“The issues of control for underage kids is a serious one,” he said.
Tom Benner may be reached at tbenner@ledger.com.
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Healey, Patrick enter last week of campaign
The Patriot Ledger / Oct. 30, 2006
LYNN (AP) - Kerry Healey said the election of Democrat Deval Patrick would usher in an era of one-party rule on Beacon Hill, while Patrick said Healey sounded increasingly “desperate” as the candidates for governor entered the last full week of campaigning.
Healey, stumping for votes yesterday at a Halloween costume parade at Boston’s Castle Island, said only she, as a Republican, could hold back the Democratic appetite for higher taxes, lax crime laws and a poor business environment.
It’s a theme Healey hopes will help her close a more than 20-point gap with Patrick in the final week of the campaign.
“People have perhaps gotten to the point where they take balance on Beacon Hill for granted. They just assume that there’s going to be somebody on Beacon Hill who’s going to speak out in favor of the taxpayer,” Healey said.
Republicans have held the governor’s office for the past 16 years, while Democrats have ruled the Massachusetts House and Senate.
“We’re going to lose that if Deval Patrick is elected,” she said. “There’s a lot of danger to one-party government.”
Patrick, speaking to about 500 supporters at North Shore Community College in Lynn, said Healey’s argument is a red herring designed to distract voters.
Patrick said Massachusetts has little to show after four years of “balanced government” under the administration of Gov. Mitt Romney and Healey, his lieutenant governor. The state has lost population, fallen to 42nd in the country in job growth and “radically defunded” support for public colleges and universities, he said.
“That all came and is coming during this so-called balanced government,” Patrick said. “Forget about party. That’s the point. I’m not just running to be governor of Democrats. I’m running to be governor of the whole commonwealth.”
Independent Christy Mihos and Grace Ross of the Green-Rainbow Party are also running for governor, but polls have shown both stuck in the single digits in voter support.
As they gear up for the final push, both major-party candidates had clear tasks ahead. Healey is faced with overcoming Patrick’s hefty lead in the polls while Patrick has to guard against his backers being overconfident and taking the election for granted.
That momentum grew yesterday as Patrick won the endorsements of three newspapers: The Boston Globe, the Telegram & Gazette of Worcester and the MetroWest Daily News of Framingham. Healey called the endorsements “not surprising.”
Healey also picked up support yesterday, winning the backing of a Democratic lawmaker, state Rep. Brian Wallace, who represents South Boston.
Wallace said he’s never spoken to Patrick, but that when he needed help saving a drug treatment center or opening a high school for young people trying to stay off drugs, Healey was there.
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