Who ya gonna call when the young’uns can’t get the job done? Gov. Deval Patrick.
Newark Mayor Cory Booker, he of the political twitterati and recent fun-filled “I got this” video with his state’s Republican governor, Chris Christie, tried to telling it like it is by indicting both the Obama and Romney campaigns on Meet the Press for the sin of negative campaigning. He criticized Democrats for coming down hard on the concept of private equity financing and Republicans for attempting to resurrect the ghosts of campaigns past by invoking Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
No one denies that Booker served up true facts, but that’s not the task of the presidential surrogate. A surrogate’s job is a simple one: Make your candidate, that would be Barack Obama, look good and the other guy, Mitt Romney, look bad.
Above all, what a surrogate should never, ever do is force the president to repudiate your comments during a NATO summit press conference. But that’s exactly the position President Obama found himself in. Romney’s record at Bain, and the version of capitalism it represents, is not “a distraction,” he said in a direct jab at Booker. “This is what this campaign is going to be about.”
Enter Deval Patrick who sat down with CNN’s John King to show Booker how the job is done.
Patrick praised Bain Capital as a “good company” and then went for the jugular. Mitt Romney spotlights his record as a private equity manager, Patrick said, but he doesn’t talk about his less than stellar record as a job-creating governor. He turned the knife, noting that the Massachusetts had risen from 47th in the US for job creation under Romney to the top 10 during his tenure. Like a good Democratic operative, Patrick also underlined that Romney never extols the virtues of the state’s landmark health care reforms that he enthusiastically supported in 2006, which served as the basis for Obamacare.
The Romney campaign and other critics are spinning Patrick’s comments as yet another salute to the glories of Bain Capital-style capitalism and a tacit indictment of Obama’s socialist tendencies.
In doing so, however, they are missing the substance of the Democrats’ real attack on Mitt Romney. If Romney is determined to highlight his tenure in the private sector, he isn’t emphasizing the right set of qualifications to be president of the United States, says Obama. Being POTUS has more to do with the messy business of public sector management, like dealing with obstreperous Democratic state lawmakers as a Republican governor, than it does with being a master of the private equity universe, Patrick would add.
These are the true facts that the former Bay State governor seems to run away from. Who better to deliver this critique than Deval Patrick, another corporate America transplant, who, thanks to Beacon Hill denizens like speakers Sal DiMasi and Robert DeLeo and Senate presidents Robert Travaglini and Therese Murray, has learned the hard way that the job of a public sector executive bears little resemblance to life as a corporate chieftain.
Booker, who’s made it quite clear that Newark City Hall is not his last stop, backpedaled as fast as he could, serving up a heartfelt video apology and exchanging mea culpas with Rachel Maddow. How much time will Booker have to spend in the dog house? If he gets a prime-time speaking slot at the Democratic National Convention, we’ll know all is forgiven.
–GABRIELLE GURLEY
BEACON HILL
The head of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission says three casinos will probably eventually be approved but leaves the door open to going with fewer, WBUR reports.
Top corporate honchos and firms who do lots of business in the state are bankrolling much of Gov. Deval Patrick’s international trade mission travel, the Globe reports.
The MetroWest Daily News doubts that Secure Communities is making communities feel safer.
MUNICIPAL MATTERS
Officials from the police patrolman’s union in Haverhill say the mayor’s claim that crime is falling isn’t true. They say misleading record-keeping is masking the fact that crime is rising because police funding is too low, the Eagle-Tribune reports.
A federal judge upheld a decision by Fall River officials to prevent a strip club from opening downtown.
The Lowell City Council begins exploring the possibility of giving preference on city contracts to in-state companies rather than out-of-state firms, the Lowell Sun reports.
This winter’s lack of snow saved Brockton $1 million, which will be moved to the city’s stabilization fund and used in the general budget.
State environmental officials rejected an appeal by Quincy residents to stop the relocation of Town Brook, a key element in the $1.6 billion downtown redevelopment.
A proposal to build a 20,000-square-foot Buddhist temple on the banks of the Merrimack River is stirring opposition in Lowell, reports the Sun.
Beverly Mayor Bill Scanlon’s proposal to raise the trash fee by 40 percent is rejected by the City Council, the Salem News reports.
Boston Mayor Tom Menino brushes off his critics, telling the Herald, “We have young ideas and we are moving the city forward.”
CASINOS
The Aquinnah Wampanoag tribe tonight will unveil its plan for a $167 million casino in Lakeville or Freetown. A forum last night in Lakeville in advance of referendums in the two towns was dominated by opponents.
NATIONAL POLITICS/WASHINGTON
The Illinois House passes legislation banning a legislative scholarship program that critics said rewarded relatives and political cronies of lawmakers, Governing reports.
ELECTION 2012
Republican consultant Todd Domke, in a WBUR column, says Democratic Senate candidate Marisa DeFranco deserves respect and a second look from Democrats.
Bay State donations to President Obama are way down, the Globe reports.
The American Spectator has a Mitt Romney Survival Guide for conservatives. The Atlantic sizes up what it calls the post-hope-and-change Obama campaign, while Slate argues that Obama’s team has always been made up of brawlers. A new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll finds economic unease among many Obama supporters.
Keller@Large gives a peek at his one-on-one with Joseph P. Kennedy III.
BUSINESS/ECONOMY
A Peabody developer says he plans to start building 100 single-family homes, a long-delayed project that is stirring neighborhood concerns, the Salem News reports.
The head of the Fall River Office of Economic Development, which receives the bulk of its funding from federal block grants, is refusing to release his contract or confirm that he received an extension that even many board members, including the mayor, did not know about.
Unemployment in New Bedford, among the highest in the state, dropped to its lowest level since the depth of the recession in 2008.
Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee says Curt Schilling’s 38 Studios is “stonewalling” state officials who are trying to understand what’s gone wrong at the company that received $75 million in public loan guarantees.
EDUCATION
Boston Foundation CEO Paul Grogan discusses community college reform with Jim Braude on NECN’s Broadside.
Members of the Roxbury Community College board of trustees suggest at a meeting last night that President Terrence Gomes’s days may be numbered.
ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT
A mechanical problem at the Pilgrim nuclear power plant in Plymouth triggered the third emergency shutdown of the reactor in the last seven months.
The boom in natural gas production in places like Pennsylvania is paying dividends in Massachusetts not only because of lower energy costs but because it is tapping the energy expertise at Bay State firms.
State officials will open to the public 40 miles of hiking and biking trails that run alongside MWRA aqueducts
MEDIA
Radio Boston explores how the media should handle the story of Elizabeth Warren and her claims of Native American ancestry.
A $100 million loss at AOL’s Patch in 2011 is stirring calls inside and outside the company to close the operation, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The Weekly Standard asks, will Batman come out of the closet?