By Robert Keough

Political campaigns have their rituals, one of which is a round of meetings with newspaper editorial boards. Before the summer is out, the various candidates for governor will make their pitches for the coveted endorsements of every local paper in the Commonwealth. But how much more fruitful might these conversations be if the talk went the other way: the editorial writers telling the candidates what’s most important to them, and their readers?

From left: Richard Holmes, Christine Dunphy, James Campanini,
Melvin Miller, and JoAnn Fitzpatrick.

After all, editorial-page editors, especially those in regional and community newspapers outside the Boston metropolis, occupy a unique journalistic niche. It’s their job not only to influence public and official opinion through editorials but also to weather the occasional uprising of readers. (Somebody has to read all those letters to the editor before they go in the paper.) Who better to gauge public sentiment and set a political agenda than the region’s editorial chiefs?

With this in mind, CommonWealth gathered up a fair sampling of opinion-page gurus representing newspapers east of the Quabbin Reservoir for a picking of brains, if not necessarily a meeting of minds. Our panel: James Campanini, editorial-page editor of the Lowell Sun; Christine Dunphy, editorial writer for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette; JoAnn Fitzpatrick, editorial-page editor of The Patriot Ledger of Quincy; Richard Holmes, opinion editor of MetroWest Daily News; and Melvin Miller, publisher and editor of the Bay State Banner, the weekly newspaper serving the African-American community in the Boston area.

Over lunch at a regionally central location–the Olive Garden restaurant in Framingham’s Shopper’s World mall–these professional opinion-mongers came up with no small number of forceful assertions. But if there was a consensus among these independent minds, it came down to this: The recession-induced state budget crunch and the tax hikes that have been imposed to solve it have not yet lit a prairie fire of public outrage against politics-as-usual in Massachusetts. But the gubernatorial candidates would be wise to pay attention to three key issues: out-of-control housing costs; education for young people and adult immigrants; and government integrity. What follows is an edited transcript of our discussion.

CommonWealth: I want to start with an overall question on the political atmosphere in the state. We’re in a situation now that has a lot of parallels to 1990, which was the last big watershed election. We’re in the midst of a state budget crisis. Taxes are being hiked at the same time services and programs are getting cut. And there’s an open governor’s seat up for grabs. Now in 1990, those factors conspired toward a real change: 25 state lawmakers lost their seats and the governor’s office changed hands from the Democrats to the Republicans, who have yet to give it up. But my sense right now is, to borrow a Jane Swift phrase, the public is not in a firing mood. I’m curious to get your reaction from the communities that you represent. Is there the kind of anger out there that should force some real change in state politics–or not?

Fitzpatrick: What I get from the “Letters to the Editor,” for example–which is where I see most of the reaction–I don’t think on the South Shore that people really grasp the enormity of this financial crisis [in the state budget]. They think there’s a bit of game-playing going on. The unemployment rate in Massachusetts is still holding at a very low rate. Since they haven’t felt any real pinch, most people in our area aren’t paying a lot of attention to what we consider a mess or a disaster or an impending disaster [on the state level]. It’s rather shortsighted and naïve, I think, but I don’t get a sense that they’re feeling it. And therefore, in terms of the politics, I don’t see any kind of revolt coming because, again, people don’t feel it in their wallets.

Holmes: I agree. Around here [in Metrowest] you don’t see massive economic disruption. There have been some layoffs in high tech. There will be more. We’re used to that. That happens a lot as technology changes. On the national level, we’re hearing that the recession, such as it was, was the shortest and shallowest on record. When you talk about the economy, most people think first about themselves. It’s a lagging, distant indicator when it hits the state revenues, and that’s where we have this big crisis. Most folks out here don’t believe a word the politicians say anyway. So they aren’t particularly fired up worrying about whether [state officials] have enough money to throw around.

Miller: I, for one, am very disgusted with the way we run our government anyway, because business cycles have been in existence ever since we started our capitalistic system. The smart way to do it is to have a rainy day fund. The problem is, when you set up a rainy day fund, the Republicans say that’s the public’s money and you have no right to hold on to that, so you have to cut taxes. And the Democrats say, my God, with all this money that you have sitting around here, there are lots of programs that need funding. We don’t think about how to fund these programs over the ups and downs of the business cycle. And so, we’re put into this terrible situation consistently. And that’s so unwise…. I don’t think people understand the economics of it well enough. And that’s why you haven’t heard a reaction. They just don’t get it.

CommonWealth: Chris, what’s the mood out there in central Massachusetts?

Dunphy: I think it’s much the same. I think that people have not looked at the large picture but are concerned with their own issues. We have a great number of elderly people in Worcester itself and in the surrounding areas. We get letters concerning pharmacy costs. What are you going to do about the drug costs for the elderly who are on fixed incomes? We certainly have issues with Medicaid and University of Massachusetts Hospital and Memorial Hospital being paid 70 cents on the dollar. I think it’s hurt them a great deal. And that moves out into the county, too, because UMass controls Marlborough Hospital, it controls Clinton Hospital, it controls several of the hospitals on the southern reaches of our circulation area. That’s difficult for the hospital administrators themselves and for the people who work there–nurses, technicians, service people. Public education, absolutely. The preschool program is probably going to be ended in Worcester…. And the city of Worcester, itself. Its budget is 54 to 57 percent dependent on state funding. And that’s a real issue.

CommonWealth: Jim, what do you say?

Campanini: Well, the question is complex. If you look back, this recession is different. The 1990-91 recession was a double-digit recession that went across the board. All segments of the work force were affected by that. This recession, the rich over the last 10 years have gotten richer, and the poorer people have been hurt. But also they have received greater benefits from the state Legislature for health care, and for a lot of job training programs. For the vast middle class, finances have receded. I know a lot of individuals who are working two and three jobs, a lot of them in the high-tech industry that Massachusetts based its future on. They’ve lost jobs, and gotten new jobs but at lower wages. They have had to work harder to support their families, to put kids through college. These are the people, the vast silent majority, who right now are feeling hit the hardest…. When you talk about the anger, I agree, in letters to the editor we see the anger. But there’s no outrage. There’s no rise to rebellion against the Legislature. We didn’t see that with a billion-dollar tax increase, an unprecedented tax increase, where there was little opposition on either side. Naturally, a lot of that stems from the Republican Party, which isn’t worth a damn in the state of Massachusetts. But you would think that at least you would see some vocal disagreement…. So it comes back to, no, this anger isn’t sizzling at the top, but I can see it underneath as more and more people become aware of just how government operates on Beacon Hill, and as they lose more ground…. I think that, in the days

ahead, you’re going to see a general disgust. Whether this translates into a change in leadership in the upcoming election, I don’t know…. I think this next election shouldn’t be about ideology, it should be about truth and honesty. I don’t care what side anybody is on when it comes to Clean Elections, the income tax rollback, the personal exemptions that were just taken away from people. [What matters is:] When does your word mean [anything] anymore in the state of Massachusetts?

Holmes: I think there is a firing mood in the public, but Jane Swift already fired herself, and we can’t fire Tom Finneran. The major targets are proving elusive. And I think a lot of the public is also in a very tired mood, and frankly not interested in being disappointed again…. The problem is, the state has to think year-to-year in terms of the budget. So I think we’ll probably see the impact on individuals and families when they get the tax bill…. I think the other place we’ll see the impact is when spending cuts do come down and they cause us to lose ground on some of the things that the suburbs and the high-tech community are really interested in: adult education, continuing education, state colleges and universities. In the state colleges, tuition went down. They were able to reduce tuition slightly but significantly four years running. Now tuition’s going back up again. So, where you thought you were really going in the right direction, suddenly there’s a reversal going on, and for how long it remains to be seen.

Miller: We have a serious problem in the country that we haven’t quite confronted. One of the things that’s beautiful about America is that we’ve never had a class system that is so rigid that people can’t move ahead. The reason for that is that through education and because of the dynamism of our economy, there are always job opportunities where even an immigrant, coming without knowing the language, could move up. The problem is that as we go into a technology and information-based economy, that system doesn’t work anymore. People who don’t get well educated are going to find themselves out of the loop. We could be developing a real caste system. And if we do that, the political future in this country is going to be seriously compromised. I really worry about that as I look at the problems with public education in the cities. You’re right. Government only thinks from budget to budget to budget. But we need a leader now, as you say, who has vision. He or she has to be able to look forward and be able to inspire the people to suffer the short-term consequences in order to achieve this long-term vision. And that’s what been missing.

Campanini: You know, I think Massachusetts has to become worker-friendly and business-friendly–and for the first time, probably mean it…. How can you go into the working family’s pocket and hit them with a big tax increase when wages have been frozen or gone backwards over the last six years and then tell that person, you want public services, you want state services, and you’ll have to pay for them because we know how to best use your money. We don’t want you to spend it on yourself or your amily. For once, we have to turn this around and say, government has to prioritize. It has to go through a period of scrutiny, and recessions are the best time to do this…. I know families where sons and daughters have graduated college and, for the first time, they’re not coming back to Massachusetts to settle. The housing costs are too much. The cost of living, generally, is too much in Massachusetts. The tax structure and fees are out of control. They can go other places and live a more livable life. And that’s a sad thing because Massachusetts at one time was considered a great livable state….

CommonWealth: Let’s imagine that we have all the folks who are hoping to become the next governor of Massachusetts in the room here with us. Let’s give them a little bit of a political geography lesson, if you will. I’d like to go around our regions and our communities and have each of you say, if you had Mitt Romney or Tom Birmingham or Bob Reich in the room, what’s the one thing you’d want them to know about the problems facing your region, your area, your community? We’ll start with Worcester County. What do you say, Chris?

Dunphy: The problems that we have are everything that’s been expressed here. What’s being missed, not by us, but by certain politicians and certainly the Legislature, is that all of this is trickling down: the middle class having to struggle more, having to work two jobs; the upper class trying to keep themselves together. Rick and I–I live in [Metrowest] rather than in central Massachusetts, and it’s become impossible to buy new homes in some of these towns for less than $600,000. Well, if you drive around the neighborhoods at night and the lights are on, there’s no furniture in those houses. They’ve got the house. They’ve got the company car, probably, but there’s no furniture…. The middle class, where all of us probably volunteered at our kids’ school at some time, or did the Girl Scouts or the Boy Scouts, we don’t have time for that. Or our kids are grown up and gone now, and some of these people who are in their 30s or 40s or 20s, they’re working two jobs…. It was a stupid idea that Gov. Swift came up with to get 100,000 volunteers to help with MCAS. I don’t think you have the five volunteers to run the brown bag picnic at the end of the school year. I think that’s something they have to look at.

I think they absolutely need to look at education, with immigrants coming in and not being able to get into higher level jobs. They’re certainly picking up the service jobs that a lot of so-called Americans think it’s below them to work. But we have a problem with the bilingual education in this state. We have kids going to school and sitting in classes where they don’t speak English for two or three years. That isn’t the way our families grew up. My family came from Italy. They spoke English. You had to. But also these children’s parents haven’t been involved. Worcester has tried hard to bring parents into the mix so that they are learning English along with their children, whether [their native language is] Spanish or Cambodian [Khmer] or Greek. That way you get it at home also. [Not speaking English] hampers their ability to get jobs beyond very menial service-type jobs. So I think the candidates need to look at that whole controversy.

I think the other big issue is affordable housing. You know, forget the McMansions in Hopkinton and Shrewsbury. So much of the affordable housing is being built in the inner cities. And a lot of that is because the transportation’s there. It’s very hard for someone who lives in Shrewsbury or even in Leicester or Spencer in our area to get transportation into Worcester where some of the jobs may be at hotels or state jobs, things like that, because there’s not the kind of bus service or train service available for these people. And our regional transportation system has taken another whack because it’s not set up on the same basis as the MBTA is…. You can’t walk from Spencer to Worcester to go to work at the Holiday Inn. And that’s a big issue.

CommonWealth: Rick, what would you tell gubernatorial candidates about Metrowest?

Holmes: I think they should know what Metrowest cares about. We care about education. We care about local aid. Those are the kinds of things that [political candidates] all come out and promise us. I’d like to hear more about the Big Dig. I think that’s a huge issue that people running statewide have walked away from for 20 years. It was a long-time conspiracy of silence between the Republicans running the Big Dig and the Democrats who didn’t want to say anything that might encourage Republicans in Congress to cut back on the funding…. I think the way people look at it in Boston is distinctly different from the way people look at it west of Route 128. It’s our money; it’s their project. And I do think that some of the candidates, one of the candidates is going to step forward at some point and say, you know, I’m really serious about cutting down on the cost overruns. Right now, none of them have shown me that they’re really serious about it.

I think there’s a whole set of Boston-versus-the-rest-of-the-state issues. Just another one I would throw out on the table: We have community hospitals going belly up out here in the suburbs. A lot of them, because of the financial constraints they are facing, have made partnerships with Boston teaching hospitals who are now sucking them dry in terms of their patient load. I don’t see anybody at the state level saying we need to look at this. But in fact it’s a big fight for market share. It’s a huge business in Massachusetts, a very influential industry that has a lot of politicians listening, … and the loudest voices tend to be on the side of the Boston teaching hospitals, not the suburban hospitals. But we’re going to have a real crisis down the road if we lose another six or 10 or 20 suburban hospitals that are providing most of the care much more efficiently than the Boston teaching hospitals can provide.

CommonWealth: JoAnn, what about the South Shore? Another fast-growing region of our state.

Fitzpatrick: Fast-growing is exactly the problem. We don’t have some of the problems that I hear others talking about around the table because southeastern Massachusetts in the last decade has really benefited from the economy, because we had space, frankly. Also, we have easier [transportation] access. We have a new [Old Colony commuter-rail] train in southeastern Massachusetts. We hope maybe even to get another one [Greenbush], if I live long enough to see it. But our biggest problem I think is really development, and somehow planning for development as well. This gets us right into the affordable housing area. I don’t know what the answer is here. The state actually has been addressing this problem to the extent that they can in terms of encouraging affordable housing, but you’ve got the community fighting against this all the time. I think the next governor has got to continue to talk about that because it’s a problem all over the Greater Boston area. Even taking it way out to I-495, nobody can afford to buy a starter home. To buy a starter home in southeastern Massachusetts you have to go Plymouth. You can find one, but it’s a long haul from Plymouth to Boston or to Quincy or wherever to work. I would also say, to be totally parochial here, since there’s no one from the North Shore to join me, but I think the issue of fishermen is important to us. It’s still important [as an industry]…. We still have a lot of working fishermen on the South Shore. The latest crisis, in terms of [restricting time at sea], I think the state simply has to look at this. And it’s not just retraining. It’s providing, frankly, some kind of support to allow people to continue to fish. We cannot lose fishing in Massachusetts. And we don’t want outsiders controlling it either. Fishing is essentially a family business for the most part. Washington will give us some help, I think, but I think the state has to do something as well.

CommonWealth: Jim, what would you say about Merrimack Valley to the candidates?

Campanini: I think education remains the number one priority, especially in places like Lowell and Lawrence, where you have a diverse student population. The urban areas are at a disadvantage right now. More effort is needed to get a lot of these students ahead. We have to stabilize that huge [foreign-born] population in these communities to get them mainstreamed and understanding English so they can push ahead. I also think that what the next governor could do is align more of these urban schools with colleges or community colleges to give these students an exposure to the college atmosphere and increase their desire to go to college and to learn, make it a lifetime benefit for all of them. And I also think that education has to become accountable. I mean, we’ve put $9 billion into education since 1993, the Education Reform Act. And that’s all well and good. I’m not against [spending on] education, but I think that we need some accountability. What has that money done? What has it provided for us? You just can’t throw money at a problem and say that things are going to get better. I think the Massachusetts education system has improved, but I think now, as taxpayers, we have to demand accountability and to see if these schools are actually working.

I agree with everyone else in this room that housing, if it’s not the number one priority, it’s certainly high up there. I hate to call it affordable housing. I think it’s middle-class housing now, because those are the people who can’t afford these homes, who can’t afford to live in the communities they grew up in…. The Legislature has made some strides … in looking at reforming Chapter 40-B [the state’s anti-“snob zoning” law], which I think has to be on the table to do this, …. [looking at a measure whereby] communities that accepted Chapter 40-B projects were going to get, by a state formula, increased aid. But that would depend on, naturally, having money to do that. This would take care of that NIMBY-type attitude that has a lot of communities keeping these affordable housing developments out…. You have to provide some incentive for communities to stop this. When you’ve only got 27 communities out of 351 who met the 10 percent [amount of housing considered affordable by the state] minimum guideline since 1969, that’s atrocious.

Now I don’t know about the other communities, but we’ve got problems with clean water and tainted wells in the suburbs and the rural areas. Then in the cities, especially the cities of Lawrence and Lowell that go along the Merrimack [River], we have the combined sewer overflow problem. You, also, in Boston. The EPA is threatening to fine Lowell. We need $100 million to upgrade our water sewage plant–$100 million! I mean, the [entire] budget of Lowell is $262 million. I mean, we’d go bankrupt if we ever tried to raise that money. And not only does the state, if they value cities and value clean water, need to come up with a plan, but [so does] the federal government…. I’m not saying a federal handout or a state handout. Certainly, Lowell has a responsibility for its water treatment plant, but so do all those communities along the Merrimack. We’ve got Tewksbury. We’ve got Chelmsford. And only 10 miles across the border, Nashua’s got the same EPA edict against them. So you’ve got [all these] cities within a 50-mile span that could go bankrupt if the EPA holds them to this fine. And the fine is $10,000 a day. Right now Lowell has put up $500,000 for an Army Corps of Engineers study to look at this problem to see if there’s a cheaper way to resolve this problem. And even in the suburbs, with the tainted wells, they can’t afford sewer systems. These are problems that are going to be here today and they’re going to be here another 10 years.

CommonWealth: Mel, what would you tell the gubernatorial candidates about the black community?

Miller: There are lots of things, and I’m not going to take everybody’s time running down a big laundry list. But there was once a distinguished journalist who wrote a piece about recidivism [“The revolving cell door,” CW, Fall ’00]. And you know, one of our former governors decided to show his testosterone, do this get-tough thing on the backs of the black community and started throwing a whole lot of people in jail that, as it turns out, shouldn’t have been there in the first place…. So we have a disproportionate number of young people, particularly, who are incarcerated. And prison can be a training camp to learn how to be a better criminal, or it can be a training camp to learn how to live a better life. We don’t spend any time or money to make it [the latter], and we throw these people out in the street. Now when you come out of jail and you have ex-con on your résumé, that is a great nonstarter for your future.

And we haven’t really done anything to try to ease the re-entry. As this great journalist pointed out, very accurately, roughly half of the people who are released from prison‹and all of them get released; there are very few lifers–within three years will find themselves back in for something or another out of desperation. That’s a terrible, terrible burden. And I think that that’s one thing the governor’s going to have to deal with in order to have peace and quiet in the neighborhoods.

The other is the educational problem, and I’ve already spoken about that. One thing the governor can do that doesn’t even cost any money…. You know, in the old days, teachers expected when students would come to class, they’d be well-scrubbed, well-behaved, accustomed to accepting discipline and respecting their elders. That’s not what you get nowadays, not even from kids from the middle class. I think that there has to be an effort made to make an adjustment in the way teachers are trained and taught, because nowadays they almost have to be surrogate parents. That’s one leadership role that the governor can take that would be very, very helpful. But I’m terribly concerned that the school system be revived so that students are motivated, so that the American dream can be within their reach….

Holmes: You’re talking about the unfinished business of education reform.

Miller: Absolutely.

Holmes: Nine billion dollars and all this effort and I haven’t seen any of the bad teachers leave. Addition by subtraction has just not been part of that program at all.

Miller: No. That’s the problem….. You know, teaching’s not going to become a profession until it monitors itself. You know, you can be pretty crooked as a lawyer, which I know about, but you go too far and you lose your ticket. You can mess up as a doctor, and if you go too far, you get sued and the insurance company pays out big money and nobody wants to hire you, you lose your ticket. But you can go on destroying children forever as a teacher, and if you’ve got the political connections, you’ve got a job for life….

Campanini: In my 27 years in journalism, I have never heard or seen a teacher blame himself or herself for the poor progress of their students. I’ve seen them blame the administration for not putting enough money into the schools and blame the parents for not taking care of their kid. But I’ve never heard a teacher say [he or she is to blame]. But I have heard a teacher say, I am responsible for your child’s success. What does that tell you?

Dunphy: I think what you say about teachers wanting to be treated as professionals is such a good point. When the teachers’ unions come in to speak to us as an editorial board, they don’t realize that they’re speaking to a former teacher, they’re speaking to the daughter and granddaughter and niece and cousin of probably two dozen teachers, and the husband of a former teacher who’s now getting ready to go back and teach now that [her] children are older. But they will sit there and, as you said, they don’t take the responsibility for failures. And I’ve had the president of the union say, you know, we get no paid vacation. And–

Campanini: They get the whole summer off.

Dunphy: I know. How can you [teachers’ unions] expect us to support you when you say ridiculous things like that? … It’s such pettiness. It’s never about education.

Miller: We need leaders who are going to stand up to the teachers’ unions. It’ll take a lot of guts to do that. But you see, they can never do it if the rest of the public that’s apathetic and disgusted doesn’t come out and say we’re going to back you, because that’s what will offset their votes. That’s the game. That’s the only way to do it….

Holmes: I’d like to add one other thing that I haven’t heard the candidates talking about very much, and that’s the patronage culture in state government–the hack-havens out there, this whole stage-managed thing that Finneran went through in order to push though the tax increases, sort of skipping the step of taking the opportunity of a fiscal crisis to look at the spending and to see where money’s being wasted and to set priorities and all the things that we do in the private sector. I think people have a very low estimation of state government in part because they don’t see the statewide politicians making the effort to stop the no-show jobs, to clean out the minority of state workers who have really kind of soured the image for the majority by not working very hard.

Miller: That’s a good idea. Why don’t we suggest they form a commission like they did for the federal government …, the Grace Commission [President Ronald Reagan’s Private Sector Survey on Cost Control, chaired by industrialist J. Peter Grace]. We should push for a state Grace Commission. That’s the only way, when you have an objective commission saying you don’t need this, you don’t need that. All of a sudden, a lot of these no-show jobs begin to dry up.

Holmes: Weld did very well talking about that. Then when he had the power, he wasn’t able to get very far looking at the walruses in state government. But I certainly think there are a lot of opportunities out there.

Dunphy: The frustration that we feel being outside of the Boston area–[Mel,] I’m sure some of your circulation spreads over into Mr. Finneran’s district…

Miller: Are you kidding? You know what’s a very funny thing? His constituency is predominantly black.

Dunphy: I looked at the figures. He was elected by 8,100 people in his last re-election…. So a guy who got 8,100 votes is running the state. He’s running the state. I don’t think there’s any point in having a governor as long as he’s Speaker of the House. Absolutely no point…. But the only way we can control him is by electing people who are opposed to him.

Fitzpatrick: But the point is, I mean, forget running against him. We all know how the system works. I mean, it’s not possible to run against Finneran. I would like to know, instead, why are the rest of the Democratic legislators a bunch of damn sheep? They’re the people who should not have made him Speaker for life and they’re the people who should challenge him and they do not.

Holmes: In turn, nobody challenges them.

Fitzpatrick: Yes, that’s true, to an extent. We have a lot of his legislative team in my district, our area, our circulation area. I talk to these people regularly and some of them are not bad people. I mean, the reality is, sad to say, there are some good people who for whatever reason will not stand up to this man. And I don’t understand that dynamic, frankly. I just don’t. These are bright people, they’re young, they’re not old codgers who have to be doing this. And they’re not egomaniacs either…. It’s part of my job, to keep slamming away. I mean, Finneran gives me one editorial a week. One a week. Absolutely.

Campanini: There are certain things that the media has to do. We have to challenge, continue to challenge politicians and also the electorate. And we’re not doing a very good job. We take the rhetoric. We’re starting to get like TV stations that put in the best sound bite…. We have to go and ferret out information and give it to the people. They have to be better informed, so they can decide what is or isn’t the truth.