|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Making History in Massachusetts |
| Deval Patrick elected as first African-American governor of a northern state |
|
Neil J. Savage (internews)  |
 Email Article
 Print Article
|
|
|
|
Published 2006-11-13 10:39 (KST) |
|
|
|
For 375 years and 82 governors, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has maintained an unbroken record of electing only white males nominees of an established political party as the state's Chief Executive. This trend was destined to end in this year's gubernatorial election since two of the four candidates were women, Republican Kerry Healy and the Green Party's nominee, Grace Ross; one of the two males, Christy Mihos, ran as an independent, and the Democratic Party's nominee, Deval Patrick, was African-American.
Patrick prevailed in a grand manner, garnering 58 percent of the vote to Healy's 37 percent, Mihos's insignificant 7 and Ross's paltry 2 percent.
 |
TODAY'S TOP STORIES |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
FROM THE SECTION |
|
|
|
|
| Patrick, referred to by political insiders as "Patrick who?" when news of his impending run for governor first surfaced, came to the contest an unknown with an imposing resume.
The governor-elect was born in 1956 and lived in public housing in a poor and segregated neighborhood of Chicago, raised by a mother whose musician husband had abandoned her when Deval and his sister were still young children. Poor the neighborhood may have been, Patrick recalled in his campaign speeches, but close-knit and caring, and if any young man seemed to be starting down the wrong path, he was sure to get a good talking to, or even, as Patrick put it, "a smack upside your head" from one of the ever watchful mothers.
A teacher in middle school, where Patrick was first in his class, recognized the potential of the young man and so recommended him to the Boston-based "A Better Chance" an organization that provides scholarships to Milton Academy, an old (founded 1798) and well regarded eastern prep school located just outside of Boston that claims, among other notable graduates, former U.S. attorneys general Elliot Richardson and Robert Kennedy.
Arriving at Milton, a poor black boy from the South Side of Chicago, was, Patrick recounts, like "coming to a different planet." While other more affluent freshman complained about how small and sparsely furnished their dorms rooms were, Patrick had, for the first time in his life, his own bed and a desk. Despite the wide difference from what he had known, Patrick thrived in his new environment, excelling in his studies, editing the school paper, and, for spending money, delivering the morning newspaper to the surrounding neighborhoods.
From Milton, Patrick went on to Harvard College, where he was the first in his family to obtain a college degree. After graduation, he went to Africa to work with a United Nation youth training project, mostly in the Darfur region of Sudan. Returning to the United States, Patrick earned a law degree from Harvard Law School, where he was elected president of the Legal Aid Bureau and gained trial experience doing pro-bono work defending poor families in the Middlesex County courts. Patrick won the Ames Moor Court Competition at Harvard and was named best oral advocate in his class. From that day to his election as governor, Deval Patrick's rise in the law, government and business has been rapid and impressive.
Deval Patrick served as Clerk in the U.S. Court of Appeals in the Ninth Circuit in Los Angeles, at the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund in New York, and partner in the much respected Boston law firm of Hill & Barlow. While at the Legal Defense Fund, lawyer Patrick filed a lawsuit in a voting rights case against the then governor of Arkansas, William Clinton. In 1994, President Clinton appointed Patrick as assistant United States attorney general in charge of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.
In 1997, Patrick, at the time in private practice in Boston, was hired by Texaco as that company's Vice President and General Counsel, and subsequently served as Executive Vice President for Coca Cola.
In the Democratic primary, Patrick ran against a populist state attorney general, Tom Reilly, and Chris Gabrieli, a businessman known for contributing much of his wealth and energy to the furtherance of childhood education.
In thedebates Reilly, the generally acknowledged front-runner, did poorly, Patrick more than held his own, but Gabrieli seemed to be gaining the upper hand. At that point, the presumptive Republican nominee, Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healy, made what may have been a grievous error.
Concluding that Gabrieli would be her toughest opponent in the final election, Healy let loose a series of attack adds against him, unprecedented for a yet to be nominated candidate. In the meantime, Patrick presented himself as a well prepared, knowledgeable and articulate candidate with a charisma some compared to that of his former boss, President Clinton. Healy's attack ads helped Patrick win the Democratic primary.
The final debates, which ran the gamut from dull to stimulating, featured Healy hewing to the traditional Republican attack against her Democratic opponent -- a Deval Patrick administration would bring new taxes, would not repeal an old one mandated for elimination in a popular referendum, was soft on crime, would advocate for illegal immigrants, and would join the Democratic dominated State Legislature in unchecked and profligate spending. Patrick countered with a reasonable and well articulated program of more aid to education and the cities and towns, measures to bring more industry to the state, particularly in the burgeoning bio-tech area, and an inclusiveness in government. Mihos, a convenience store magnate, provided comic relief, and some aid to Patrick, by his continuing attacks on Healy, and the Green Party candidate Ross, some incisive comments on social issues.
Patrick's race hardly seemed a factor, and only openly entered the campaign when an increasingly desperate Healy ran a television add depicting a white woman walking through a darkened underground garage with a voice-over warning that Patrick, who had supported the cause of a black man accused of rape, would be soft on crime. So adverse was the popular reaction to the ad that its showing may well have doomed whatever chance Healy previously had.
The campaign was the most expensive in Massachusetts history, with much of the millions spent coming from the personal fortunes of Healy's husband, and those of Mihos, Gabrieli and to a lesser extent of Patrick himself. But what Patrick had that no other could match was a superb "grass roots" organization, one not seen in the state since Jack Kennedy built his successful campaign to become a United States senator in 1952. Patrick assembled a loyal and extensive organization in every city, ward, precinct, and neighborhood in the State, even recruiting an enthusiastic Michael Dukakis, the former governor and presidential candidate, as captain in Dukakis' own neighborhood.
Governor-elect Deval Patrick lives in Milton with his wife Diane (Bemus) a successful lawyer in the field of labor and employment law, and their two daughters, Sarah, 20 and Katherine, 17, in a house to which he once delivered the morning newspaper, adding a touch of irony to a history-making election.
|
|
 |
|
| Neil J. Savage is a political historian living in Massachusetts. He is the author of Extraordinary Tenure: Massachusetts and the Making of the Nation. |
|
|
©2006 OhmyNews
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Comments Note: Kindly refrain from personal attacks and profanity. |
 |
 |
|
|
|
2. Stefan
|
Bill , 2007-03-29 23:34
|
0 |
|
|
|
1. Brice
|
Virgil , 2007-03-29 11:03
|
0 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
How worried are you about the H1N1 influenza virus? |
|
 |
| * Vote to see the result. |
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
RSS
Del.icio.us
Digg 
reddit
Y! MyWeb
.jpg)
