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The Deval Patrick era promises to be great fun. You remember Patrick, don’t you? Back in the campaign season, he was a hero to progressives everywhere. He mouthed all the proper progressive platitudes and glided to victory in the Massachusetts governor's race.
But prominent on Patrick’s resumé was his time spent as a Clinton lackey. That caused a lot of us to suspect him of being a phony for whom office seeking was first and foremost a source of self-aggrandizement.
To say Patrick has stumbled out of the gate as governor would be an understatement. First, Patrick decided that the modest Ford Crown Victoria that Mitt Romney tooled around in for four years was beneath him. Rather than lease another Crown Vic or remain in the one that Romney used right up until his last day in office, Patrick opted to lease a $46,000 Cadillac. Actually, it would be more accurate to say he opted to have the state lease a $46,000 Cadillac. None of the funds for the gaudy new ride came out of Patrick’s pocket, even though the new governor doesn’t lack for means.
Then Patrick compounded the tin-eared politicking. When the local media challenged him for this excess in a time of fiscal austerity, Patrick defended it as a necessity because Ford had discontinued the Crown Victoria. There was only one problem with this story – Ford hasn’t discontinued the Crown Vic. Patrick later ascribed his mistaken assertion to a misunderstanding with the State Police. Since the Staties lease only about 80,000 Crown Vics a year, it’s understandable how they could make such an error.
ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL, Patrick often had a problem with the truth. His difficulties weren’t merely of the garden variety “flexibility” and equivocation issues that we expect from our politicians. Rather, Patrick on occasion just told outright lies. For instance, as he ran for office he bragged about the time he spent in courtrooms trying cases as a prosecutor. While being the avenging angel prosecutor is always a good thing for an office seeker, Patrick had never actually prosecuted a single case nor had he ever seen the inside of a courtroom as a prosecutor. The story was a lie and worse still, an easily debunked lie. Slip-ups like that one, and there were several, suggested that Patrick had the same pathological aversion to honesty that marked his Oval Office mentor.
The Patrick gubernatorial reign has been marked by pratfalls similar to the Cadillac escapade. Governor Patrick is Massachusetts’ first corner office holder since the far-from-revered Michael Dukakis to decide that his wife needs a full-time state employee to help her with her scheduling. One can torture this fact pattern into making sense by asserting, as Patrick does, that his wife is a fully employed big-time lawyer and doesn’t have the time to do menial things like First Lady scheduling.
What’s tougher to explain is why the simple job of First Lady Scheduler merits a $72,000/yr. salary, especially since the fully-employed first lady has so little available time to schedule. What’s nearly impossible to explain is how the most qualified person in the entire Commonwealth for this undeniable peach-of-a-job turned out to be the female half of the husband and wife team that led Patrick’s fund-raising committee.
But wait, there’s more! In his first six weeks in office, Patrick has used a state police helicopter twice. In four years in office, Mitt Romney used a state police helicopter only once.
IN HIS SHORT TIME IN OFFICE, Patrick has devoted a considerable amount of his time explaining to the public why he won’t be able to keep all those wonderful campaign promises he made. Voters who pulled the lever for Patrick banking on getting those property tax reductions, 1,000 new cops, and the "new way of doing business on Beacon Hill” that he guaranteed probably feel victimized by a bait-and-switch.
But I urge my home state’s voters to look on the bright side. Yes, your taxes won’t go down and you won’t get those new cops. But you are indeed getting a new way of doing business on Beacon Hill. Patrick’s only been at this thing for six weeks. If things remain on their current path, by the end of Patrick’s term he’ll likely be ruling the Commonwealth as a modern-day Sun King.
It’s true that the Massachusetts economy will suffer, but if you begin practicing now you might be able to gain employment among the retinue of personal grape-peelers that Governor Patrick will have on the state payroll in due time. Good luck! In the meantime, I’m heading back to Florida.
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