Deval Patrick won two-thirds of the state caucuses this past week in a stunning upset of A.G. Tom Reilly's lock on the party machinery and delegate apparatus. John Walsh,
Deval Patrick's campaign manager has done a spectacular job organizing the grassroots and putting the campaign in the hands of local organizers. As Michael Dukakis has said over and over, you can't win elections if you don't knock on every door, and the Patrick campaign has signed on to that philosophy with conviction.
Even the conservative Boston Herald politico Wayne Woodlief gives the odds to Patrick at the moment, with all things being equal:
PATRICK: 3-1 for the nomination; 4-1 for the governorship. His stunning 2-1 victory in Saturday's caucuses certified campaign manager John Walsh's ability to build an organization and boosted Patrick's money-raising momentum. His now virtually-certain convention victory over a sitting AG should bring in even more campaign cash. He's taken in over $1 million.
Still, pitfalls remain. "Deval is in danger of being defined by his opponents before he can properly define himself," said a Democratic strategist. TV ads putting an adverse spin on Patrick's corporate lawyering or board memberships could come either from the Reilly camp or Healey.
REILLY: 4-1 to win the nomination; 6-1 to win the governorship. His embarrassments of the past week eventually could be corrected.
But Reilly needs to seek out a broader team of advisers, take a deep breath before he makes the kind of call he made on Marie St. Fleur, sit down with some key Democrats, including women leaders, and explain himself better than he's done. He has considerable strengths -- integrity, willingness to stand up to institutions. His campaign has to focus on them again.
HEALEY: Overwhelming favorite to win the GOP nod; 7-1 to win the governorship. She'll try to ride her message of lower taxes and her role as a check on Democrats and their tax and spend style. She is smart, attractive and has gained respect among some local Democratic officials as Romney's municipal liaison.
But the charismatic Mitt Romney has overshadowed her for three years and she'll need to spend much of her fund-raising capacity (and perhaps private fortune) to become known. Also, some local officials complain that though she listens sympathetically, she hasn't been able to sway Romney to their causes.
If Mihos declines her invitation to face off against her in the primary and runs as an independent, Healey's chances to win a general election diminish substantially.
MIHOS: 100-1 to win GOP nomination; 25-1 to win governorship as an independent. Christy is the guy who helped keep the Republicans in office in 2002, when he commissioned a poll that showed Romney he could trounce acting Gov. Jane Swift and then beat various Democrats if he'd only run.
Mihos may have little chance to be elected, but he has money and moxie to give it a darned good try and keep everybody else on their toes.
Mihos, btw, is a wealthy Republican who is currently running as an Independent, which is not a good thing for the stiletto-healed Healey, who is carrying all the weight of her female political predecessors on her shoulders. She's a bit of a lightweight herself despite some muscular academic credentials. The voters of Massachusetts, however, are not in the mood for yet another female also-ran. Worse, she has neither the charisma nor the charm that Romney has, so she's got a long, hard road ahead of her.
At any rate, things are looking up in Massachusetts as progressives move towards the Democratic State Convention June 2 and June 3. Reilly has a lot of work to do in mending his fences and articulating a message that resonates. Patrick needs to get out in front, as Woodlief suggests, and exploit capitalize on the spectacular mistakes that the Reilly campaign has made recently, what with his unbelievable blunder of tapping a tax-evading state rep as his Lt. Governor (in Massachusetts, the Lt. Governors run a separate campaign) thus pissing off huge numbers of Dem faithful and the rest of the Lt. Governor candidates. This on the heels of attempting to suppress the release of embarrassing information regarding the tragic drunk-driving deaths of two teens who happened to be daughters of a well-heeled campaign supporter/friend.
So, by and large, we're hopeful in Massachusetts to have not only a Democratic governor this time around, but a progressive one at that. And that is huge.