A new way to govern

DEVAL PATRICK confounded expectations when he swept the party caucuses in February without any electoral experience; when he won the endorsement of the state convention in June without the backing of party insiders; when he carried over 300 communities in the September primary without spending vast sums of personal wealth; and last night, when he swept into the governor's office with an extraordinary appeal to the voters' better natures.

But the distinction doesn't end there. After a long campaign it's easy to miss the sweep of history. This is the moment to recognize a new truth about Massachusetts: Voters have elected, in a landslide, the first African-American to lead the state.

Patrick may have been a rank beginner at the game of politics, but he touched a chord when he promised a new style of leadership that sees government as a communal undertaking. He won big by steadfastly rejecting the politics of division or diminishment and by inviting weary voters, as he put it, to "check back in."

"This was a victory for hope," Patrick told his throngs of supporters last night. "The magic is that you have come together not just for your own hopes but for each others'."

The state will need all that goodwill now.

The times ahead will not be easy. Massachusetts may not be in fiscal free-fall as it was in 1990, when another unorthodox newcomer, Republican Bill Weld, took office, but its fortunes are unsteady, at best. An ambitious plan to cover everyone in the state with health insurance faces a rocky road. Gains in education may have hit a plateau. A state without natural resources depends heavily on its human resource, and too many people in Massachusetts are still unable to meet their potential because they lack opportunity.

Patrick will need to move rapidly to remake a hidebound bureaucracy and engage an opaque political culture on Beacon Hill. Weld also boasted he would take on the insiders, but he quickly became a captive of the system, and Governor Mitt Romney remained so far above the fray he rarely got anything done. Patrick needs to find just the right balance, and to replace the poetry of campaigning with the prose of governing.

It was 30 years ago that Massachusetts was engulfed in racial turmoil over desegregation in schools and housing, but the state is even today suffering the hangover of that reputation. It may be no more true a label than "Taxachusetts," but it has been difficult to shake. We hope the picture of Governor Deval Patrick will eclipse other, less flattering images of Massachusetts as unwelcoming.

Patrick's campaign theme song is the rousing anthem "Proud." The chorus asks: "What have you done today to make you feel proud?" Yesterday, Massachusetts voters answered.