The race for No. 2

By Dan Payne  |  August 24, 2006

ADMIT IT. When you vote for lower offices, your thought process goes something like this: I like the name. Lives nearest to me. Isn't an incumbent. Good job for woman. Good job for man. Does it matter who has this job? I've voted for enough Irish today.

With less than a month to go, here are current lieutenant governor wannabes.

Deb Goldberg. Heiress to Stop & Shop supermarket fortune. ``I grew up sweeping floors and stacking flour." Boston College Law and Harvard B School. Two-year chair of Brookline Board of Selectmen. Talks like she ran place -- ``managed $150 million budget, avoided layoffs, no cuts in services, etc." Brookline is actually run by professional town administrator. She's put $2 million of own money into race. Her first TV spot features huge fire and grateful constituents. But claiming she ran Brookline is like calling Stop & Shop gourmet food shop. US Representative Barney Frank endorsed her.

Tim Murray. Mayor of Worcester. Three terms. City is doing well. But Worcester Telegram & Gazette says: ``The Worcester mayor's position is part-time and without executive authority; the mayor is a city councilor who runs the council and also serves as chairman of the School Committee." Professional manager runs city government. (See Goldberg, above.) No Harvard degree, but is as smart as his opponents. Main issues: rail service and local aid. Base in Worcester County and outside Route 495 belt. Unions like him. So do 24 mayors. And US Representatives McGovern, Neal, and Lynch.

Andrea Silbert. (``I'm a CEO.") Founded nonprofit center to train women entrepreneurs. (Dubya once said trouble with French is they don't have word for entrepreneurship.) Has three Harvard degrees. Made money on Wall Street, then, to her credit, went to Brazil to work with street children. Lives on Cape. Pet issue: job creation. Plans to kayak around state for publicity. On land, strikes some as crassly ambitious and arrogant. On website, calls self ``a proven visionary and national leader." So how come I never heard of her? Scott Harshbarger has -- he endorsed her.

So, who wins? Four years ago, Chris Gabrieli spent almost $2 million and won three-way primary for lieutenant governor. See no reason why biggest spender won't win this time. Murray has shot with big base and mayors. Silbert has tough paddling ahead.

Deval Patrick is up. His first TV spots are running, or ``up" as those who want to appear knowing like to say. First spot is Patrick's oft-told life story retold. From slums of Chicago to ivy of Harvard, from Clinton administration to Coca-Cola. Message: He's respectable, successful, not angry black man. Vote for me because I'm me. Bio is right place for him to start, but needs to offer benefits -- fast. And that guy wearing carpenter's hat? Says ``You can hear the justice in his voice." Who talks like that?

Second spot has Patrick in empty classroom lecturing about education. Why no kids with hope in their eyes? Normally strong performer, he looks off camera and seems laconic. Result: emotionally flat.

Rabbit ears. Tom Reilly tells Channel 4's Jon Keller public doesn't know enough about Patrick's corporate work. Next day Patrick overreacts in public letter. Defends his work for Texaco, Coca-Cola, and Ameriquest. Do I detect case of rabbit ears -- hearing and reacting to every slight?

Snakes on campaign. Reilly's top press official, David Guarino, sends e-mail to top Reilly advisers on recruiting PR consultants to help peddle anti-Patrick labor agitator's rants about Killer Coke. Calls Mr. Killer Coke ``our friend." Globe columnist Joan Vennochi gets memo, blows whistle. Guarino denies it. Reilly tries Sergeant Schultz defense -- ``I know nuth-ing."

Reilly TV spots contrasting self with Kerry Healey and Mitt Romney are busy and look like newspaper ads. Now he's doing daily dissing of both his Democratic opponents. Published polls aside, he's in trouble.

Trash talk. What's with Gabby's new TV spot? One with his kids and wife. For those of us without nannies, taking out trash is not noteworthy event.

Boomer Nation. New Channel 4 SurveyUSA poll has Patrick, 34 percent, Gabrieli and Reilly, 30 -- effectively unchanged since earlier this month. (Channel 7 poll has different numbers, but let's not compare apples and oranges.) Biggest shift in Channel 4 poll came with boomers, voters ages 50 to 64. Patrick had led by 12 points, now tied with Reilly. What's it all mean? Good TV or bad debate could decide it.

Dan Payne is a Boston-based media consultant who has worked for former governors Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts and Angus King of Maine and, until November 2005, for candidate Deval Patrick.