DiMasi's excellent hero opportunity

Sal DiMasi is plenty used to slapping backs. But they are usually those of fellow pols or the parade of special-interest suits who prowl the State House hallways pushing one issue or another.

The gathering 10 days ago of more than 200 faith-based activists at the Bethel AME Church in Jamaica Plain clearly wasn't his usual crowd. But the love-fest that ensued between the gregarious House speaker and the roomful of grass-roots champions of healthcare reform seemed to reflect a new bond as tight as those DiMasi has forged with fellow pols and players over a nearly three-decade career on Beacon Hill.

In October, when DiMasi rolled out a sweeping House healthcare reform proposal that went well beyond those offered by the Senate and Governor Mitt Romney, he became an instant ally of a broad coalition of groups mounting a signature drive to put a measure on the 2006 state ballot that would provide expanded health coverage through many of the same mechanisms.

Chief among them is a tax on employers who do not offer health insurance to their workers, a proposal that has earned DiMasi the wrath of business leaders -- and the enthusiastic embrace of those who say it is the only way to ensure true universal coverage in the state.

With the debate coming to a head on Beacon Hill, one of the ballot question's principal players, the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization, put DiMasi front and center at their Jamaica Plain gathering, a rally that the Rev. Ray Hammond, Bethel AME's pastor, described as an opportunity ''to educate, to celebrate, and to agitate."

The Rev. Hurmon Hamilton of Roxbury Presbyterian Church, the copresident of the interfaith group, introduced the House speaker to raucous cheers, declaring, ''We are so honored to have the courageous champion of the underserved here."

Sal DiMasi's ''hero opportunity" had arrived.

In a 1999 manual she coauthored for grass-roots activists, giving the how-to's of effective public policy campaigns, veteran human services lobbyist Judy Meredith described a hero opportunity as a moment in which there is ''a compelling problem or crisis" for which a political leader can ''propose and champion a solution that brings a measurable difference in the lives of a critical mass of constituents."

For DiMasi, who assumed the speaker's post last year with some doubting his appetite for big-picture policy making -- and who has only fed those doubts with an initial year at the helm that at times has seemed rudderless -- such an opportunity couldn't have come soon enough.

''All of a sudden, here is the good old boy from the North End being a policy maker, and getting his good old boys in the House to stand up and be for this," said Meredith.

DiMasi, always quick with a quip, didn't disappoint just because he was on less familiar ground. ''This is a different meeting for me," he said with evident understatement to the interfaith group, which is made up of some 72 religious congregations, unions, and community organizations. ''I feel inspired. I feel like saying hallelujah!" he shouted, as the crowd responded in kind, with an equal mix of fervor and laughter.

But DiMasi made clear that his commitment to the House proposal is genuine and serious. He said it was born of his upbringing in the North End. ''We didn't have very much growing up, but we knew we had to take care of each other," he said.

He likened the House healthcare proposal to earlier moments in history when Massachusetts was a national leader on public policy, whether in public education, the advent of a public library system, or public health.

''It was new, it was bold, and it was the right thing to do," he said of each achievement. ''And that's what this healthcare plan is."

Whether DiMasi's ambitious plan for extending health coverage to the state's roughly 500,000 residents without insurance will win out, in whole or part, remains to be seen. Among the army of activists pushing for healthcare reform, though, he's already a winner just for trying.

Said Hammond after the rally, ''When people take what we think is a bold and courageous stand, that needs to be applauded."

Michael Jonas can be reached at jonas@globe.com.