Running on angry

Kerry, come on in for a moment. Take off your sneer and stay a while.

I need to tell you something that your staff apparently isn't willing to say: You've already gotten further in Massachusetts politics than you ever had a right to expect. You're already playing with the house money in this campaign.

Think about it. You got trounced in the only political race you ever ran on your own, and that was for, what, state representative?

Your private-sector career pretty much involved working in a cubicle at a Cambridge consulting company and teaching a couple of courses at colleges that are hardly a threat to anything on the Charles.

And then you became lieutenant governor for Mitt Romney because -- and let's be especially honest here -- pretty much every black or female Republican of any prominence told him no. For the last four years, you stood dutifully by his side, speaking only when spoken to, which was pretty much never, because, as everyone knows by now, Mitt is all about Mitt.

And then there are, of course, your résumé issues. One of your -- ahem -- books was actually a memo.

And that television ad that showed you holding up a baby while the words ``supported her family" appeared on the screen isn't entirely true. By the time your first kid was born, your husband was five years into his career.

None of which is to say you're unqualified to be governor. Not in the slightest. After all, this is the state that elected Paul Cellucci.

But the problem is -- well, the problem is actually you, or at least your performance over the last few weeks.

On your best day, you're uptight. Usually, you just seem furious. Your speeches have turned into lectures. Your assertions are always accusations. The world according to Kerry Healey is a dour place indeed.

So allow me to offer an unsolicited observation: No matter how bad you make your opponent seem, no matter how many millions of dollars worth of attack ads that you run, Massachusetts is not going to elect a governor who looks like she spends half her days wandering the laxative aisle of the local CVS.

I know full well what you're trying to do, and in some respects it makes sense. Deval Patrick came out of the primary an image, a vessel in which people invested their hopes and dreams. You're trying to make him a real person, with flaws and with history and with positions that may not gel with the public at large.

But with the stick, you need the carrot. Sooner, rather than later, you have to lure voters, as well as scare them.

The maddening part of all this is that I think I know you better.

The Kerry Healey I know downs a six-pack of Coke every day, and not Diet Coke, but the real thing. The Kerry Healey I know doubled back toward a fancy convertible in the parking lot outside a campaign event yesterday when she thought no one was looking, just because she was interested in the car.

That Kerry Healey lights into a chocolate cake a la mode at lunch. She gossips about who's dating whom on her campaign, laughingly recounts the time she wouldn't answer a television reporter's quasi-obscene question about how she eats an ice cream cone, and lightly mocks her husband's midlife pursuits.

But none of that personality, none of the humanity, is in any way apparent when you take the public stage.

So here's another bit of advice: Muss up your hair. Ease up on that finishing school accent. Confide your dreams to audiences, rather than harangue them with your fears. Tell us more what you're for, less what you're against.

You should be flying high that you ever got this far in a system that has eaten up a whole lot of people a whole lot more qualified than you.

Until and unless you loosen up, voters are going to be left with just one question in this campaign: What's this woman got to be angry about?

The answer: There's no good reason at all.

Brian McGrory is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at mcgrory@globe.com.