Healey races to bottom

It was telling, then, to hear him vent his rage yesterday with the Kerry Healey campaign over "the ad."

You know the one: It's the commercial that shows a woman in a dark parking garage. It then cuts to Deval Patrick talking about convicted rapist Benjamin LaGuer, and ends by asserting that Patrick should be "ashamed, not governor."

"When I first saw it, the effect for me as a black male, it just killed me," Brown said yesterday. "It's the kind of race-baiting ad that plays to the worst fears of suburban America. It has crossed the line, as far as I'm concerned."

Brown, pastor of Union Baptist Church in Cambridge, called on Healey to pull the ad. There wouldn't seem to be much chance of that, since the Healey camp has said they believe their ad is working and "closing the gap." Both claims are debatable at best.

Brown is far from the first critic of the commercial. However, he is a man who has enjoyed a solid working relationship with the Romney-Healey administration.

A founding member of the Ten Point Coalition, he was the man Governor Mitt Romney appointed to be "governor" of the site that was set up to house Hurricane Katrina victims at Camp Edwards, and he has worked with Romney and Healey on anticrime efforts.

Healey's commercial is not the only bone he has to pick with her these days.

A coalition of community groups, including the Ten Point Coalition, the Black Ministerial Alliance, and the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization, has sought for months to get the two major candidates to agree to a forum to discuss crime and health care. Though Healey insists in debates that both topics are dear to her, she declined to take the groups up on their offer, Brown said.

The forum, which is scheduled for Thursday in Roxbury without Healey's involvement, is the sort of thing you might expect the career criminologist to be interested in. But she has apparently decided that there is little benefit to her in participating. She refused to meet last Monday with the Black Ministerial Alliance, as well.

The odd thing is that the African-American clergy who made both invitations have been among the Romney administration's strongest black supporters. While such groups do not endorse candidates, they have made it clear that on such social issues as gay marriage, they are much more comfortable with Republicans than with many Democrats.

Brown, a registered independent, said Healey's decision smacks of an anti urban strategy. "It just confirms to me that she is cutting us out of her equation entirely," he said.

Healey has made a crusade of painting her opponent as soft on crime. Yet when representatives of some of the city neighborhoods most affected by crime seek an audience, they get rebuffed. Perhaps she was busy overseeing another smear ad. A call to Healey spokesman Nate Little wasn't returned yesterday.

"We have been working with the Romney-Healey administration, and it would seem obvious as the hand in front of my face that she would want to continue that work," Brown said. "It is so strange that she has refused to do so."

But back to the ad Brown wants pulled. "It's one thing to talk about a candidate's record around crime and another to use black males as a foil to get the corner office," Brown said in obvious disgust.

By widespread agreement, this campaign is the ugliest in Massachusetts history. Worse, it continues to deteriorate. Even if the strategy were working -- and polls say it isn't -- no one should want to become governor this way.

If Healey loses, you can expect to hear a lot of brooding about how she took bad advice from those around her. Spare me. Candidates are not robots; they are grown-up, ambitious people who own the things that are done in their names. Kerry Healey's desperate campaign is nothing but a race to the bottom, and that seems to be exactly where it's taking her.

Adrian Walker is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at walker@globe.com.