A rocky alliance

Some wonder if Patrick, DiMasi can put aside differences to get the state's business done

Governor Deval Patrick appeared with House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi and Senate President Therese Murray at a press conference earlier this month. Patrick says that he, DiMasi, and Murry have been building a relationship for the last 13 months. (Suzanne Kreiter/Globe staff)

House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi sat with his legs crossed, staring into space. He went over his prepared remarks, scratched his head. He did everything, it seemed, but pay attention to the person speaking at the podium, Governor Deval Patrick.

Several minutes later, before a room full of scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital this month, Patrick was asked about DiMasi, about his frustrations with the speaker and the slow pace of legislation in the House.

After stammering a bit, Patrick stopped.

"Let me answer it this way," he said, turning to DiMasi. "Sal, come up here."

As the crowd squealed with delight at a rare sight, Patrick threw his arms around DiMasi and Senate President Therese Murray.

"Get a good shot," Patrick instructed photographers. "This is a preview of what you are going to see," when, he predicted, lawmakers would enact his proposal to invest $1 billion in the biotechnology industry.

The brief embrace - an awkward Kumbaya moment for the cameras - obscured a tense relationship between Patrick and DiMasi, one that has spilled far beyond the personal, and the professional, to affect the direction of state policy in multiple areas.

Speaker quizzing lawmakers on casino plan. B4

Not only that, but the mutual frustrations, veiled barbs, and apparent lack of personal chemistry between the two have taken some of the glow from Democrats who, when Patrick took office in January 2007, found themselves in control of the executive and legislative branches in Massachusetts for the first time since 1990.

For state residents, this is more than just political theater.

The fate of the biggest issues confronting the Commonwealth depends largely on how well these two men can work together - including whether the state licenses casinos, finds new ways to pay for its sprawling transportation network, and improves education for young children and young adults.

Two weeks ago, DiMasi took a big step on the governor's $1 billion plan to boost the life-sciences industry by unveiling a similar plan. DiMasi also has agreed with Patrick to tighten up corporate tax codes to make it harder for companies to avoid taxes, but it remains to be seen if they can reach a final compromise.

Hearings on the governor's casino legislation are expected to begin within weeks.

Their ability, or inability, to cooperate could also have major political implications: If the state's leading Democrats can't work together, it could create an opening for a Republican to take back the corner office.

"Given that we have one-party government, we've gotten a lot less done than the electorate may have expected," said House minority leader Bradley Jones. "With two-party government, you could always blame the other party. You can't do that anymore."

Their differences stem in large part from their backgrounds: Patrick, a former corporate lawyer and newcomer to state government who generated enormous excitement as a reformer, versus DiMasi, a tough and wily inside player steeped in the culture of Massachusetts politics.

Patrick was eager to capitalize on his sweeping 2006 election victory, but he has publicly expressed frustration with DiMasi, who has delayed many of the governor's high-priority initiatives. DiMasi, in turn, has suggested that Patrick lacks the political experience and skills to deal cooperatively with the Legislature.

The gulf between them seemed to widen in recent weeks over the national presidential primary, which also divided the state's Democratic establishment. DiMasi backed Senator Hillary Clinton; Patrick lined up behind Senator Barack Obama.

Several days before the Massachusetts primary, DiMasi criticized Obama's level of experience, and suggested voters should look at Patrick's first year in office as an indication of a rocky learning process.

Asked about that and other barbs from the speaker on a monthly radio show he hosts on WTKK-AM, Patrick attempted to shrug off the speaker's remarks.

"He can't help himself, you know?" Patrick said recently on "Ask the Governor." "There's no point in carrying around . . . the indignity du jour."

Contrary to the public posturing, he added, "We usually giggle about it when we're together."

In a brief interview, DiMasi also attempted to downplay their differences. "We are working better together," he said. "We always have. I don't think the governor and I . . .I mean, we disagree on maybe some principles."

Murray is in a position to take on a role as peacemaker. She sits with Patrick and DiMasi in weekly, closed-door leadership meetings. But so far, at least in public, she has stayed out of their disagreements.

Not without me

Patrick came into office with overwhelming support. After winning a Democratic primary over DiMasi-backed Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly, Patrick won 56 percent of the vote, enough for him to claim a mandate for broad changes.

"The people of Massachusetts chose by a decisive margin to take back their government," Patrick said on election night. His message was clear: I won, and I'm going to fix things on Beacon Hill. But the response from DiMasi was equally clear: Not without me.

"I think they're both trying to get to the overall objective, but sometimes DiMasi gets a little frustrated with the lack of understanding, in his mind, from the administration," said Representative David Flynn, the longest serving member in the House. "They have clashes over it. I think it's a frustration on both the governor's part and DiMasi's part."

Once Patrick took office, the House speaker almost immediately began taking swipes at Patrick, criticizing everything from his political inexperience to his office redecorating. At the St. Patrick's Day breakfast last year - where the state's politicians always throw punches at one another - DiMasi played songs that he said reminded him of the governor's political trajectory.

He went from Captain & Tennille's "Love will Keep Us Together," to Frank Sinatra's "My Way," and then Brenda Lee's "I'm Sorry." The last song he played was Celine Dion singing "All By Myself."

Some of DiMasi's actions have had the effect of an initiation - the political equivalent of giving the governor a hazing. But DiMasi, whose position of speaker gives him a strong grip on the flow of legislation, has also poured cold water on virtually all of Patrick's proposals.

He has repeatedly said he is skeptical about a cornerstone Patrick idea, licensing three casinos in the state. Last year he came out strongly against Patrick's initiative to tighten what the governor called corporate tax loopholes. And he waited eight months to take action on Patrick's $1 billion life-sciences initiative.

"There's no doubt that the speaker takes every opportunity to remind the governor that he is not alone," said Paul Watanabe, a professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Boston.

"In some ways it's almost like telling Deval Patrick that he may command the masses - and he may command their enthusiasm and support - but the speaker commands something equally as precious when you want to make policy: the votes and loyalties of a very strong Democratic contingent in the Legislature."

Divergent paths

Although Patrick and DiMasi were born into hardscrabble circumstances, Beacon Hill consultants and staffers say some of the friction may be a result of the divergent paths they followed to power.

"You will hear from both sides: I don't get him," said one Democratic political consultant. "And the same goes for those around them. [Lieutenant Governor] Tim Murray doesn't get the speaker, and the speaker's lieutenants don't get the governor."

DiMasi grew up in a working-class, Italian-American neighborhood in the North End where he had to walk two blocks to get a hot shower. He spent summers in New Hampshire, working as a caddie for wealthy tourists and learning how to play golf. He worked his way through Boston College and Suffolk University Law School, and opened his own law practice.

He's a backslapping politician whose first comment in an encounter is usually a joke. He holds his friends close, but his upbringing also gave him sharp elbows. Now in his 15th term in the House, he slowly rose from lieutenant to one of the biggest power brokers on Beacon Hill.

Patrick, meanwhile, had never held public office before running for governor. He spent his early years in a small apartment on Chicago's South Side, but got a scholarship to attend prep school at Milton Academy. He went to Harvard University and Harvard Law School, and then made his mark as a civil-rights lawyer in the Clinton administration and later as a high-ranking corporate lawyer for Coca-Cola and Texaco.

Patrick is charming, earnest, studious, and an excellent public speaker, but political back-slapping does not come easily to him. When he ran for governor, he generated enthusiasm among his supporters about changing the culture on Beacon Hill.

It was not just campaign rhetoric. He continued to strike reform-minded themes in the days after his election. As he was making the rounds and meeting with legislative leaders, attempting to build bridges, he was also telling reporters that he would refuse recommendations from lawmakers for patronage appointments.

The biggest obstacle

With his signature initiative to develop three casinos in Massachusetts facing strong opposition in the House, where DiMasi has set himself up as the biggest obstacle, Patrick has slowly increased his attempts to put outside pressure on lawmakers.

DiMasi refused to hold hearings on the governor's casino legislation after Patrick filed it last fall. So Patrick's staff worked to pack a hearing at the State House that was broadly about gambling, not the casino legislation itself. With heavy press attention, union members wearing matching red T-shirts surrounded the governor, as did a phalanx of wealthy casino developers from around the country. The governor won a standing ovation when he left the hearing room.

Patrick Cabinet officials, meanwhile, have been streaming across the state, visiting city and town officials and encouraging them to put pressure on their legislative delegates to approve casinos.

And in a year when legislators are running for reelection, he has begun striking a warning - driven home in his State of the State address last month - that the "the cost of inaction" by the Legislature would be unacceptable.

Coincidence or not, following Patrick's live, televised speech, DiMasi began to demonstrate signs of movement. He blocked Patrick's effort to tighten corporate tax codes throughout 2007, but then embraced the concept this month with a caveat: He wants a corresponding deep cut in the corporate tax rate, deeper than Patrick has proposed.

And with his own version of a $1 billion life-sciences initiative last week, DiMasi agreed to the broad outlines of the governor's proposal while putting the House's imprint on the concept with a set of narrowly targeted spending proposals that would spread money to interest groups and regions around the state.

"The speaker and I, and the Senate president have been building a relationship for the last 13 months," Patrick told reporters after DiMasi agreed to move a life-sciences bill. "It is every day more candid and more constructive, and we're all trying to drive in the same direction."

But DiMasi recoiled at any suggestion that he was responding to Patrick's demand for action from the Legislature.

"It has nothing to do with any of that, believe me. We're on our own schedule here," DiMasi said recently. "It's not like he makes a proposal, and it has to be done that way. This is a legislative process."

Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com.