Massachusetts voters can be forgiven if they are confused about Governor Deval Patrick's stand on taxes.
After expressing reluctance to raise the gas tax, he then proposed increasing it by 19 cents a gallon. This week, he promised to veto a sales tax increase to 6.25 percent, but professed he was "not hostile" to the tax and was only holding out for passage of a raft unrelated reforms. Meanwhile, he has proposed a battery of new taxes and fees on candy, alcohol, water bottles, restaurant meals, and car registrations.
Lawmakers, including some of his core supporters, are accusing Patrick of trying to have it all ways - distancing himself from some tax increases to avoid a political backlash, but also leaving himself wiggle room to accept higher taxes and proposing some himself.
It is a delicate political maneuver that even Patrick has acknowledged involves some risks, a position that appears designed at least in part to help him preserve political capital for a likely 2010 reelection bid.
"You do the political speculation," Patrick said yesterday when asked whether such calculations figured into his decision to oppose, with conditions, the sales tax. "That's not me."
It's a Kabuki dance ritual familiar to past politicians seeking to raise taxes during an economic downturn, when the state needs money but residents and businesses can ill afford higher taxes.
"Recessions in state government are hell; you're between a rock and a hard place," said former governor Michael S. Dukakis, who was swept from office in 1978 after his first term in part because of an antitax fervor. "Nobody is going to win popularity points raising taxes."
Patrick has acknowledged he embarked on a risky strategy this week when he broke with his fellow Democrats and threatened to veto the House sales tax increase from 5 percent to 6.25 percent, which would generate $900 million for state coffers.
Lawmakers were especially angered that Patrick linked his aversion to the tax increase with an accusation that the Legislature has acted too slowly on ethics, pension, and transportation reforms that have nothing to do with the sales tax.
The threat echoed his 2006 campaign promises to clean up the political culture of Beacon Hill, which also rubbed lawmakers the wrong way.
"We'll be on guard now and we'll realize that we don't have the type of partner in the corner office that we thought we had," said Representative Michael Rodrigues, a Democrat from Westport. "It's the governor positioning his reelection campaign. He's going to now try and position himself as an outsider reformer and run against the Legislature."
Patrick met with nearly 20 House lawmakers behind closed doors yesterday, where the governor sought to calm tempers and further explain his position. Most of the legislators were rank-and-file, illustrating that Patrick is trying to take his message past House leadership.
During the meeting, the governor complained that some of the messages he gives to House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo and Senate President Therese Murray are not being conveyed to members, said a member who attended. He also said in the meeting that discussions on transportation reform have been slow because negotiation sessions have been canceled.
"I'm dumbfounded," said Senator Steven A. Baddour, the Senate chairman of the Joint Committee on Transportation, who said he had lunch with Patrick last week to talk about transportation. All of this saber rattling isn't helping us. Other than pure politics, it serves no purpose."
A Patrick administration official said the two meetings that were canceled were with high-level legislative staff members, not lawmakers.
Some lawmakers said the relationship between Patrick and the Legislature is at its worst level since he took office - with even more animosity than after former House speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi engineered last year's defeat of the governor's keystone resort casino legislation.
"That was personal with one person," said a House leadership member. "Now, it's personal with 160 people."
Some House members have also complained that Patrick's messages on taxes have appeared inconsistent.
"The governor was drawing a line in the sand, saying he didn't prefer our version of a broad-based revenue increase in the form of the sales tax," said Representative Joseph Wagner, a Chicopee Democrat and House chairman of the Committee on Transportation. "Rather, he preferred his own version of a broad-based revenue increase in the form of a gas tax."
Patrick argues that there is a philosophical difference between his targeted approach to a multitude of taxes and the Legislature's inclination for one sweeping tax.
For example, he says an alcohol and candy tax would be dedicated to healthcare; gas tax revenue would pay for roads and bridges. He has also been laying out his case that the public won't accept any taxes unless lawmakers first pass reforms.
"He's right about some things, and I understand his frustration on reforms," said Representative Cory Atkins, a Concord Democrat, adding that the House has moved at a quicker clip than normal. "He's the coach on the sidelines saying, 'Pick up the game. We've got to move faster.' "
By threatening to veto a sales tax increase, Patrick is also potentially insulating himself from attacks during a reelection campaign next year where two of his potential rivals are against raising broad-based taxes.
"I think he's trying to dodge the bullet as best he can," Dennis Hale, a political science professor at Boston College, said of Patrick. "He'll get the tax revenue but not the opprobrium, at least that's his hope."
Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com. 
