Democrats must keep eye on prize

WELCOME TO Worcester, Democrats.

You've spent almost 16 years locked out of the governor's office, but this year you have a sterling chance to turn the electoral tumblers and emerge triumphant in November.

Here's what the far-sighted among you should be hoping for at tomorrow's convention: candidates who refuse to tell you exactly what you want to hear; prospective governors and lieutenant governors who realize that a strong state economy is fundamental to everything else and who thus appreciate the importance of a competitive business climate; hopefuls who understand that our state lives on its brains, and who therefore are committed to educational standards, quality, and choice; and leaders who recognize that demands for new spending must be tempered by the need for fiscal prudence.

You need candidates who, though they value the party faithful, nevertheless know that the people who really matter aren't the 5,000 or so who turn out for a convention in early June, but the 750,000 or more who will cast ballots in the party primary in September, and the 2 million-plus who will choose the next governor in November.

Long experience teaches that the contenders who prove most pleasing to the crowd in the convention hall aren't always a hit with primary voters come fall. If convention victories predicted primary outcomes, Evelyn Murphy, not John Kerry, would have been the party's nominee for lieutenant governor in 1982. Jim Shannon, not Kerry, would have become the Democrats' choice for the US Senate in 1984. Gerry D'Amico, and not Murphy, would have emerged as the primary pick for second banana in 1986. And Frank Bellotti, not John Silber, would have been the party's gubernatorial nominee in 1990. It's true the record has been better in the last few cycles, though that's mostly because the convention has basically bestowed its benediction upon candidates already established as front-runners.

This year, the runaway favorite to capture the convention endorsement is Deval Patrick. Patrick's delegate advantage is so pronounced that his campaign has been waging a hardball effort -- with multiple phone calls to potential switchers -- to keep the late-starting Chris Gabrieli from getting the 15 percent vote he needs to make the ballot. (This is a different kind of politics?)

Patrick's high command clearly thinks that his best shot is in a head-to-head race with Attorney General Thomas Reilly. But if delegates do box Gabrieli out, they will be excluding the man who, in his 2002 lieutenant governor's campaign, won more Democratic primary votes than any of the party's other nonincumbent candidates. Metaphorically, that kind of progressive power play would instantly turn the DCU Center into the world's largest smoke-free, smoke-filled room.

Another problem, as one longtime convention-goer notes, is that the longer Democrats are removed from gubernatorial power, the farther removed these conventions seem from the real world. And the more party concerns seem to reflect not the broad public interest but rather its constituency group parts.

Now, I know no one takes a platform particularly seriously. Still, as a party, you do require candidates to specify where they disagree with the official party orthodoxy, so your manifesto is worth a moment's consideration.

Sadly, you're are still on record against the MCAS exam as a graduation requirement. That standards benchmark grew out of a 1990s education-reform movement led legislatively by two dedicated Democrats: then state Representative (and 1994 gubernatorial nominee) Mark Roosevelt and then state Senator (and later Senate president) Thomas Birmingham. The MCAS exam was successfully defended against legal challenges by Attorney General Reilly, one of your party's top state officeholders. Its emphasis on standards has helped boost Massachusetts students to a country-leading performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress exam, known as the nation's report card. As former governor Michael Dukakis noted on NECN the other day, those national results are something the state should be celebrating.

Still, your platform opposes the MCAS, just as it opposes any expansion in charter schools, another important educational development, and one that has proved a popular option for inner-city families.

Provisions such as those read like communiques from interest-group dreamland. They are all the more reason why you need candidates independent enough to chart their own courses, with the public interest as their only compass.

So enjoy yourself in Worcester, Democrats, but bear in mind that though conventions are exciting for the insiders, the events that really count come in September and November.

Scot Lehigh's e-mail address is lehigh@globe.com.