Taking aim, giving pause

CAMBRIDGE -- One of the gubernatorial candidates wondered aloud yesterday morning just how hard and how often Tom Reilly would go on the attack in last night's debate.

That prescient question was answered just five minutes into the festivities: very hard and very often.

Reilly, the chief law enforcement officer of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and one-time front-runner for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, strode into a Harvard University auditorium loaded for bear. Whether he hit anything remains to be seen, but the early impressions are that the puddles of blood on the floor might well be his own.

The signs of potential attack probably should have been obvious. All the recent murmurings were that the three candidates have descended from mutual dislike to active disdain. And when they were led on stage last night, bizarrely eighteen minutes before the first question was to be asked, they stood shoulder to shoulder in virtual silence -- no campy jokes, no vacuous small-talk, nothing so much as a faux encouraging word.

And then came Reilly, right out of the gate, ignoring the first question on the floor to accuse rival Chris Gabrieli of leaking a recent report to the Globe about Reilly's disastrous selection of the budget-challenged Marie St. Fleur as his running mate. It was as if he was worried he'd forget his points if he didn't get it out of his head fast.

``I'm very disappointed in you, Chris," he concluded.

Ends up that Chris was disappointed in Tom as well, and Tom was also disappointed in Deval Patrick. Moments later, pertinent to nothing being discussed, Reilly turned to Patrick and asked: ``You've had your own tax problems as well. If Marie St. Fleur can't be lieutenant governor, how can you be governor?"

Patrick responded, ``Frankly, Tom, if you'd shown this kind of curiosity about the Big Dig, we'd all be better off now."

By now, they could have been giving away free lobster tails in the lobby and no one inside the forum would have left their chairs. The big question remaining was whether Reilly might pull a Tyson and bite one of his opponents on the ear.

This Tom Reilly I hadn't met before. The Reilly I know is the Reilly I often see walking the Charles River alone after work, dressed in a sweat suit and a ballcap, quietly clearing his head, collecting his thoughts.

The Reilly I know is as empathetic a politician as I have ever met, prone to fury and sometimes tears when he discusses the crime victims he's worked for over the years. Once over lunch last winter, when I asked him why he still lives in a rental apartment in Watertown, he launched into an unscripted 10- minute response about family, about neighbors, about values, that was as elegant a soliloquy on everyday life as I've ever heard from a pol.

That particular Reilly wasn't at Harvard last night, at least not through the bulk of the debate. He appeared gaunt, at once halting and rehearsed, Johnny Carson when he was mailing it in. He appeared diminished by the campaign.

Even worse was how he played in comparison. Gabrieli, not exactly known as a cut-up, got off so many legitimate laugh lines that NECN anchor Jim Braude asked him after the affair whether Jay Leno helped with his debate prep. All the while, Gabrieli drilled home his trademark point about getting results.

And Patrick was as smooth as always, his often ephemeral points gliding along perfectly rhythmic sentences as he rammed home his theme of hope. ``Good ideas will die on Beacon Hill if we don't change the culture of inaction and neglect," he said.

Reilly was, figuratively and literally, the man in the middle, the one with more accusations than proposals. By the end, he had tamed himself some, returned a little bit to the more thoughtful public servant that most people know.

``You know where I stand," he said at the end. ``You know what you'll get."

But by then, people might not have been so sure.

Brian McGrory is a Globe columnist. His e-mail is mcgrory@globe.com.