Healey's wild pitch

And here I always thought Kerry Healey was such a proper woman, with her finishing school accent and perfectly coiffed hair and finely tailored clothes -- Martha Stewart on the right side of the law. The fact that she can rip into a hot dog at Fenway Park or attack a slice of chocolate cake over lunch only made her more appealing.

But, holy cow, Kerry. Yesterday, she dropped a neutron bomb on a gubernatorial race that hasn't even begun yet.

The Democrats have been playing Wiffle Ball for the past many months, even if Deval Patrick was complaining at the debate that the other guys were pitching at him too hard. The three candidates have been doing a perfectly adequate job at looking perfectly adequate, Patrick performing a little better than the rest.

Then along comes Healey yesterday in a place where under no circumstances does she belong, the Democratic primary. She unleashed a television attack ad against Chris Gabrieli that was so strident, so outrageous, so utterly ham-handed that it should tell you more about the accuser than the accused.

First, a word about attack ads: terrific. I love them. Forget all the admonitions from pasty-faced prognosticators about how awful they are. An honest, creative attack ad is an important part of a political campaign. Voters deserve to know the bad with the good. Plus, they can just plain be interesting, while most candidates aren't.

Now back to Healey's. Hers is cynical to its core. A female voiceover refers to ``Gabrieli the tycoon," while the ad accuses him of proposing a billion-dollar public investment in stem cell research so that he can personally profit.

Aha! So that's why Gabrieli retired from business years ago, worked in the nonprofit sector, jumped into the gubernatorial race, and dumped millions upon millions of dollars into his campaign: because he needs the money. I apologize that we in the news media didn't uncover this before.

There's plenty of ground upon which to criticize Gabrieli. He suffers a modest case of smartest-guy-in-the-room syndrome. He can be selectively glib, then self-righteously detailed. He steadfastly refuses to understand that the most effective leaders are able to inspire with something more than the most specific tax cut plan. But corrupt? Please.

And while we're near the subject, what's with the tycoon thing? Doesn't Healey live on a sprawling estate in one of the most affluent neighborhoods in the nation? And doesn't she rest her head every night beside a multimillionaire husband who has given every indication that he'll fund the better part of her campaign?

Obviously, Healey fears Gabrieli. There's no other explanation for this ridiculous ad. His moderate stands cut across party lines. His bank account allows him to campaign more than fund-raise. So she's trying to manipulate the Democratic vote in the waning days of the primary.

Can she?

I ran into Gabrieli in Brighton a little after 8 a.m. yesterday, before he was aware that Healey was airing the ads. The hint of frustration in his voice was because Patrick was floating ahead in the polls. ``His slogan is `Together We Can,' " he said of Patrick. ``He doesn't say what we can do. Together we can do what?"

At 2 p.m., Gabrieli stood before a couple of hundred cheering supporters and a battery of cameras at a rushed press conference in front of the State House and declared, ``This campaign is costing me money, not making me any." By last night, he released his own response ad lamenting the politics as usual of a negative campaign.

One Democratic strategist, unaffiliated with Gabrieli, thinks the Healey ad might do him in. ``Negative ads hurt," the strategist said. ``That's just the deal."

And in a sign of things to come, Healey adviser Rob Gray said, ``Politics is a contact sport in Massachusetts."

Voters just learned some things about Kerry Healey that are important to know. They're about to learn a lot about Chris Gabrieli in the way he handles the heat.

Brian McGrory is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at mcgrory@globe.com.