Healey moves to set agenda
Criticizes Patrick on immigration, taxes, and crime
Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey launched a full scale assault yesterday on her Democratic rival, Deval L. Patrick, using a television ad to accuse him of being soft on crime and bending to teachers unions, while attacking him at a press conference on taxes, immigration, and his refusal to demand that his party chairman resign.
Healey began the day telling reporters that she was unsatisfied with Democratic Party chairman Philip W. Johnston's repudiation of his own remarks that she was close to ``fear mongering" and ``race baiting" by raising immigration issues in the campaign. She accused him of trying to stifle a debate on the issue to protect Patrick.
She pressed her demands that Patrick call for Johnston to step down from his party post, saying his remarks, made Thursday, were ``shameful." She had called the press conference to challenge Patrick over his opposition to an income tax rollback.
Later in the day, her campaign began airing a television commercial that touts her credentials as a ``career criminologist" and quotes Patrick's defeated primary rival, Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly, accusing Patrick of being ``soft on crime." It also criticized him for backing off initial support for merit pay for teachers.
Polls indicate that Patrick, fresh off his sweeping victory in the Democratic primary on Tuesday, is leading Healey by a very wide margin. A CBS4 poll gave Patrick 64 percent and Healey 25 percent of a sample of 608 likely voters.
With just six weeks left in the campaign, Healey strategists are moving quickly to highlight Patrick's positions on issues such as crime, taxes and immigration, which the Republicans feel will draw conservative Democrats and independents to her candidacy. Her moves are undoubtedly aimed at setting much of the agenda as she and Patrick, along with independent Christy Mihos and Green-Rainbow Party nominee, prepared to meet in their first televised debate Monday night.
Patrick, the former chief of the US Justice Department's civil rights division, scoffed at her assertion that she is more of an expert on crime.
``She's going to accuse me of all kinds of things before this is over, mostly because she lacks information," he said yesterday at a campaign stop at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. ``She has been a theorist about criminal justice. I've been a prosecutor. I understand how to do it."
He brushed off her demands that he call for Johnston to step aside. He also defended his position against the income tax rollback, saying that the policies of Governor Mitt Romney and Healey have cut deeply into the state's public education budget and that funds are needed to restore those and other critical programs.
In her press conference, Healey had her harshest words for Johnston, who had accused her of coming ``perilously close to race baiting."
``Trying to take the issues off the table by creating this false impression is simply a very cynical attempt to try to take issues off the table that perhaps Phil Johnston doesn't think are good issues for Deval Patrick," Healey told reporters.
Johnston was not available for comment yesterday.
Patrick campaigned at UMass-Boston yesterday with Senator John F. Kerry. Asked about Healey's repeated request for Johnston to resign, Patrick, who had distanced himself from the remarks, broke into laughter.
``That's my response," he said, referring to his chuckle. ``Phil Johnston speaks for himself. I understand he retracted the comment . . . and he should have. And as far as I'm concerned, it's time for us to get back to the issues that concern our future."
Kerry took a swipe at her, saying that she was ``trying to play to the lowest common denominator" through her attacks on immigration policy. Patrick and Kerry were visiting with about 20 students and faculty to discuss higher education policy.
What sparked the initial fray was Johnston's comment to the Globe and to a television reporter Thursday in which he said that Healey's focus on whether illegal immigrants should be given driver's licenses or in-state tuition at public colleges ``comes perilously close to race baiting" and that she was ``fear mongering of the worst sort."
Later that day he issued a statement saying that his remarks did not reflect Patrick's feelings and said that he ``may have gone too far" in his choice of words. Patrick distanced himself from the comments, saying his campaign would remain positive.
At her press conference at Union Oyster House in Boston, Healey also launched an attack on Patrick's opposition to an income tax rollback. She stood by a green ``taxometer," a large display with rolling digital numbers that she said showed that Massachusetts taxpayers have paid more than $2 billion to state government over the past six years because the Legislature has not rolled back the income tax as voters demanded in 2000.
Patrick rejoined with criticisms of the cuts in public education by Governor Mitt Romney and Healey. ``We should talk about taxes, and we should talk about the ways in which this administration has been starving the public education system," said Patrick. ``We've been walking away from public higher education, and that has happened on [Healey's] watch and she should answer for it." 