A debate that put weaknesses on display
SOME DEBATES highlight the hopefuls' strengths. Last night's face-off cast a spotlight on the major-party candidates' shortcomings.
Start with Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey. If not particularly likable, the Kerry Healey who shows up at these events is forceful, tough, and determined to draw issue distinctions .
Unfortunately, she's the same candidate whose campaign is running an attack ad that tries to undercut her Democratic opponent by playing on women's fear of sexual assault. Now, the view here is that Deval Patrick made a serious mistake in ever urging parole for Ben LaGuer, a convicted rapist he didn't even know. Further, in this campaign he should have acknowledged that mistake forthrightly, without weasel-word qualifiers or process-heavy apologies.
Healey's ad, however, is a reprehensible tactic, one that has no place in the governor's race. Emily Rooney of WGBH called her on it by asking just what viewers were supposed to take away from that ad -- that Patrick condoned LaGuer's action, or that if Patrick became governor ``women should fear they are more likely to get raped?"
Healey palavered on about differences in perspectives, and her work on Melanie's Law and anti-gang laws. That was a dishonest reply, as was her subsequent claim that the ad highlighted Patrick's poor judgment. Actually, the scurrilous spot goes beyond character assassination to play on fears of sexual assault -- and Healey should take it off the air immediately.
On education, moderator David Gergen asked a revealing question of Patrick: Given his own background as a Chicago youth whose life was changed by a scholarship that let him leave an underperforming public school to go to Milton Academy, why does he oppose the expansion of charter schools, which offer similar opportunities to kids in Massachusetts?
Patrick replied that he doesn't oppose charters and, further, that he would be willing to lift the current cap on charters ``when we fix the funding formula," which he contends is broken and creates an unhealthy tension between charters and traditional schools.
Problem: Patrick has been saying the same thing since at least last December. I've pressed the candidate several times on whether he was going to propose a new funding formula before the election. Each time he has said he might.
Campaigns are about proposals. Where is his plan?
Green Rainbow candidate Grace Ross, who had a pretty good night as a truth-squadder, was onto something when she essentially told Patrick he is trying to have it both ways on charters.
This debate also highlighted another Patrick problem: His gauzy rhetoric sounds good the first time out, but dissolves like cotton candy on the third or fourth hearing. An inspiring speaker, he's skilled at serving up lofty lefty tropes. But unlike Bill Clinton, who just came to town to campaign for him, Patrick shows little inclination to tie his rhetoric down to specifics.
For example, he's said any number of times that he wants to cut property taxes and, further, that that's one reason the state should keep the income tax at 5.3 percent.
But again, to take him seriously we need a real proposal for property-tax relief. Independent candidate Christy Mihos, who like Ross made a good contribution in critiquing the major party candidates, had it right when he told Patrick he needed to offer ``real numbers," not just ``sweet nothings."
This week, Kerry Healey has seemed like a candidate who would stoop to any tactic to win.
Last night, Deval Patrick looked like a front-runner sitting on his lead, offering generalities when it is long past time for substance.
Both need to do better.
Scot Lehigh's e-mail address is lehigh@globe.com. 