Rav Casley Gera

Oh, OK, Live-ish. I admit it: I’m writing this after the fact. Harvard University’s JFK School of Government is bursting with internet-access, but my days of being able to access such things are long gone. So this is post-posted from the debate on thursday, but written as the very wrinkles undulated on Tom Rielly’s face.

The background

In the first and only statewide televised debate between the three candidates for the democratic nomination for the election of the Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachussetts, State Attorney General Tom Reilly faced off with venture capitalist Chris Gabrieli and lawyer Deval Patrick. The debate was the first major hurdle on the race to the “corner house” - what passes in Massachusetts for a Governor’s mansion. The primary on Sept. 19 will see all registered Democrats and Independents - amounting to over 80% of the state’s 4 million-strong electorate - eligible to select the Democratic Candidate aiming to defeat Kerry Healey, the current Lt. Governor and Republican candidate.

The players

Tom Reilly: The son of Irish immigrants and a traditional player in Boston’s political machine, his eight years as attorney general have been marked by tough talk and some tough action on clearing up the mess left behind by the overspending and delays on Boston’s mammoth transit project, the “Big Dig.” Seen as an unopposed shoe-in for over a year, Reilly has slipped into third place since Gabrieli and Patrick entered the race, but retains heavy union support.

Chris Gabrieli: The child of Hungarian immigrants, Gabrieli’s high-achieving business career and centrist instincts make him similar to many liberal Republicans, such as New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg. After heading up a clutch of state and Boston committees and running for Lt. Governor in 2002 and declining the same place on Reilly’s ticket this year, he’s attracted criticism for running a largely self-funded campaign.

Deval Patrick: Painted as the election’s Howard Dean for his grassroots-focussed campaign and oppostion to tax cuts proposed by his opponents, Patrick has countered by playing up his corporate experience since winning the surprise endorsement of the state Democratic Attempting to become the nation’s first black governor, Patrick is ironically the only candidate not born of immigrant parents.

The buildup

6.35pm: Outside the JFK School, and it’s round one to Gabrieli - row after row of supporters on both sides of the road. There’s a strong Reilly element, with a few union signs. And there’s a disappointing Patrick turnout. The rich venture capitalist, whose campaign has been portrayed as a rich man’s folly, beating the pants off the grassroots activist challenging “business as usual.” 6.50pm: You don’t have to be a Harvard-basher (and there are as many around tonight as ever) to wonder if the JFK Jr Forum is the best possible location for this. Despite having blagged a coveted white first-floor ticket, I find myself herded upstairs and ultimately sitting directly above the candidates’ podium - facing out. If I lean over and strain, I can see the tops of their heads. I opt to gawp at the TV screen instead.

The debate part one: press questions

7.00pm: Our host this evening is former New Hampshire Governor and Director of Harvard’s Institute of Politics, Jeanne Shaheen. She has slightly scary eyes.

7.02pm: In this section of the debate reporters ask the questions, the aim being to address candidate-specific issues. The first is one of many that will concern a proposed cut in state income tax, which Reilly and Gabrieli support and Patrick opposes, albeit with a certain amount of fudging. All the usual tax red-flags are there - which services will you cut if you do it? Which businesses will leave the state if you don’t? So, what kind of cut are we talking about here - 10%? 5%? Well, no. This is America. The cut at stake is one of 0.3%, from a mind-bogglingly low 5.3% to a similarly-low 5%. OK, so there are federal income taxes too, but still, this is all pointlessly symbolic stuff. Patrick is quite effective in rebutting the label of tax-n-spend, painting the other candidates as promoting plans whose numbers don’t add up.

7.04pm: I’ve only just noticed that the candidates are, rather unfortunately, arranged in descending order of height. Gabrieli is a big man by any standard, and dominates the podium alongside the diminutive Reilly and even-more-so Patrick. There’s presumably some system for deciding the order fairly, but it certainly doesn’t do Patrick any favours.

7.06pm: Woah: things are getting nasty, early. Reilly’s making accusing noises towards Gabrieli about some sort of invasion of privacy… what’s going on? (Update: it tunrns out Reilly’s previous running mate dropped out of the race after just one day because of financial issues. This morning’s Globe carried a story that Reilly knew about it before putting her on the ticket. Reilly was accusing Gabrieli’s campaign manager of leaking the story; he later explained he meant a friend of both Gabrieli and the former running mate, who denies it. In short, Reilly figured the best defense is a good offense.)

7.08pm: Patrick’s, interestingly, responding to the immediate bickering between Reilly and Gabrieli with jokes. “Are we still talking about tax?” he’s asked, distancing himself from the spat.

7.09pm: A lady with a big, scary-looking camera is cuddling up next to us. Is she snapping my fellow booth-occupants - a bunch of young, earnest Deval Patrick supporters, and a slighly scary-looking guy in a suit and a Gabrieli badge - or the screen we’re watching? Who knows, but following my limited success at snazzy photography, it’s a relief to see the professionals have much, much bigger and better cameras than me. Yeah, that’s the difference.

7.11pm: Patrick’s main task tonight is to show that, in addition to his noted knack for soaring rhetoric, he has a grasp on the facts and numbers. So far, so good: in response to an intended squirmer on how he’ll pay for his spending programs, he hits back with an immediate, confident-sounding stat - mentioning a $735,000 savings plan. Now, I haven’t seen the plan, and it could be pie in the sky for all I know. But it sounds authoratitive, and it bats the sense that he’s not numerate well out of the park (as an experiment, I one day plan to spend a week of my life speaking only in American sporting metaphors).

7.12pm: What’s that on Patrick’s wrist? A burgundy plastic wristband. Hmm; not cancer, African poverty, the environment, bringing the troops home; what could it be? It’s an interesting thing to wear, anyway, and it takes the attention off his disgusting tie. Actually, it’s nul points all round on the tie front. (Update: a Google search suggests a purple wristband could be against animal cruelty, for Lupus awareness, or against domestic violence. None of which seems especially apposite.)

7.14pm: As if the glaring physical differences between the candidates weren’t enough, their voices match. Reilly’s small stature is accompanied by an irritating whine, and Patrick, too, is pretty high-pitched. Gabrieli’s tone is booming, gently accented, and pretty attractive. However, as any voice coach knows, it’s the way you use it. Reilly’s umming-and-aahing just amplifies his voice’s weakness, and his more aggressive moments - like his attack on Gabrieli - sound weak. Gabrieli’s tone is too consistent and generally too jovial - frankly, he doesn’t seem too much like he’s taking it seriously. Patrick’s speech has that sing-song quality all the best black orators have, and his generally well-spoken accent drops in moments of street-speak - a soft “t” here and there - that humanize him (and, I suspect, are intended to show black supporters that he hasn’t forgotten his tenement roots).

7.15pm: Patrick’s first real stumble. He’s asked, again in response to his spending plans, whether there’s any constituency he’s said no to. Patrick’s answer is a strong one - his plans for public service pay are well less than many unions wanted - but he’s visibly uncomfortable with the potentially base-alienating territory.

7.18pm: Gabrieli’s been challenged on his high personal expenditure on his campaign and refusal to take public funds or publish his accounts. He neatly spins the question into an opportunity to present himself as the striving entrepeneur, admitting to having invested “significant personal resources” into the race. Nice choice of words: we’re not talking extension-to-the-summer-house resources here. Not even remortgage-the-home-to-open-a-sandwich-shop resources. We’re talking about, at the last count, seven million dollars - the most spent on a Massachusetts gubernatorial campaign.

7.19pm: Reilly’s taking a strangely aggressive kick, and has repeatedly emphasised his man-o’-the-people credentials, calling Patrick and Gabrieli “on the side of big business.” But his fightin’ talk is undermined by his seeming increasingly out-of-sorts and lacking in confidence. He’s just finished a would-be powerful assertion of his commitment to fight for ordinary people. Very nice. But then a moment of eye contact with the camera showed the fear of god in his eyes.

7.20pm: If Reilly’s schtick is anger, Patrick’s seems to be humour. “We have 20,000 donors, Chris Gabrieli has one.” Nice. Fell a little flat, though, strangely - Patrick’s not too comfortable playing the attacking role.

7.22pm: Reilly’s really on the defensive over the Big Dig and he’s using strong words: “I’m the only one who stepped in and dealt with it;” “Justice will be served.” But it’s just not working: he doesn’t sound like his heart’s in it and the moral tone is out of place. Patrick and Gabrieli are calling the Big Dig a mess, not a crime. Reilly’s establishing his intentions neatly, but not doing his competence ratings any favours.

7.22pm: The key to debates such as this is to meld the attack and the proposal, to take something that enables you to score points over your opponent, and use the opportunity to also increase your own impression of new ideas. Patrick’s already done it, neatly summarising the nub of the Reilly’s-running-mate finance issue and moving the debate on. Now it’s Gabrieli’s turn - out of the bog-standard namecalling about the Big Dig, he scores a strong point on Reilly by pointing out that the state’s whistleblowing laws are under-used - then picks up the positive marks by suggesting a specific strengthening, namely lengthening the job protection provision from six months to a year. I’m not sure how original this is, but it’s clever, big-picture stuff.

7.24pm: Reilly’s giving us misstep after misstep. “I wrote that law, OK?” he throws at Gabrieli on the whistleblower issue. It should be an effective reminder that he’s the only candidate with substantive local experience. Instead, it sounds like a whining kid - “hey, that was my idea!” And given that Gabrieli’s just suggested the law’s not strong enough, simply taking the credit for it - however fairly - isn’t nearly enough. And without wanting to Reilly-bash, he’s also taking lots of potshots at Mitt Romney, which is to miss the point of the evening somewhat.

7.25pm: “I don’t think the people care though whether the next governor of Massachusetts is a Democrat or a Republican. I think they care that it’s someone that can do the job.” This sort of talk enhances Gabrieli’s New Democrat credentials, of course, but it’s still a jarring reminder of how different things are here in the US. No sane Labour politician would say something so blatantly centrist now in the UK. Indeed, it’s hard not to feel Gabrieli is sailing against the wind - as the Lieberman revolt shows, the democrat base has its spine back for hte first time in years. It’s not the only thing about Gabrieli’s campaign that has a whiff of the 1990’s, pre-9/11 period to it. It’s all very technocratic, very numbers, very PowerPoint - exactly the kind of politics that failed for Gore in 2000, and which has all but vanished since.

The debate part two: freeform discussion

7.26pm: OK, now the gloves are off and the fun begins. The press questions are over, and now we’re moving into a “freeform” section with questions coming from moderator Shaheen. Things have been pretty freeform already, with Shaheen having to work around Reilly’s creative approach to questions-answering. So this should be good.

7.26pm: Or not, given that the first question is a dullsville about keeping businesses in Massachusetts…

7.28pm:…which has turned out quite entertaining. We’ve just been treated to Reilly informing us he wants to “identify the companies that are in Massachusetts, and help them.” Help them how? Well, he went down to New York (eh?) to ask a firm how to help them expand their Massachuestts operations. “They told me different things- permitting and all that,” apparently.

7.29pm: You’ve got to hand it to Patrick’s briefing team - he’s clearly picking from a veritable arsenal of pre-researched examples. This time it’s a company called Evergreen, who are now manufacturing in Mexico. Does somebody, somewhere, check these companies, Iraq war mothers, excellent local public schools, and so on, the long list of exemplars thrust into the spotlight to add some reality to political speeches, actually exist?

7.30pm: Patrick’s really taken the bait and mounted a strong attack on Reilly’s anti-business stance. It’s a calculated risk for the grassrootser, but demonstrating he’s economically safe is a key goal for tonight for Patrick. It’s becoming clear that, by offering a caricature of the traditional business-bashing democrat machine politican, Reilly is simply making it easier for Patrick to dodge the Dukakis tag.

7.32pm: The business question has become the longest powwow of the evening. It’s moved on to stem cell research. Anywhere else in America, the issue at stake would be whether the research should even happen. But, mercifully, this is Massachusetts, and the bone of contention is how much the state should fund research, and who they should give it to. Reilly’s suggested, fairly ridiculously, that all state funding for the research should go to UMass, apparently because they’ve got some pretty good laboratories. Gabrieli has predictably snorted at this. But now Gabrieli and Patrick are going on about how they disagree on this - as if on everything else they were the best of pals. And yet it’s not clear what the dispute is. Gabrieli appears to be suggesting a competitive tender process for state research funds. Not a massive shock. Patrick’s claiming to disagree, and is using the issue as a chance to promote general better funding for public higher education in the state. But surely Patrick’s not suggesting funding be limited to public universities too? A minute later, and both Patrick and Gabrieli seem to be saying they both want to fund UMass and Harvard and want everyone to work together. (Update: by the weekend, Patrick’s post-debate email suggests Gabrieli was specifically excluding public universities from the funding, and is indeed suggesting limiting state funding to the public sector. In which case, he deserves applause for managing to appear significantly more moderate on Thursday than Reilly, despite having the same positon; and opprobium for misrepresenting Gabrieli’s position in the email.)

7.36pm: Gabrieli is not the kind of person to show when he’s nervous. But he does appear to be feeling the pressure - he’s suddenly talking too fast. 7.40pm: Fairly lame discussion about the implementation of the state’s radical new healthcare plan. Again, the differences between Patrick and Gabrieli are less striking than their shared vagueness. Increasingly, the real entertainment in this debate is just coming from watching Tom Reilly struggle. “I’ll tell you exactly what I’m going to do [about healthcare],” he says. “Six years ago…” - not a good start. When Sheehan repeats the question, calling for the short-term implementation plan, Reilly’s response, incredibly, is: “I’m not raising taxes.” Really? Is that because your platform includes a commitment to a near-immediate tax cut? Very helpful. Very informative.

7.42pm: Patrick has been acused of vagueness, but he gains credibility for a sheer confidence Reilly lacks. His healthcare response - educating doctors on smarter drug buying - is less credible even than Reilly’s, but when Sheehan hits back and calls these long-term solutions, he hits back hat he wants action “in six months to a year.” And, bingo, the impression of a detailed timetable is given, when really i’m 80% he plucked that out of the air.

7.45pm: On perhaps the trickiest question for him - his leadership credentials - Patrick brings out another well-prepared response. Leading an investigation into bombings of black churches and synagogues in the South may not sound that exciting - compared, for example, to Romney’s electoral success on the back of “saving the Olympics.” But when the question explicitly references crises such as 9/11 - and the investigation in question happens to be the largest criminal investigation in the US before 9/11 - you’ve suddenly got a powerful response. It’s ironic that, for all his grassroots, not-politics-as-usual image, Patrick is probably the most skilled, polished political performer on the podium. Of course, the best polish brings out the shine underneath, rather than just covering up the dirt. Let’s hope it’s that way here.

7.48pm: Another stumble from Reilly. This question should be a gift for him - he’s got more government experience than the other two put together. He’s saying all the right things - reminding us that he was in office on Sep. 11, that he took immediate decisions, got the investigation started at Boston’s airport, etc. But it’s just all really shaky. He stumbled over saying “when the plane hit the second tower.” This is not the kind of thing you want to stumble on, Tom! If you can’t remember which was North and which was South, just say “when the planes hit the towers,” like everyone else does.

The debate part three: closing statements

7.50pm: Closing statements! Patrick first. It’s a little rehearsed - stock website stuff about leadership - but he gets into his groove at the end, again when he ditches the slick image for more tenement-speak. “If you want the same old same old, same old, the politics of money and connections, I’m not your guy,” he explains.

7.51pm: Reilly’s business-bashing tack clearly hasn’t been off-the-cuff tonight. It’s there, clear as day, in a wierdly populist closer. Did a candidate for Governor of Massachusetts - a state with an economy heavily dependent on tech industries and life sciences - really say he’s going to “take on the big corporations who cheat and exploit you?” Geez. This is the old leftie problem - can’t go from underdog to leader, from fighting to governing. From Republicans this fight-the-power stuff is remarkably effective, but surely from Decocrats it just sounds scary? Patrick said the same thing, but by taking aim at the stereotypical fat legislator, and not business, made it sound more local and less ideological.

7.52pm: This is Gabrieli’s chance to really put his personality forward - show himself to be something other than a Kissinger-style amoral brainbox. Predictably, he doesn’t. It’s all lovely, detailed stuff - outlining his experience, his plans, solid stuff - but by god is it dull. Gabrieli just hasn’t learned the difference between position papers and speeches - and between management and politics. And he stumbled his punchline! “It’s not about who has the best ideas,” he droned. Eh? Oh, you mean it’s not about ”er - which party has the best ideas.” It is about who has the best ideas. Glad that’s clear. Seriously, Chris, the closing statement is one thing you’re not supposed to muck up. You could have practised it in the mirror while shaving.

7.55pm. And that’s it. You know the Kennedy-Nixon debate in 1960 where radio listeners thought it was a tie, and TV viewers gave it to JFK? Well, it’s a similar story here. Reilly seems to have died on his feet, but I’m sure that came across much less on radio. By contrast, I bet, robbed of his physical presence, Gabrieli seems even more boring. Judging purely on debate performance rather than policy detail (who watches a debate for that?), I’d say Patrick seemed to offer just enough detail and knowledge, and plenty of vision, leaving him the winner.

Read the full debate transcript 

The aftermath

The next day’s press generally calls it narrowly for Patrick, although Gabrieli is also praised, and the main story is Reilly’s slow death. The Herald, however, goes all-out for Reilly, declaring, incredibly, that his opening attack on Gabrieli “ripped his throat out.” Hmm.