Better than pulp fiction, the Mass. governor’s race is shaping up to be fantastic entertainment
A CONFESSION: I’m really enjoying this governor’s race.
I know it’s wrong. There are serious issues at stake and people’s lives rest in the balance. We face a Morton’s Fork over the budget: increase taxes and kill the economy or cut to the bone and wipe out needed programs. The list of critical issues seems endless: health care coverage, wind power, education reform, casino gambling, business regulation, job creation, global warming, and transportation, to name but a few. These are difficult times and they call for somber reflection and thoughtful decisions. I just shouldn’t be having so much fun. But I am.
It began just over two weeks ago, when Paul Loscocco, Tim Cahill’s running mate, said he was quitting the race and throwing his support to Charlie Baker. Cahill responded with a lawsuit claiming the whole thing was orchestrated by his former top aides even as they were still in his employ. Moreover he charged that Baker — or at least the Republican Party — had offered bribes for Loscocco to leave. Then came the counterclaims. Cahill was illegally using state funds and workers in his campaign. Deval Patrick and Cahill were colluding. Supporters of one campaign were secretly working for another. Campaign laptops were being stolen from Newbury Street cafes!
It’s great stuff and as it has been unfolding I’ve found myself perched on the edge of my computer, maniacally pressing the refresh button of my browser, waiting for each new revelation. Remember the slogan promoted by the state’s Office of Travel and Tourism? “Massachusetts — It’s all here.’’ It’s true. We don’t need Hollywood for our entertainment. This has been better than any soap opera; better, even, than any New Jersey-based reality show.
For a while, it has seemed as if politics in Massachusetts had lost its edge. We had always prided ourselves on this notion that politics was blood-sport in the Bay State, a rough-and-tumble, take no prisoners game that engaged our passions and dominated talk around the water cooler. But of late, that image wasn’t being matched by reality. Our elections were becoming more tepid affairs, focused on issues, dominated by debates and — with few exceptions (that would be you, Scott Brown) — just not as amusing as they once were.
But now it’s different. True, other states have had their moments. Carl Paladino, Republican for governor in New York, has made the grinds he once saw at a gay pride parade the flashpoint of the campaign. California’s Jerry Brown (or maybe an aide) allegedly called Meg Whitman a “whore’’ for promising Los Angeles cops higher pensions if they’d give her their endorsement. (This itself is a remarkable controversy. Not only is charging one’s opponents with prostituting themselves an almost clichéd campaign ploy, but it appears to be exactly what Whitman was doing.) In Delaware, we’ve seen a major party candidate denying she’s a witch. The Connecticut senatorial race may turn on how voters feel about Republican Linda McMahon kicking professional wrestlers in the testicles. And in Virginia, a Democrat running for Congress is being dogged by photos of her playing with a sex toy.
Nice try, guys, but this is small potatoes compared to what we’re putting up. All of these are one-off smears, on par with the old story of Florida pol George Smathers, who in a 1950s congressional campaign reputedly called his opponent a “shameless extrovert’’ with a sister who was a well-known “thespian’’ (the story itself was probably a smear; it appears to have been made up by a bored reporter). But what we’re seeing in Massachusetts is something different — not just dirty tactics but rather a full-blown saga, a rip-roaring pulp-fiction story filled with betrayal, deceit, corruption, and conspiracy. And a gripping one, at that.
In the midst of a long recession, it’s hard not to feel some gratitude to Baker, Cahill, Patrick, and their workers for the entertainment they’ve given us. Savor it while it lasts. Eventually, and certainly no later than Nov. 2, the show will come to an end. Reality will intrude and we’ll find ourselves soberly blinking in the cold light of day, knowing that, whoever the victor, the news is grim indeed and we’ve got a hard slog ahead.
Originally published October 18, 2010, in The Boston Globe, op-ed page.