Rolling in dough and going slow
By Scot Lehigh, Boston Globe
October 11, 2005
TOM REILLY and Tom Menino are hardly two peas in
a political pod, but they do seem to be reading from the same
campaign playbook. And the page it is opened to clearly says:
Slow things down.
With a war chest of about $1 million and a well-oiled
machine, Menino is the strong favorite in the Boston mayoral race.
Credit challenger Maura Hennigan with pluck. Having borrowed against
her real-estate holdings, she talks about spending as much as
$900,000 on her campaign. Maybe, but the mayor and his team are
dubious. Their judgment: $200,000 to $300,000 is more likely.
Menino's camp doesn't think that's enough to put her on hizzoner's
heels -- and their strategy is just as clearly to deny Hennigan
any opportunity that might. That's why the mayor has agreed to
head-to-head encounters only in circumstances that limit interest.
The first one, on WGBH, came in the thick of the
Red Sox end-of-season run. The medium of their Oct. 14 encounter
-- Friday night radio -- means that forum is unlikely to blaze
its way into the public's consciousness.
Now, given that Menino's verbal skills are only
mediocre, debating is always a risk. There's also a strategic
judgment at play, however: Let Hennigan stand on the same stage
with the mayor in a widely watched TV debate, and voters just
might start to see her as his equal.
But there's a danger to that by-the-book front-runner's
strategy: It betrays a certain disdain not only for the long-time
councilor, but also for the public's right to an informative campaign.
Wouldn't it be refreshing to see a mayor confident enough to give
his challenger and the voters the kind of high-profile debates
she and they deserve?
The situation is somewhat different with Reilly,
the Democratic gubernatorial front-runner, because the gubernatorial
primary is much further away than the mayoral election. Still,
the attorney general's camp decided earlier this year that Reilly
should husband his resources rather than match the big but expensive
campaign Democratic rival Deval Patrick has built. While Patrick
now has 17 paid staffers, Reilly's political payroll numbers only
four; indeed, Reilly still hasn't hired a campaign manager.
So far, that decision has paid off. Reilly enjoys
a huge financial advantage: At last report, $3.2 million to Patrick's
$225,000.
To date, certainly, Patrick hasn't shown an ability
to build the kind of war chest he'll need. The question: Does
he have the requisite personal wealth -- and is he willing to
use it -- to stay competitive with Reilly on TV advertising next
year? Patrick's aides say he does, but Reilly's camp thinks that's
mostly bluff.
Either way, Reilly enters the fall in an enviable
position.
A new UMass-Lowell survey of likely Democratic primary voters
shows him beating Patrick 49 to 18 percent. Include might-be candidate
William Galvin, the secretary of state, and Reilly gets 39 percent
to Galvin's 15 percent and Patrick's 14 percent.
The survey also shows the AG handily beating either
Governor Mitt Romney, 53 to 38 percent, or Lieutenant Governor
Kerry Healey, 53 to 28 percent. What's more, says Lou DiNatale,
director of UMass-Lowell's Center for Economic and Civic Opinion,
in the head-to-head with the Republican incumbent, Reilly has
a 7-point edge with independents, a group that broke heavily for
Romney in 2002.
While Reilly's camp underscores his independent appeal to Democrats
hungry for a victory after four gubernatorial losses, Patrick
is busy cultivating Democratic activists. His campaign team believes
Reilly has been out of sync with the party core on issues like
gay marriage and the death penalty -- and that that can be made
to matter.
''He can't just walk away from his own party platform
and say, 'I am doing it so I am viable in a general election,'
" says Dan Payne, a consultant to Patrick. Those issues will
come into sharp definition in debates, Payne maintains. ''We need
people to see them side by side," he says.
Fortunately, though timing may be an issue, there doesn't appear
to be any disagreement about debates themselves.
''Tom has always debated his opponents," says
US Representative Marty Meehan, co-chairman of the Reilly campaign.
''I'm sure he'll debate."
If so, Democratic gubernatorial primary voters will
get something Menino is doing his best to deny the citizens of
Boston: A real chance to judge the candidates in a lively head-to-head
encounter.