Yin and Yang? Or Mike and Ike?

We’ve heard over and over about the stark choice facing voters in the contest for governor.  We can elect someone who understands the human pain behind unemployment rates and foreclosure figures or an impatient, no-nonsense corporate manager who is more prone to anger than empathy.  We can embrace an expansive view of state government as the supportive backstop for those in need or a go-it-alone approach that takes a hatchet to public spending and puts more money back in our pockets. 

Given such a clash of visions, it’s no wonder that many pundits have expressed disappointment at the many debates Deval Patrick and Charlie Baker have been part of, showdowns that have been panned as one big bore after another.  But maybe the real problem for those looking for roundhouse punches to animate starkly opposing views is that the differences between Patrick and Baker just aren’t quite that big after all.

Despite Republican efforts to paint Patrick as a wild-eyed tax-and-spend liberal, the one-time corporate general counsel has managed his way through a horrific economy with a combination of fairly measured tax increases and huge cuts in state spending. The candidate painted as a tool of organized labor has also ruffled more than a few union feathers with an education bill that expands charter schools and grants charter-like autonomies that weaken union clout in underperforming schools. He has also cut costly Quinn Bill benefits that pay police extra for what are sometimes questionable education credits and pared back the lucrative monopoly long enjoyed by police on staffing roadside construction details, a reform that eluded the four straight Republican governors who preceded him.

For his part, Baker is hardly the rigid anti-tax ideologue he’s been painted to be – and often tried to claim the mantle of while trying to create an opening in the race. If Baker sometimes looks uneasy trying to project himself as an authentic vessel for Tea Party anger, it’s because that’s not who he is.

Baker is a pragmatic, moderate Republican, trying to make it at a time when nothing less than a declaration of war on government seems to satisfy the GOP playbook.

He has suggested he wants to reduce the state income, sales, and corporate tax rates to 5 percent, but pulled back from a claim at one point that he would do this immediately, saying he would phase in the reductions over four years.

Baker seemed to get flummoxed in a recent editorial board meeting with the Salem News, pulling a Chuck Turner as he claimed not to remember whether he’s voted for any tax overrides in Swampscott, though as a member of the town’s Board of Selectmen he voted to put almost a dozen such questions on the town ballot – and the Boston Globe previously reported that he voted for at least two overrides to support local services when they appeared on the ballot.  

Fault Baker for a lack of candor, but not for fiscal recklessness.

In 2001, in a CommonWealth interview while he was running Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Baker reflected on his years in the Weld and Cellucci administrations with this: “There’s a lot about government that works, and it doesn’t necessarily get the credit or attention it deserves.”  It’s a thoughtful comment from a guy who did battle with a lot of entrenched interests in state government while trying to enact reforms, but not the sort of nuanced view that would probably get him very far in the current race. Baker also defended his role in a health care coalition supporting a 50-cent increase in the cigarette tax to drive down smoking rates and fund expanded health care coverage. “There’s a lot of reasons people can support raising tobacco taxes,” he said.

None of this is to say there aren’t real differences between the two candidates.  Patrick has been more of a reluctant budget cutter, and does see a bigger role for state government than his main challenger. Baker, meanwhile, though not exactly the no-new-taxes guy he’s tried to sell to voters, would clearly bring more fiscal restraint to state government.  But given the sorts of “crossover” moves each has made, these are more differences of degree than of kind.  

To the extent that voters have seen through the campaign ad clutter and drawn the same conclusion, it may work more to Patrick’s advantage, since the change Baker would bring looks less dramatic – and urgent.  The campaign may have disappointed those hoping for more of a mud-throwing slugfest. But there are worse things than a choice between two capable – and reasonable – candidates during a challenging time.