By Paul McMorrow
The last time Charlie Baker trumpeted the endorsement of a celebrated defector, it didn’t go so well. After picking off Tim Cahill’s erstwhile running mate, Paul Loscocco, the Republican gubernatorial candidate staged a show of force at his South Boston campaign headquarters. Baker’s handlers thought they were finally close to ridding themselves of Cahill; instead, their candidate was widely panned for rolling around in the muck of closed-door politics.
So yesterday, when former Democratic attorney general Tom Reilly endorsed Baker on the steps outside just Governor Deval Patrick’s office, Baker didn’t take any chances. Baker’s campaign was happy to accept the backing of Reilly. It just wasn’t happy enough to put Charlie Baker on the podium with Reilly. That decision leaves one big question about yesterday’s event unanswered: Aside from taking attention away from some rather unflattering poll numbers, just what was yesterday’s endorsement party supposed to accomplish?
Reilly worked with Baker to bring Harvard Pilgrim Health Care back from the brink of near-collapse. He told reporters he’s endorsing Baker because of a series of charges Patrick’s campaign has leveled at Baker’s Harvard Pilgrim tenure, and because of the state’s fiscal weakness.
“We’re in serious trouble right now,” Reilly said. “There are 300,000 people out of work now, and looking forward, I see storm clouds. We have a $2.5 billion deficit, and our reserves are virtually depleted. We can’t go on like this. We need a change. And to have that change we need new leadership.”
“Where the hell’s Charlie Baker?” one scribe yelled at Baker’s running mate, Richard Tisei. In Lawrence, Tisei answered, at a scheduled event he just couldn’t break.
The Baker campaign said Reilly approached them a month ago, after Patrick raised the issue of state aid to Harvard Pilgrim at a televised debate. Patrick’s camp cast the health insurance company’s state receivership as a bailout; it just released a new ad decrying rising premiums at Harvard Pilgrim, where Baker pulled down a $1.7 million salary.
But instead of countering that attack with, say, data on whether or not Harvard Pilgrim’s premiums and executive salaries were in line with the plan’s peers, Baker’s campaign trotted out Reilly, who had been the Democrats’ heir apparent in the 2006 gubernatorial race before getting rolled by Patrick in a nasty three-way primary.
The response to Reilly’s endorsement was as swift as it was predictable. Reilly told reporters yesterday he really wanted Patrick to do well as governor. But Thomas P. O’Neill III, the Hub PR executive and former lieutenant governor, immediately fired up his Twitter account to label the gambit “baloney” and “sour grapes,” adding, “Reilly’s stance is obviously personal.”
If, Reilly was asked, this whole show really was about the state’s battered balance sheet, and not political payback, did he also plan to endorse Senate President Therese Murray’s challenger Thomas Keyes? “I’m endorsing Charlie Baker,” he said, patting the questioner on the back and walking away.
Back to those Suffolk University poll numbers Baker’s folks were fighting yesterday: The poll has Patrick leading Baker by 7 points with three weeks to go. Just 33 percent of poll respondents view Baker favorably, while 35 hold an unfavorable view of him. Twenty percent said Baker has the best temperament to be governor, and 23 percent said he’s run the best campaign to date. A full 53 percent of poll respondents said they expect Patrick to win in November; just 31 percent said they expect Baker to win. And nothing that happened yesterday is likely to change any of that.