BoMag: all Democrats suck; some suck harder than others
Boston Magazine's John Gonzalez is a terrific writer, and his latest piece--on the three Democrats who want to be governor--is, predictably, a great read. (In case you missed it, so was his takedown of the Herald's Inside Track girls.)
That said, John doesn't quite sell me on his main premise, i.e., that all the Democrats are shitty candidates. First read this:
The Dems may have the edge on policy around here, but when it comes to image, they’ve been dismal. Judging by the candidates’ performances so far, this year’s election
looks like a rerun. Like their predecessors, the latest batch of
Democratic gubernatorial hopefuls—Attorney General Tom Reilly, former
Clinton staffer Deval Patrick, and zany millionaire Chris Gabrieli—have
often approached the level of slapstick.
And now read Gonzalez's closing assessment of Deval Patrick:
If Patrick does win the primary, it will be due in part to the fact
that, more than all the Democratic candidates over the past 16 years,
he...appreciates the value of style as well as
substance. He appreciates packaging, even though he claims to hate
packaging (which, yes, is a part of his packaging).
In July, as Patrick worked the room at an Elks lodge in Everett, an
older woman came over to say hello. Her name was Patricia, and she had
a big tuft of silver hair and friendly eyes. She was thrilled to be so
close to the candidate and told him so, told him that he had her vote,
told him that she had heard him speak and had fallen in love with what
he had to say.
"Tell me,” Patrick said, touching her arm, "what was it you liked so much?"
The woman thought for a second, then, with a mostly toothless smile,
said: “You know, I don’t really remember. I just liked the way you said
it."
Let me state the obvious: This totally undercuts the central premise of the piece! As a result, the story ends up reading like Gonazlez's personal endorsement of Patrick.
All that said, make sure to read it, because otherwise you'll miss stellar nuggets like this:
A short time in Gabrieli’s presence revealed that he had little to
say—or, rather, quite a lot to say with little effect. Here’s a blurb
from his website under the Meet Chris section: “It’s hard to sum up
Chris Gabrieli with one word, but if you had to, you’d probably go with
results.” Actually, I’d probably go with redundant.
During our conversation, he used the word “results” about 20 times,
mainly in several flurries in which he spoke at least seven times about
“getting results,” four times about goals being “different than
results,” and, my favorite, five times in which he used the word
results in relation to his own results—as in, “These results are real
results.” All of which resulted in me hating results.
Let me state the obvious again: that's fantastic stuff.
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