In June 1978, 10 years after Robert Kennedy’s assassination, New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis captured what made Kennedy’s death such a national blow at a time when America was badly riven, its social fabric shredded and its future deeply in doubt. “He had a capacity to reach out to disparate groups in our society,” wrote Lewis about Kennedy, “to black and white, young and old, middle class and poor, blue collar workers and intellectuals. There is no political figure now, and none on the horizon, with whom so many Americans can identify.”
What Deval Patrick’s admirers (full disclosure: I’m one of them) see in the former Massachusetts governor is someone with a rare gift, resembling Kennedy’s, for reaching individuals and groups who seem not to have much in common with one another and showing them that they do. At a juncture when repairing the jagged, painful and ugly breaches widened by Donald Trump needs to be our next president’s principal goal, Patrick looks an awful lot like someone ideally matched to the task.
Ironically, when Robert Kennedy entered the presidential race in March 1968, he, too, was assailed for waiting as long as he did. Kennedy announced his candidacy after the New Hampshire primary had already taken place, only after it was clear that the opposition to the Vietnam War was strong enough to topple President Lyndon Johnson. His was a fundamentally political consideration. By contrast, Patrick has entered the race three months before New Hampshire and, rather ungenerously, some Democrats have attacked him for not doing so last year, when his wife’s sudden cancer diagnosis caused him to pass for reasons that most people should understand.
Patrick is among the few Democratic candidates who have actually governed, and he did so with considerable success. His eight years as governor were marked by solid achievement, including in expanding health care, launching significant improvements in education, passing ethics reform and leading on clean energy. He skillfully shepherded Massachusetts through the financial meltdown that rocked the country less than a year after he took office. And his calm leadership during the panic and pandemonium following the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings may be remembered as the emblem of his tenure.
It is true that not everything within every state agency went perfectly during the eight years that Patrick was governor. Most of us residing on Planet Earth get that when a state has 130,000 employees, some things will go wrong. Those things are fodder for the vitriol directed at Patrick by right wing radio talk show hosts, whose executive responsibilities run the gamut from touching computer screens with callers’ names on them to reading scripts for commercials. And from the left comes the criticism that Patrick, who has devoted many years to civil rights advocacy and to public service, has done stints in — gasp! — the private sector, where he was well-paid to help companies do better and be better. Like the criticism of Patrick for founding a Bain Capital fund investing in enterprises doing social good, this is sophomoric. Patrick, who grew up in poverty his critics will never know, hardly needs lectures on income inequality from highly comfortable whites who fancy themselves more progressive than he is.
The conventional wisdom that Patrick’s late entry makes his nomination impossible seems suspect. The truth is that the Democratic debates have been disquieting rather than reassuring to Democrats. There are serious questions whether the top-tier candidates, fine individuals all, would defeat Donald Trump, and any outcome that does not result in Donald Trump’s defeat would be great for the post-mortem industry, but disastrous for the country. If, when New Hampshire is over, Patrick has exceeded expectations, the race from South Carolina to the convention could get interesting. And Deval Patrick could be right in the mix.
Jeff Robbins is a Boston lawyer and former U.S. delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Commission.
