Skin Deep
January 11, 2006
Forget the controversy over his apparent interference in a fatal drunk-driving case involving a campaign donor’s daughters. There is but one reason why Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly will lose the Democratic gubernatorial nomination to Deval Patrick–and it’s as simple as black and white.
For all his attempts to appeal to the left–either by supporting tuition breaks for illegal immigrants or flip-flopping on gay marriage–Reilly cannot win in the court of liberal public opinion. He may be a Democrat, but he’s not the right kind of Democrat.
At bottom, Reilly is perceived as nothing more than a working-class Irish-Catholic guy–and if there’s one group that the left cannot stand these days (and for the last thirty years or so), it’s working-class Irish Catholic guys. Just look a photo of Reilly. He looks like an Irish-Catholic everyman–a cop, a firefighter, an ironworker. The far left can’t relate to that sort of person: when’s the last time you’ve seen a firefighter at a cocktail party?
Reilly’s life story doesn’t win him any brownie points with the left: ne’er-do-well son of Irish immigrants cleans up his act, goes to work for the CIA and later becomes an attorney. Whoop-de-doo, progressives think to themselves. Where’s the flash? Where’s the flair? Where’s the savoir-faire?
Patrick, on the other hand, is charisma personified to the left. His life story turns on progressive juices: born into abject poverty in Chicago, he earns a scholarship to tony Milton Academy and later earns degrees from Harvard and Harvard Law before embarking on a stellar legal career that sees stints at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Clinton Justice Department, Coca-Cola, and Texaco. While achieving tremendous success, he "never forgets where he came from" (by that, liberals don’t mean Chicago, but Milton Academy and Harvard, whose progressive values have shaped Patrick’s worldview for three decades; let’s face it, one of the reasons why George W. Bush, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas are all scorned by the left is that they were all educated at elite, left-wing institutions, but rejected the elite, left-wing values of said institutions).
Patrick has never crossed the left’s boundaries, whereas Reilly once held opinions that betray a certain "cultural conservatism" the far left has no use for (although he’s since done a 180 on the Goodridge decision creating gay marriage in Massachusetts, the fact that he even dared to reject the ruling’s "wisdom" in the recent past is more than enough to earn him the eternal enmity of the Brokeback Mountain wing of the state Democratic Party).
The left can’t look at Reilly without thinking of the working-class Irish-Catholics (and other white ethnics) who broke with the Democrats on social issues a generation ago and started voting for supposed Neanderthals like Ronald Reagan and Dubya. Because of his race and ethnicity, he is not seen as a reliable steward of the left-wing trust.
Patrick, however, is completely trustworthy to the left. He symbolizes the ethnic group that for the past forty years has sworn seemingly undying loyalty to the Democratic Party. Although both Patrick and Reilly have come from modest circumstances, Patrick is a "blue blood" in the truest political sense. For the left, Reilly is simply too parochial, too old-school, too Irish, too Catholic. Patrick? Ah, he’s the New Frontier.
Reilly would never characterize it as such, but he’s about to become the victim of the political equivalent of reverse discrimination. He is seen as the embodiment of the "old ways," the "old traditions," the "old Massachusetts." He doesn’t fit in with the new way of doing things. Patrick does.
The Democrats are obsessed with getting the State House back. There’s only one person who’ll they find suitable to accomplish that goal.
Reilly’s Irish eyes won’t be smiling when the party selects their candidate. Patrick, however, will be as lucky as the saint.
UPDATE: Cambridge, Massachusetts © ’s Patrick.
SECOND UPDATE: Patrick is feeling his oats.
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