Walk The Line
October 26, 2006
In a contentious political contest, the smoke of partisan rhetoric soon becomes the fire of unmistakable extremism. When the desire to see a certain candidate come to power becomes a blind fervor, reason, rationality, and reality take a back seat.
In what will go down in history as an example of the horrors of extreme
partisanship, Dan Payne, a former consultant to Massachusetts Democrat gubernatorial candidate Deval Patrick, today did what many feared, but hoped, would not happen: he in essence declared Republican gubernatorial candidate Kerry Healey the new Louise Day Hicks.
In a hyperbolic column devoid of reason but filled with rancor, Payne attacked Healey for supposedly exploiting racial fears with her ads condemning Patrick’s advocacy on behalf of a convicted sex offender and his progressive position on illegal immigration. Payne reads a racial subtext into the ads that does not actually exist–and in doing so, reveals the paranoia that lies in his own mind.
It’s hard to read Payne’s column without suspecting that he’s concerned that the ads, denounced in some quarters as over-the-top, may well prove their effectiveness when the votes are actually counted on the night of November 7. If the ads did not have their desired effect, why attack them?
It appears that Payne senses that, despite Healey’s oft-mentioned weakness in current polls, there may be a difference between what people say now and what people will do in two weeks. If Payne and other Patrick supporters were so confident that Patrick’s lead will carry him through to Election Day, then why is it that his supporters are still attacking Healey, bashing anti-Patrick sites like Hub Politics, and lambasting anti-Patrick talk radio hosts?
It’s obvious that, if Healey "comes from behind" and defeats Patrick, Payne and other Patrick backers will have no other option but to paint Healey as a resurrected Pixie Palladino in order to explain Patrick’s failure to seal the deal with Bay State voters. The only surprise is that they’ve decided to do this before the election.
UPDATE: The Patriot Ledger on Healey. Plus, having declared the race over in this fashion, isn’t it at this point undeniable that, if Healey "contradicts the polling data" and actually wins, the only "out" for the press is to declare both Healey and the people who voted for her closet bigots?
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