Rav Casley Gera

“Patrick roars to nomination,” screamed the Boston Globe. And roar he did, securing 50% of the votes cast in the three-way contest for Democratic Party candidate for Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is not some masonic colonial-reenactment society. It is simply the state. More than probably any other state in the union, Massachusetts clings to the trappings and pomp of European society, even as it celebrates its own revolutionary heritage). Of course, for the army of supporters who spent Tuesday, September 19 waving signs, knocking on doors, and making endless, endless phone calls, it felt less like a roar and more of a slow, difficult whimper. But now that the hard work was done - at least for now - there was time to relax and celebrate.

When I arrived at the party, my first priority was to find out whether we’d actually won. “It’s looking good,” replied the guest who I grabbed at random to quiz. “We’re well ahead. Reilly’s already conceded.” Well, that’s a relief, is not a shock - we went into the day with a 21% lead in the polls, so it would have been worrying to be unsure at this point. Reassured, I could focus on actually getting in. The Boston Fairmont, Copley Square is a forbidding beast - all chandeliers and colonial splendor - and I’ve got into the foyer OK, but judging by the passes hanging around people’s neck, I’m going to have to announce myself to get into the party proper.

I see a familiar face. Not the kind of familiar where you know the name, but familiar nonetheless. I ask her and she explains: I need to go downstairs and get a pass. And what do I need for a pass? Some sort of evidence? My name on a list? “Your name on a list.” Hmm. Given that my campaign manager and his assistant have vanished, I’m not particularly hopeful I’m going to be down. I have visions of creeping home, my hard work unthanked. I trudge downstairs.

There’s a queue, a big one. I join, and the lady next to me strikes up conversation. “I don’t like this,” she exclaims portentously. “This is going to take some time. It’s half past nine. Patrick might make his speech soon.” This will prove to be wildly, pointlessly overoptimistic. After a few minutes of silence, we lapse into stilted chatter (one of the advantages of being British in America is that it always gives people a good question to ask to start a conversation with you). It turns out my colleague is Polish: despite being in America over a decade, she still speaks with an accent, and carries and the tentative air that often surrounds expatriates when amongst their adopted population. So we have a shared sense of alienness. The queue moves quickly, and it’s not long before we’re at the front. “All members of the finance team, please join the left hand queue,” a suited voice says. “Everyone else, join the right hand queue.” One guess which was moving faster. It’s hard not to feel the carefully-constructed democratic camaraderie of the campaign - with volunteers, staffers, and voters all part of some spontaneous wave of enthusiasm - could fall apart if this isn’t handled right.

The actual room where they’re handing out the passes is a genuine frenzy of activity. It dawns on me just how many people will actually show up at this party - how many have been involved in the campaign, the volunteers, fundraisers, donors, organisers, every sod who ever gave an hour. As we approach the desk I’m getting nervous. Then I see Sam, the campaign volunteer co-ordinator, my boss for the Patrick parts of my campaign work. Surely she won’t let me be turned away? Mercifully, no. But I’m clearly not on the list either, as she bounds over and thrusts a pass in my hand, with a vaguely here-now-piss-off air about her. I thank her, but I can’t go, as I need to wait for my Polish colleague. As I wait around by the queue, I see a huge, squat, stern-faced staffer from HQ I recognise. He’s been drafted in to bouncer duty. Fortunately he doesn’t mind me waiting. Sam appears, looking even more stressed. “You OK?” I ask. “Calm? Well done!” She seems placated. Americans don’t always give themselves a break. But then, who does?

My colleague comes out distressed. “My name isn’t down,” she explains. “It’s my fault, I only decided to come at the last minute. I’ll have to wait.” I contemplate waiting with her for, ooh, five seconds, but her fear of missing the speech has infected me. I tell her to come find me upstairs. I don’t see her again.

Pass around neck, but still feeling vaguely like an interloper, I make my way to a grand room with white silk drapes and a ridiculous shell-shaped podium. I’ve seen pictures of Patrick addressing fundraisers from that podium, but this seems too small for tonight’s speech. I grab a drink - they are, mercifully, free (later that week, the papers will note that drinks at Chris Gabrieli’s party weren’t). I find the lady I noticed when I arrived, but she’s looking around for a friend, so I mooch. I see no other volunteers - this appears to be largely a party of staffers and donors, like many others. I notice other people apparently alone, and vaguely wonder if, in a spirit of grassroots solidarity, I should approach somebody. But I don’t. Fortunately, I then see someone who was at my HQ that day, a nice fortysomething man with a gentle, moustached face and sparkling eyes. He’d once run for office himself, in his native New Hampshire. He told me Gabrieli was about to start his concession speech, and we jostle for position at the nearest TV.

See the speech

It’s a remarkably jovial speech, with Gabrieli seeming genuinely chirpy despite sinking over $10 million to achieve a close second place - close, that is, to third-placed Tom Reilly. The opening salvo sets the scene. “I did not take out the trash tonight,” he declares. It’s a reference to an ill-advised claim he recently made that, as an “ordinary guy,” he does carry out such basic household chores, only to find the Boston Herald splashing pictures of his staff doing it for him. It’s an attempt at self-deprecation that falls a little flat. The volunteer I’m with pulls a face.

Gabrieli’s made it a theme of his campaign that the contest was about ideas and not parties, but now seems to have willingly taken on the role of dedicated party man, praising Patrick and slamming the Republican candidate, Lt. Governor Kerry Healey. It’s a long speech, and a little disordered, but its upbeat tone is nice. This is a primary, after all, and we’re all on the same side now.

Before Gabrieli even finishes, there’s announcement asking people to make their way to the ballroom where Patrick will make his address. Balconies have been made available to accommodate everyone, apparently. We make our way round, as Gabrieli continues what my friend labels “the longest concession speech in history.” The room clears quickly, and there’s a steady flow of people round - through a spare room filled with people on mobile phones, and past a bar - to the balconies. Only then do we realise - there are a lot of people here. Below us, a sea of suits, signs and bodies lines the ballroom floor. Ahead, the assembled staff of the campaign are on stage. And on the balconies, there’s a crush for the decent views. I jostle for a while, but it’s clear there’s going to be a crowd a few people deep at the front of the balcony.

I join the flow of people trying their luck downstairs. It’s a scrum. At the bottom of the stairs, a curtained-off area is filled with journalists - TV cameras at the front, lighting and technical staff behind. Laptops blink news sites, and monitors carry multiple news channels. There’s an air of messy anticipation, like at a concert when the support band come off - there’s nothing to do but wait, but you know it’ll probably be longer than you think. Through the curtains, the main ballroom floor is packed. Going in there seems to offer even less chance of a decent view than staying on the balcony. So I join a small group huddled on the bottom of the stairs, peeking through the gap in the curtain.

And we wait. It’s around 10.10pm when we start to wait. At one point the rumour goes round that we’re waiting for the eleven o’clock news - I think there’s no way we’ll wait that long. The crowd gets too big to see through the crack, and in a moment of common sense of the sort you’d never expect to see at an event this large, a section of curtain is removed so we can see better. I vaguely ponder whether that would happen in England. Nevertheless, as people come and go, I’m jostled about, and my view of podium is periodically obscured by the hips of a TV cameraman leaning against his equipment on the platform ahead. Down in the bustle of the ballroom floor, I see the state Senator I’m officially in Boston to help, and I wave. He waves, and for a second I start to move down through the crowd. Then I realise he was waving at someone else. Strange how, wherever you are in the world, when that happens you always feel the whole room is watching you.

At one point, the HQ staffer I know playing bouncer comes by. “You can’t stand here,” he announces. “Either go upstairs or downstairs. You can’t stay here.” This was probably inevitable, but did they really have to wait this long to do it? Now we’re all settled and upstairs is even busier. I head tentatively upstairs, and try to push for space where there’s a view. Barging in doesn’t seem particularly in the spirit of grassroots solidarity, but I didn’t get up at 7am to watch the speech on a bloody screen (it was bad enough doing that for the debate). So I jostle, to very little effect. I decide to wait it out and go and look at the bar, hoping it’s free in here too. Good lord no. $4.75 for a coke. Sheesh.

People are getting impatient. The poor campaign management have been standing on stage for 45 minutes. To quell their boredom and ours, they decide to show their appreciation for our efforts by chanting “thank you” for a while and pointing at us, arms swinging back and forth over their shoulders in time with the chant. It’s a nice gesture, which we don’t really seem to register - as the chant loses energy, when polite applause would be the ideal way to bring it to a dignified close, none comes, and it sort of shudders to a halt. Then a few minutes later, there’s a hubbub. Is Deval coming? No, it’s a large black man in a white suit, come to sing The Star Spangled Banner in a horrible, overwrought style. As he sings, I watch the people - a few with hand on hearts, most singing, a surprising number not singing. I realise this is the first time I’ve ever heard Americans singing their anthem in real life, and there are about two thousand of them. For some reason I’m totally unmoved.

I notice that people are disregarding the instructions and still standing on the bottom of the stairs. I join the rebels. Standing in front of me are two good-looking thirtysomething men. One’s black, with a serious look; the other’s white, with an Abercrombie chin and a playful glint in his eyes. They’re talking, and appear to be friends. Then, very gently, the black one caresses the other’s arse, and his hand settles around his waist. For some reason, I find this, not heartwarming, but vaguely irritating. Later, he nibbles his partner’s ear.

11pm comes and goes. People are getting twitchy - the last tubes go at 12.30. The only thing left we could possibly be waiting for is Tim Murray, Lt. Governor-candidate-elect, to arrive to join Deval.

Finally, at around 11.15, there’s movement on stage. Is that Deval? No, it’s - what the? - it’s Chris Gabrieli. What’s hedoing here? Does he have a bomb? Why is no-one else surprised? Suddenly I realise - this is another reminder of the essential wierdness of internal party politics - all the trappings of a full election, but it’s a Democratic internal affair. Gabrieli is here invited. People are even cheering. God, is he going to make another speech? Thankfully, no. In the least boring remark I’ve ever heard him make, he utters five sweet words, music to the ears of a sore-footed, impatient crowd: “Ladies and Gentlemen, Deval Patrick.”*

See Deval Patrick’s speech | Read a transcript

Patrick has a tightrope to walk. The room is filled with supporters who’ve given time, money and sweat to make tonight happen. Some have been working, for nothing, on this in all their spare time for over a year. They’ve earned praise and gratitude, and they expect it. But this is a televised speech, and as well as marking the end of one campaign, it marks the start of another, far more important one. So he’s got to reach out. “From the very beginning,” he begins, in his slow, sing-song style, “I’ve asked you to see this not as my campaign, but as yours.” The crowd goes, unsurprisingly, wild. But it quickly becomes clear that “we” aren’t just the two thousand or so volunteers in the room, or even the twenty thousand or so who gave time or money at some point. “Tonight’s victory belongs to the countless numbers of you that voted for the first time, or the first time in a very long while,” he continues. “To the folks from all across the Commonwealth, from all kinds of political perspectives… who decided to take a chance not on me, but on your own aspirations.”

What? All of them? Everyone who voted for you? This victory “belongs” to 50% of those who voted? Even the ones who could barely be bothered to vote in the first place? The ones who saw the way the polls were going, and just decided to back the leading horse?

Now, I know, it’s about reaching out. And hey, I’ve only been in the country, let alone the campaign, for three weeks. But I can’t help but feel - slighted. “This victory belongs to the tens and hundreds of thousands of Democrats and Republicans and independents who believe that we can do so much better and hope for so much more in Massachusetts.” Come on! Even the Republicans? They couldn’t even vote today!

Deep down, it’s OK, and the crowd’s enthusiasm isn’t dimmed. But it’s hard not to feel that - he could have offered something. Some little bone, a reference, a nod, to those of us actually in the room, those of us who really felt like part of the team. Never mind the fact that, as I’d feared earlier in the day, the margin of victory we’d have won without making a single phone call. We made calls, dammit. We, the time-starved youth of 21st Century America (temporarily, in my case), gave up our time. Don’t we get anything? “I thank every union, every social worker, every business leader, every policy expert, every academic, youth worker, police chief, elected official, homemaker, teacher, small business owner, venture capitalist…” c’mon, say student, or young person, or something! But of course, there’s still an election to win. And the language of grassroots is a tricky one. Grassroots sounds great when it conjours up images of nurses, teachers, small businessmen - concerned, hardworking, regular people. It doesn’t sound great when it conjours up images of angry poor people. Or black kids. Or Harvard students. Underneath the euphoria, the sense of being part of a bigger whole, there’s calculation and care and media strategy. I guess there has to be.

It’s not the most inspirational Patrick has been (and at his best, he’s remarkable). But tonight really marks the end of inspiration, and the beginning of pragmatism, of cunning, and of guile. The next day, when I hear Republican nominee Lt. Governor Kerry Healy’s attacks on Patrick, I understand better what he’s up against, and why he can’t afford to talk directly to us in the hall. And hey. He invited us to the party.

In the end, though, the most fascinating thing about the speech isn’t what it tells us about Patrick, but what it tells us about Gabrieli. Patrick doesn’t gush when he pays the obligatory tributes to Gabrieli and Reilly (whose reasons for not being here are probably legitimate, but whose absence nevertheless enforces a sense of sore-loserness that stems from his defensiveness in the first debate). “Each fought a competitive campaign,” Patrick notes, not backing down from earlier (frankly ill-advised) complaints about negative campaigning. “But even when things got a little heated, I never doubted the sincere commitment to service that each of them brought to this campaign and have brought to their lives.” If that sounds like damning with faint praise, that’s because it was. But what’s remarkable is Gabrieli’s response - a down-to-the-waist bow, complete with Elizabethan hand flourish.** It’s a nervous, pally, frat-boy move, its good-naturedness matched only by its inapropriateness. And suddenly, it hits me, what’s been bugging me, what’s been so wrong about Gabrieli from the start. He’s far too eager to please. In his endless repeating of his “record of results;” in his the too-jovial concession speech, and now - it’s all been about being liked. With his I’ve-got-the-most-numbers policy plans, he’s the little boy who always wins the science fair. And in running for Governor, he’s like the geeky boy who’s adopted by the football team so he can do their homework for them. He’s worked out how to use his brain to gain friends. And just because he’s lost, that’s not going to stop him - he’s going to come out of this liked. And of course, as this becomes obvious, it becomes harder and harder to like him.

Then, it’s over. Patrick made an exhortation to party tonight, but the outward flow from the ballroom as soon as the speech finishes says people are feeling their early starts. Poor Tim Murray comes on to make his speech, but Deval hogs the platform, shaking hands. Awkwardly, Murray does the same. I sense an awkward moment coming on, so I make my way.

I’m jolted as I walk out into Copley Square. All this talk about grassroots, about low-paying jobs, about starving schools; and then I walk out into skyscrapers, marble hotels, libraries and symphony halls. I look at some of my fellow leavers, and I notice blakc dresses and shawls and pearls. And I think, has it all been bullshit? For all this talk of grassroots, of “our” campaign, hasn’t it - hasn’t tonight - just been about rich, insulated, guilt-ridden liberals pouring money on a nice, well-spoken negro, another act of charity to put alongside the Rotary Club dues?

But on my way into the tube, I overhear the conversation of two wealthy-loking guests. A slim, well-groomed fiftysomething gentleman in a tan suit asks his colleague, who’s clearly read my mind, said, “you’ve been to a lot of these things, was this different?” She - small, designer-clad, silver-haired and jewelled - replied, “oh, yes. It was a much more diverse crowd. All the volunteers were there, that’s very rare.”

So there you are. I guess this is different.

It’s throwing it down when I get off the tube - rain like we never have in England. I go into Seven-Eleven to try to wait out the rain. “How did Patrick do today?” the guy behind the counter asks. “Um, Ok,” I say, nervously. I’d forgotten the badge on my jumper. “He got, um, 50% of the vote, the others conceded.” “Oh yeah? He won? Good.” I’m pleased, but uncomfortable. I keep expecting a raving republican to pounce out at me and ask challenging questions about education policy. I head towards the door. “Hey,” the guy asks. “Where’s Patrick’s headquarters?” “It’s in Charlestown,” I mumble. He seems interested. I offer stilting, scarcely accurate directions. “You should, um, pop in,” I mumble. “Or you could give them a call, you want the number?” To my amazement, he says yes. I tell him it. He seems pleased, and determined to call.

It’s midnight, they guy’s at work for several hours yet, and when he wakes up tomorrow afternoon for his day off, he’s going to call headquarters and volunteer his time. He’s not looking for a thank you, or free glass of wine, or an acknowledgement. He’s just looking for a chance to help. As Deval would put it, to serve.

I trudge home, through the rain. I get drenched. My party pass, still around my neck, comes apart in the rain and splashes on the road, leaving me with nothing but a flimsy piece of string. The primary’s over, and so is my real part in the Deval Patrick campaign. But, as I hold my Seven-Eleven carrier bag over my head to try to block the downpour, I still feel a little bit inspired.

My late uncle Sonny was a sometime-resident of that little apartment on the South Side of Chicago. He struggled through most of his life with an addiction to heroin. He used to shoot up in the living room when he thought no one was looking. I know now that he was looking for a way to soothe his pain, a way not to face his own personal demons and challenges. A way out.

Well, cynicism is an opiate, too, a comfort drug. And it’s everywhere. It helps us brace ourselves against the pain of disappointment, to endure the letdown we have come to expect. Some politicians and some of the media, frankly, are dealers, peddling cynicism by tearing down anything positive and hopeful.

Well, cynicism, it turns out, is addictive. It leads us to expect less and demand less of our leaders and of ourselves. It restricts our capacity to imagine, let alone to care about, problems we have created for ourselves.

It’s time to put our cynicism down. Put it down. Stand with me and take that leap of faith… Take a chance on hope.

-Deval Patrick

www.myspace.com/devalpatrick
www.devalpatrick.com
www.devalpatrick.tv

* Looking at the video, it’s quite clear it isn’t Gabrieli who said these words. Yet that’s certainly how I remember it. Were they said twice? Did they really summon Gabrieli on stage just to sit there?

** You can’t see it on the video, unfortunately.

UPDATE: Looking back through some notes I made, I’ve just remembered something. At one point during the long, long wait for Deval, someone standing near me pointed out Senator John Kerry working the crowd. Buffanted and, I thought, wearing foundation, he looked like an aging dandy - but my colleague was impressed. “He looks good,” he observed. “So he should,” another added. “He’s got a whole lot to look forward to.” “You think?” replied the first. “Oh, sure. He was robbed in ‘04. He’s got another try left in him.”

A mere week or so later, of course, Kerry reminded us all just why he could never, ever run again.

See other articles about: america, america sep 2006, boston, democrats, deval patrick, massachusetts, midterms, politics

Related Articles:- Primary Colours, An Open Letter to Jeff Jacoby, Farewell, Filene’s, New York Revisited, The end of regeneration?

Add this to del.icio.us

Digg this

Share on Facebook