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Posted by: kwflatbed

BOSTON -- It's been hard to forget Deval Patrick's 2006 gubernatorial campaign with friend Barack Obama reprising his oratory during the 2008 presidential race, yet it's also not much of a stretch to wonder whether some of what he said amid that Statehouse bid was "just words."
The question was prompted this past week when the governor who pledged to end Beacon Hill's back-scratching culture appointed former state Sen. Cheryl Jacques to be an administrative judge in the Department of Industrial Accidents.
It's a plum assignment, six-years in length and at a tidy sum: $107,000 annually. When you combine it with Jacques' prior service in state government, it lays the foundation for a pension far higher than the average person would get for the same pay in the private sector.
The 46-year-old Jacques, who briefly was president of a national gay rights group, had served stints as an assistant district attorney and assistant attorney general. She had one other qualification not listed on her resume.
In August 2006, Jacques donated $500 to Patrick's gubernatorial campaign. At the time, she listed her address as "Washington, D.C.," her occupation as "consultant" and her employer as "self."
That month was one in which Patrick raised $695,000 overall, a feat his staff trumpeted at the time because it bested the prior one-month fundraising haul of $547,000 made in May 2002 by former Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican.
"The support Deval Patrick has received from thousands of people is proof that Massachusetts voters are hungry to change politics as usual, and they see him as the leader to make that happen," said Richard Chacon, who was serving then as Patrick's communications director.
It is that kind of talk, and Obama's rekindling of it in his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, that's prompted questions about whether both the Massachusetts governor and the Illinois senator are full of hot air.
In Obama's case, rival Hillary Rodham Clinton was the chief inquisitor after her aides noticed that full passages of recent Obama speeches either echoed or were verbatim matches for comments Patrick delivered during his gubernatorial campaign.
"Don't tell me words don't matter," Obama said in Wisconsin on Feb. 16, attempting to rebut Clinton's oft-repeated charge that he is long on rhetoric and short on policy specifics. "'I have a dream' -- just words? 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal' -- just words? 'We have nothing to fear but fear itself' -- just words? Just speeches?"
Patrick, faced with similar criticism from Republican rival Kerry Healey during the 2006 gubernatorial race, said at the time: "`We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal' -- just words? Just words?" 'We have nothing to fear but fear itself' -- just words? 'Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.' Just words? 'I have a dream' -- just words?"
Obama sought to undercut Clinton's questions by deploying Patrick in his defense. From his second home in the Berkshire Mountains community of Richmond, where the governor spent the week on vacation, Patrick laughed about the charges.
"It's an elaborate charge, kind of an extravagant one. I've known Barack for, jeez, almost 15 years now. We've talked a good deal during my own campaign and his; we fully expected he would sustain a charge at some point trying to belittle his ability to motivate people with language. I got the same kind of attack," Patrick said, "and I told him about precisely how I responded."
Patrick high-profile role in Obama's campaign has also invigorated speculation about the governor's long-term political intentions. The line of thinking is that if Obama wins the Democratic nomination, as well as the general election, he might consider his fellow Chicago South Sider and Harvard Law School graduate to be attorney general.
If Patrick were to leave the Statehouse before his term is completed in 2011, Lt. Gov. Tim Murray would be elevated to acting governor, while other Democrats -- among them Treasurer Tim Cahill -- might challenge him for their party's gubernatorial nomination.
Murray and his aides laughed off such questions this past week, while a Cahill aide responded, "It's too speculative to speak about a hypothetical situation."
For his part, Patrick has also dismissed any such speculation, telling reporters in year-end interviews versions of what he told The Republican of Springfield: "This is the greatest job going."
Just words?

http://www1.whdh.com/news/articles/local/BO73864/

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Posted by: mpd61

Nice to see a practicer of Tax Fraud be elevated to an administrative Judgeship! Only in Massachusetts!

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