Patrick leads as vote nears

With the sweep of a Greek drama, the events leading up to the Massachusetts democratic primary - which takes place tomorrow, Sept. 19 - show us that state elections can be as riveting as national ones. As the Boston Globe reported on Sunday, the race for governor is no longer a three-way deadlock. The Globe's most recent poll suddenly predicts an almost landslide-like victory for Deval Patrick. He now takes 46 percent of the vote while Gabrieli takes 25 percent and Reilly only 18 percent. It is important to note that this poll was conducted between Sept. 12 and 15, only a couple of days after the Globe officially endorsed Patrick on Sept. 10th.

The primary is one of the several events within the Massachusetts gubernatorial election, which will ultimately take place on Nov. 7. The general election is held every four years for offices such as governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, treasurer, secretary of state, among others.

Massachusetts' current governor, Republican Mitt Romney, has only served one term and is not seeking reelection. Thus, he will leave office in January 2007. In addition, he has endorsed Republican Kerry Healey, the current Lieutenant Governor, as his successor for governor in the 2006 general election.

The participants in the democratic primary were nominated at the Democratic Convention on June 3, 2006. In order for a candidate's name to be put on the primary ballot in September, he has to receive at least 15 percent of the delegates' support at the convention. The results at the convention somewhat resemble the Globe's recent statistics. Deval Patrick received 57.98 percent of the vote, Tom Reilly 26.66 percent, and Chris Gabrieli 15.36 percent. Before the convention, political analysts and pundits were skeptical as to whether the latter would receive enough support, citing that he had entered the race too late and had not publicized his campaign sufficiently.

Deval Patrick, a lawyer and businessman turned politician, graduated from Harvard University Law School in 1978. He has never been elected to a political office, but has served as the Executive Vice President for the Coca-Cola Company and has held several other positions in the legal and business worlds. The most controversial was his nomination and subsequent tenure as assistant attorney general for civil rights under former president Bill Clinton, who chose Patrick after his first two nominations were heavily criticized by his opponents on the right. During his work under Clinton, he was considered as extremely aggressive by Republicans and even some Democrats, particularly concerning polemical subjects such as racial profiling, affirmative action, and human trafficking. In addition, he was a key player in the construction of post-apartheid South Africa. If elected in November, he will be Massachusetts's first African-American governor and the second African-American governor in American history.

Chris Gabrieli, a businessman and politician, attended Harvard College. He was the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor in 2002. For fifteen years he has worked at Bessemer Venture Partners. In addition, he has served on Boston mayor Tom Menino's "Task Force on After-School Time" and was a founder of the city's After-School for All Partnership. From 1996 to 2002, he served as chairman of MassINC, an independent think tank. He has served on the boards of several nonprofit organizations such as The Boston Foundation, The Initiative for a Competitive Inner City, the Boston Public Library Foundation. Currently, he works at the Ironwood Equity Fund, which helps provide growth capital for businesses.

Tom Reilly is Massachusetts's current attorney general. He attended American International College and Boston College Law School. He won the 1998 election for attorney general and was reelected in 2002. He has recently been criticized for abusing his political connections and power. In October 2005, he allegedly obstructed an investigation into a teenage car crash. In addition, the Gun Owner's Action League recently pointed out Reilly's confession that imposed gun regulations weren't implemented primarily for consumer safety.