Together, We Can Con

We talked a few days ago about Deval Patrick, a political novice of Obamian proportions, who played the identical themes as Barack to win the governor's seat in Massachusetts in 2006. A couple of weeks ago, Deval skipped off the New York City to sell his memoirs in the midst of a big vote on his biggest legislative effort thusfar, a casino proposal. Deval lost the vote decidedly, as he knew he would, but didn't have the class to go down with the ship, leaving that task to his loyal followers.

Deval has become a cliche - an arrogant, self-centered non-leader who uses his office to cash-in - getting himself a $1.3 million advance while saying his failures are not his failures, they're the failures instead of the corruption of the inbred political class that controls the lawmaking in Massachusetts. In his haughty superiority, he fails to see that he is just another prong of the same pitchfork that continues to stick it to voters by failing to put their needs first, second or even third. He's correct about the buddy system that controls the state, but the best and only way to fix that is to elect some republicans to the veto-proof, democratic majority, and to keep a republican in the corner office.

Ironically, part of Deval's written pitch to publishers about his potential ability to sell books was a boast about having drawn 10,000 people to Boston Common to hear him speak last fall. What Mr. Honest, Mr. Together We Can, Mr. New Kind of Politics, Mr. Man From Hope, Jr., failed to mention in his presentation to publishers was that standing next to him on that stage was a guy named Barack Obama, who was there to receive Deval's endorsement, and for whom the event was held, and for whom those 10,000 people appeared.

To be fair, Deval Patrick is so impressed with himself, he likely believes that folks were there to hear him speak, so perhaps its not fair to call him deceptive. But its important to note that an event that pulls 10,000 people to hear Barack Obama speak is not one of his better draws - it may be that Deval's involvement actually hurt turnout. As the liberal, Deval-loving Boston Globe was forced to observe, "Obama has filled sports stadiums around the country and caused onlookers to faint during his speeches, and he was almost certainly the bigger draw on the Common that day."

The point? The beautiful people can, and will, lie with the best of them. The sooner they face this reality, the sooner we can get to the politics of hope and change.