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EDITORIAL
Op-Ed; O'Brien, Democrats in same leaky boat
THOMAS M. KEANE JR.

11/08/2002
Boston Herald
All Editions
029
(Copyright 2002)

Ultimately, Democrats will probably conclude, it was Shannon O'Brien's fault. She took an election that should have been a slam- dunk win and lost it.

There is much to recommend that theory. After winning the September primary without running a single negative ad, O'Brien was well ahead of Republican Mitt Romney. But in the following weeks she made a series of errors that turned off traditional Democratic voters - epitomized by her disastrous performance in the final debate, just a week before Election Day.

With "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert as moderator, O'Brien smirked throughout. She treated every question put to her as an opportunity to attack Romney. When pressed on difficult issues, she would dodge, trying almost desperately not to have to give an answer.

There was a remarkable exchange on abortion for 16-year-olds. She seemed almost not to comprehend why her position might be controversial. When asked by Russert, she first responded with a foolish joke - asking if he wanted to see her tattoo - and then rationalized her permissive stance by saying it was OK, because that's the legal age of consent for sex. Parents of teenagers were aghast. O'Brien appeared as non-empathic to their plight as Michael Dukakis many years ago when asked for a reaction to capital punishment if his wife had been raped and murdered.

By the end of the hour, O'Brien seemed mean, rude and unlikeable. Instead of sounding like a governor - with a vision and a message designed to bring the state together - she sounded like a bully.

The week after the debate was no better. O'Brien seized on Romney's use of the word "unbecoming" as if it were some sort of deep offense. Instead of spending the waning days of the campaign explaining how she'd close the budget gap, she went off on some politically correct lexicographical tangent. Voters could be forgiven for wondering, if a simple word so upset her, how she would handle the real rigors of the governor's job.

Then, at a time when many were questioning her independence from the Democratic establishment, she brought in every heavyweight Democrat she could find. State reps and senators, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Hillary and Bill Clinton - all shared the dais with her. So much for independence.

These were all self-inflicted, avoidable wounds. But for these, one can imagine the argument going, we would have won.

But there is another aspect to the loss as well. Voters had no clear idea of what O'Brien stood for.

A flyer that landed on my doorstep Election Eve gives a one- sentence summary of her platform: "I will work hard for the changes that really make a difference for Massachusetts families."

It's an insipid sentence, filled with focus-group tested buzz words: "work hard," "change," "difference" and, that most beloved of all words in the Democratic political glossary, "families."

Try to figure out what it means. O'Brien promises to "work hard." Was there someone in the race who was promising to be lazy? She advocates "changes" and making a "difference," but never says she'll succeed in making those changes and differences, whatever they might be. And she promises to help "families." Whom does that exclude? Aren't we all, in some fashion, part of a family?

In fact, O'Brien's words are like a political Rorschach: They mean anything you want them to mean, and in doing so, end up meaning nothing at all.

But that's more than just a problem for O'Brien. It's a problem for the Massachusetts Democratic Party as well.

Romney's win notwithstanding, Democrats dominate in Massachusetts. All non-gubernatorial constitutional positions are held by Democrats, as are all U.S. Senate and House seats. None of the elected jobs in Suffolk County is held by a Republican. The rest of the state isn't much better. The Legislature - 200 senators and representatives in all - will have just 40 Republicans come 2003.

The Democratic Party is indeed a big tent, so large it seems to include virtually every politician in the state. But what does it stand for? Outgoing Senate President Thomas Birmingham and House Speaker Thomas Finneran are almost opposites on a wide range of issues. Yet each calls himself a Democrat. Aside from a desire for power, is there any common bond?

Perhaps there is none. And perhaps that was the real flaw in O'Brien's campaign. She was standard-bearer for a party that is spread too thin, a party that too much defines itself as an amalgamation of interest groups rather than by some coherent political philosophy. Unlike, say, Jill Stein, O'Brien had no overarching cause with which to capture the public imagination.

And so, with nothing uniquely substantive to say, O'Brien ended up running a campaign based on style. On Election Day, as it turned out, she just wasn't in fashion.

Tom Keane can be reached at tomkeane@tomkeane.com.