Tuesday, May 30, 2006

It Never Hurts to Ask

Sifting through some of the news stories that accumulated over the long weekend, I came across this passage from yesterday's Berkshire Eagle:

Most observers agree that Patrick likely will win the convention's endorsement - many say it is because delegates tend to be more liberal than the rest of the party, and Patrick is the most left-leaning choice of the three - but Gabrieli could shake up the numbers.
Let me just say this for the record. Deval Patrick will win the convention's endorsement not because he's the most liberal, but because of the efforts of his campaign and people like me who worked like crazy to help him win delegate seats at the February caucuses. That's it. Whether the state party is full of liberals or conservatives or moderates makes little difference. My experience at the caucuses was that when we asked people to show up, a lot of them did. We asked more people to show up than the Reilly camp did. If Patrick was a more conservative candidate, we would have just asked different people.

One of the big reasons that I'm supporting Deval Patrick on a personal level is that he reminded me that politics is not something that you watch, it's something that you do. I was never involved in politics before; sure I voted, but apart from that democracy was just a spectator sport for me. The reason? Maybe I just had never been asked before.

Howard Dean used to say that just voting, you get you a "C" "D". Deval Patrick is the only candidate asking us to aim higher.