Patrick to Supreme Court? Could the ultimate domino fall

Speculation has ramped up over the last couple of days that Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens might announce later this spring that he is retiring from the court. Could this be Governor Patrick's ticket out? First, the Stevens news:

WASHINGTON - Justice John Paul Stevens, leader of the Supreme Court's liberal wing, said in an interview that he would decide in early April whether to retire at the end of this court term....

Interviewed March 8, Stevens said he would make up his mind in about a month.

The court's current term is scheduled to end in late June. Justices who are retiring typically announce the news near the end of a term so a successor can be seated by October.

Why Patrick? Lets go back in time to the Summer of 2007. As the presidential campaign was just starting to wind up, the SCOTUSblog took a look at possible Supreme Court nominees should a Democrat be elected president. Here is part of what they wrote:

Deval Patrick may prefer to run for a second term as Governor. More generally, though being named a Justice is obviously an extraordinary and profound honor, a nominee on the left is in all likelihood signing up for ten years of dissent on many of the most important issues of Court confronts....

My ultimate predictions? Kim Wardlaw (2009, for Souter), Deval Patrick (2010, for Stevens), and Elena Kagan (2011, for Ginsburg).

Well, the authors got their first prediction wrong, but they did list Sonia Sotomayor among the candidates for Souter's position. Many are touting Kagan for the position should Stevens retire, but the author has accounted for that by predicting that she will replace Justice Ginsberg.

So, what would this mean for the governor's race? Well, the timing really couldn't be better. Let's assume for a moment that President Obama doesn't announce his pick until mid-June. On June 15 he gets Patrick on the horn and makes him an offer he can't refuse: not only will he be the next Supreme Court justice, but he won't have to risk tarnishing his legacy with a lost election.

If Governor Patrick pulls more than 85% of the delegate votes at the State Democratic Convention on June 6, he will be the only Democratic nominee on the primary ballot. So, if the governor decides to stand down, the state committee would convene to nominate a replacement candidate. That would almost definitely be Lt. Governor Tim Murray. (If Grace Ross qualifies for the ballot as well, I do not know if procedure would allow for a replacement in the primaries, but a Murray sticker campaign could still defeat Ross).

So Murray gets to campaign all summer while Patrick finishes up his work at the state house. Because a new justice wouldn't be seated until August or so, Patrick can do the dirty work on this year's budget, which will undoubtedly be unpopular. After he signs the budget, he turns the keys to the governor's office to Murray, who can continue to campaign as the active governor while being able to put a little distance between himself and the unpopular decisions Patrick will have to make during the budget process.

I don't think anyone has polled a potential Murray-Baker-Cahill race instead of Patrick-Baker-Cahill, but I sense that Murray is a bit more popular than Patrick. Where the governor is currently holding a three- to eight-point lead in the polls, I'd guess Murray's lead would be more like eight- to twelve-points.

Really, what could be better for Massachusetts liberals? Deval Patrick gets to sit on the Supreme Court for the next 30 years and Tim Murray becomes a favorite to win the corner office.

Deval Patrick's lead may be bigger than you think

Friday, the Boston Herald screamed the headline "Poll says race is between Cahill & Baker." It's safe to say that a Herald reader that didn't get into the article would believe that Governor Deval Patrick was getting trounced, or at least was losing. Funny, that's not what the poll said:

Gov. Deval Patrick’s standing with voters is so weak that this year’s race for governor is shaping up as a contest between his two rivals, a new Suffolk University-7News poll shows.

“This race is really between Charlie Baker and Tim Cahill,” said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, which conducted the poll. “Whoever emerges between the Baker-Cahill race is likely to be the winner.”

As for Patrick, Paleologos said, “On paper, he leads.”

The governor’s grip on a precarious lead continues, with the incumbent Democrat taking 33 percent of the vote compared to Republican Baker’s 25 percent and Treasurer Timothy Cahill, running as an independent, close behind with 23 percent.

Green-Rainbow Party candidate Jill Stein trails with a distant 3 percent, and 16 percent are undecided, according to the survey of 500 likely voters.

Amazing. Governor Patrick holds a lead outside the margin of error, yet the "race is really between Charlie Baker and Tim Cahill." In the official Suffolk University press release touting the poll there is no suggestion that Patrick is losing, but there is this note on momentum:

Patrick (33 percent) still leads the tightening field, followed by Baker (25 percent), who edges out Independent candidate and State Treasurer Tim Cahill (23 percent). Green Party candidate Jill Stein has 3 percent, while 16 percent are undecided.  In a November, 2009 poll, Patrick led Cahill 36 percent to 26 percent, while Baker, the former Harvard Pilgrim chief executive, was a distant third with only 15 percent.

Now, it looks to me like Patrick's and Cahill's standings haven't changed a bit (their three-point drops would be within the margin of error), but that Baker has picked up 10 points from undecided voters. I'm still not sure how that translates into a Patrick loss, but there you go.

I suppose seeing the incumbent governor at 33% could mean that he is toast. That is one way to look at it. But there are also a couple of other ways of looking at the Suffolk poll.

For instance, looking at the demographics of this poll, one thing stood out to me. According to the marginals posted on Suffolk's web site, the polling sample went 49-36 for Scott Brown in January's special election. That corresponds to a 57-42 advantage when you take out the 14% who did not vote or refused to answer. We know that Scott Brown actually won by a 52-47 advantage, so I wondered what would happen if I weighted the votes for governor based on a 52-47 margin among the 431 respondents who said they voted. (I did not re-weigh the votes of the other 69 respondents).

Here is how the poll looks based on a 52-47 Brown win:

Patrick -- 35
Baker -- 24
Cahill -- 22
Stein -- 3
Undecided -- 16

That changes the Patrick margin from +8 to +11. Not a huge change, but one that could cause a tabloid like the Herald to scream "Patrick cruising with double-digit lead" if it were inclined to ever say anything positive about the governor.

Another way one might choose to look at the poll is that while Patrick continues to do very well with Coakley voters, neither Cahill or Baker have broken through with Brown voters. Here are the numbers (no weighting):

Among Coakley voters:
Patrick -- 62
Cahill -- 15
Baker -- 7
Stein -- 4
Undecided -- 12

Among Brown voters:
Baker -- 42
Cahill -- 28
Patrick -- 11
Stein -- 2
Undecided -- 16

If Baker is going to match Patrick's base, he'll need somewhere around 57% of Brown voters to come even. He also cannot afford to give up Brown voters to Patrick (11%) at a higher rate than Patrick bleeds Coakley voters to Baker (7%).

Here is another way to look at it. Let's take Suffolk's numbers in this poll and compare them to the six previous polls in this race (there may be others, but I could only find seven):

Notice Suffolk's numbers. In their previous two polls, Patrick had his two best showings while Baker had his only two results under 20 percent. In other words, Baker may not have momentum at all; rather maybe the Suffolk poll has been out of sync in its previous iterations and is just now falling into line with the other surveys.

Sure, it would be great if Patrick were polling in the mid-40s, but he's not. Even so, no matter how you slice it, he is winning today just as he has been since the start of the campaign. If Cahill stays in the race and Patrick shores up the rest of Coakley's supporters, he will be reelected.

Keller: Deval Patrick should quit before he wins again

Channel 4 political editor, crank, and Deval Patrick-hater Jon Keller came up with a real doozy earlier this week in relation to a new Rasmussen poll showing the Governor with a big lead in his re-election race. How does Keller think Patrick should respond to the news that he’s on his way to reelection? Quit!

If Gov. Deval Patrick were to win re-election despite half the electorate wanting him out and only 14% admitting to a very favorable view of him - as this poll suggests would happen if the election were held today - what would re-election be worth? How would he function as a weak, widely-disliked lame duck, dealing with a hostile legislature? Why would he want to be in such a position? And how can he argue that it's in the best interests of the state to suffer through four years of that?

Seriously? The governor is so far ahead that he should quit, saving us the pain of four more years of Deval (despite the fact that we appear to be voting him back into office)? That might be the most ridiculous thing I’m going to read in the 12 months leading up to the election. Definitely the leader in the clubhouse.

Why does Keller fear that Patrick will win? Looking more closely at the numbers, it’s hard to see how Patrick loses. The scenario where Tim Cahill’s candidacy would hand Patrick another term appears to be coming true. Here are the numbers:

With Christy Mihos as the Republican nominee:
Deval Patrick (D) -- 34%
Christy Mihos (R) -- 23%
Tim Cahill (I) -- 23%
Not sure -- 19%

With Charlie Baker as the Republican nominee:
Deval Patrick (D) -- 34%
Charlie Baker (R) -- 24%
Tim Cahill (I) -- 23%
Not sure -- 19%

Patrick currently holds at least a 10-point lead. In a best-case scenario for a challenger (assuming these numbers hold as a minimum—a dicey assumption 12 months out), the third place finisher would end up with at least 23%, meaning it would only take 39% of the vote to win. To get to 39%, Patrick could lose the “Not Sure” voters by as much as 3-1 to whomever finishes second and still be victorious (39-38-23).

In a scenario where the two challengers split the undecided vote evenly, Patrick could still win even if he picked up no votes from that group (34-33-33).

In other words, Patrick only loses a race with three strong candidates under a scenario where the economy gets so much worse over the next 12 months that Patrick loses the support he has.

And while it is certainly possible that things will get worse, there is a pretty good chance that the economy is starting to turn around. If that happens—even a little—then the only way Patrick loses is if Cahill drops out or if Patrick suffers some sort of scandal that isn’t even on the radar at this time.

Keller is smart enough to figure this out—he knows that unless things get even worse, the only way Patrick loses is if he quits.

Of course, Keller fails to mention the obvious. A Republican who wins with only 35% of the vote will also be a “weak, widely-disliked lame duck, dealing with a hostile legislature.” If Cahill were to win, the same would apply. So why not ask one of them to quit, Jon?

The myth of the good governor

A Telegram & Gazette letter writer criticized Deval Patrick last week for having national aspirations, suggesting:

I hope it is now apparent to everyone that the reason why he is stumping so hard for Barack Obama, and the reason why he is never in the state, is because he wants out of Massachusetts and to be part of Mr. Obama’s Cabinet.

The news today that Patrick made an "iron-clad" promise not to serve in an Obama cabinet has taken a little steam out of my discussion of this letter (not to mention rendering the writer very wrong). But, the author ends the letter with an incredibly illogical argument:

Massachusetts has a long line of governors leaving for other offices (William Weld, Paul Cellucci, Mitt Romney). Let’s rid ourselves of this deceitful politician. In the future, let’s consider true, homegrown politicians who have our best interests in mind.

First, how should we "rid ourselves" of Deval Patrick? Impeachment? Has he actually done anything to warrant removal, or is harboring imaginary national aspirations enough to warrant removal? And wouldn't it logically follow that the best way to rid ourselves of Patrick would be to have him leave for Obama's cabinet? So the writer wants to be rid of Patrick, but he doesn't want Patrick to leave. I'm getting dizzy.

Second, while Massachusetts does have a long history of governors leaving for other offices--although I'm not sure Mitt Romney should be included since he actually finished his term, while the other two governors on this list did not. But let's accept that Romney should be included because he clearly had national aspirations while he was in the corner office. Mentioning Paul Cellucci is also curious since he, as a lifelong resident of Hudson, is about as homegrown as any politician could be.

In any event, it looks like the criteria for being a good governor are to be homegrown and not to seek or accept work in Washington.

The mythical good governor that the author mentions has rarely existed in Massachusetts. Looking back at the last 100 years, most of the commonwealth's governors have either sought or accepted positions in Washington and a few were not born in Massachusetts. Of the 29 governors elected since 1906, 10 of them were both "homegrown" and did not seek or accept higher office during or shortly after their terms:

Ed King, 1979-83
Frank Sargent, 1969-75
Endicott Peabody, 1963-65 (although he did run for the Democratic Vice Presidential nomination in 1972)
Robert Bradford, 1947-49
Charles Hurley, 1937-39
Joseph Ely, 1931-36
Frank Allen, 1929-31
Alvan Fuller, 1925-29
Channing Cox, 1921-25
Ebenezer Draper, 1909-11

Notice something about the length of these governors' terms? They are all very short. In fact, of the 10, only three (Ely, Allen, Cox) were reelected. The other seven were all voted out of office after just one term (Sargent was acting governor for two years before being elected in his own right in 1970).

History suggests that homegrown governors without ambition are so poor that their constituents reject them after a short time.

Rather than seeing ambition as a bad thing, the voters of Massachusetts by and large have noticed leaders when they've seen them despite--or because of--their national ambitions. This tradition of serving both the state and the country goes all the way back to John Hancock, who was elected the first governor of the commonwealth in 1780 and resigned in 1785. Later that summer, he served in congress under the Articles of Confederation and was elected president in November.

Perhaps the people of the commonwealth would have been better off if John Hancock had remained in Massachusetts and kept the state's best interests in mind.

The evidence does not suggest that these homegrown governors are successful, despite their lack of national ambition and the implied focus on "our best interests." And the evidence also doesn't support the claim that Patrick is leaving office before the end of his term. I wouldn't be surprised if Patrick is looking to a bigger stage in the future--I think he will run for reelection in 2010, leave the statehouse after his second term (assuming he is reelected) and then running for president in 2016--but he's not now. And the incentive to be successful will ensure that he attempts to accomplish what he sets out to, since failure would doom any chance of him ascending to national prominence.

(Information on Massachusetts governors from wikipedia and mass.gov).

Tags: Deval Patrick Governor Massachusetts