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SHIRLEY LEUNG

Could local CEOs hold sway in a Trump White House?

Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, got into an elevator last month at the Trump Tower.Drew Angerer/Getty Images/File

Can the deep blue state of Massachusetts find allies in Donald Trump’s Washington?

We often look to our politicians to build those kind of bridges, but that probably isn’t going to happen this time around.

Our all-Democratic congressional delegation, led by Senator Elizabeth Warren, is heading up the resistance to the president-elect. Then our top Republican, Governor Charlie Baker, refused to vote for his party’s nominee, while former governor Bill Weld ditched the GOP to run against Trump on the Libertarian ticket.

But here’s why I’m not moving to Canada: America will have a CEO president, the first without political experience, and he’ll likely seek out other CEOs for guidance.

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And in Massachusetts, Trump will find what he’s looking for.

For starters, Trump’s newly formed President’s Strategic and Policy Forum, a 16-member group of business leaders who will advise him on economic policy, includes three executives with local ties: Boston Consulting Group chief executive Rich Lesser; Daniel Yergin, founder of Cambridge Energy Research Associates; and former General Electric chief executive Jack Welch.

Then there is New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who was spotted at Trump Tower in Manhattan three weeks ago. The two have never done business together but have been friends for more than two decades. Trump has sat in the owner’s box and visited the locker room in Foxborough, and Kraft and late wife, Myra, attended Trump’s wedding to model Melania Knauss in 2005.

Kraft, who has supported Republicans and Democrats, stopped short of officially endorsing Trump, but he has made clear he’s a loyal fan.

“After my wife passed in 2011, he was one of the few people who went out of their way and went above and beyond to assist me through the most difficult time in my life,” Kraft said in a statement issued in February on the eve of the Massachusetts primary. “I will always be grateful to him for his thoughtfulness and his continued friendship.”

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Beyond football, the billionaire is well connected. Kraft got to know the governor when Baker ran Harvard Pilgrim before going into politics; meanwhile, Kraft has been working with Mayor Marty Walsh about building a soccer stadium in Boston. Kraft also moves easily in business circles with his seat on the board of the powerful Massachusetts Competitive Partnership.

In other words, if liberal Massachusetts needs something from the conservative Republican administration, talk to the man with four Super Bowl rings.

“His approach to life is bridge building,” said Kraft spokesman Stacey James, reminding me of how his boss brokered a deal between owners and players to end a 136-day NFL lockout in 2011. “He’s a person who comes across the aisle.”

When it comes to politics, Kraft doesn’t pick sides.

“He has said many times,” James said, “it’s not the red team, it’s not the blue team. It’s the red, white, and blue team.”

Another executive Massachusetts can lean on is new Bostonian Jeff Immelt, chairman and chief executive of General Electric. He got to know Trump back when GE owned NBC, and the real estate tycoon was the star of the network’s reality TV show “The Apprentice.”

Immelt, in an interview with CNBC a week after the election, said Trump’s competitive streak stood out.

“We handed him a show that was the thinnest concept I had ever seen and he made it like a 14-year hit success,” Immelt told CNBC. “So, this is a guy that’s a competitor. He wants to win. And I always found him in one-on-one sessions to be a listener and a guy that wanted to do good work.”

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Eric Schultz, chief executive of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, doesn’t have a relationship with Trump, but plans to reach out to the administration about what to do with the Affordable Care Act. Trump’s victory has reinvigorated Republican efforts to repeal and replace it, which the president-elect campaigned on. Schultz cautions against all the rhetoric.

“That’s the politics,” he said. “And frankly, in my view, that’s wasted breath and time.”

Schultz has been active on the issue of improving the Affordable Care Act as a board member of America’s Health Insurance Plans, the national trade group representing insurers. But he also thinks Massachusetts’ experience as the first state to offer universal health care can offer lessons on what works and what doesn’t.

Instead of partisan fighting, Schultz believes policy makers need to zero in on the Affordable Care Act’s problems before prescribing solutions. For example, he believes coverage is still too expensive for those who can least afford it, the incentives aren’t effective in getting people to sign up for insurance, and regulations are too onerous.

Schultz, who would not discuss his personal politics, said whatever is done with the Affordable Care Act shouldn’t destabilize the health care system or leave individuals without coverage.

“Let’s find the right glide path to move this market to the next solution in a very thoughtful, responsible way,” said Schultz, acknowledging it won’t be easy.

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During the Reagan years, Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill, a Boston Democrat, served as Massachusetts’ lifeline in a Republican era. O’Neill even managed to overcome a Reagan veto to secure funding for the Big Dig, which the president famously derided as pork barrel spending.

Tip liked to say that all politics is local. These days, Calvin Coolidge’s words may be more apt: “The chief business of the American people is business.”

If that’s the new ethos, Massachusetts CEOs are our best bet.


Shirley Leung is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at shirley.leung@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @leung.