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SCOT LEHIGH

Governor Patrick should elevate his game

On primary night, speaking at Martha Coakley’s celebration, Governor Deval Patrick fired a blast of bombast into Charlie Baker’s backside.AP/file

Here’s a sentence I never thought I’d write: Deval Patrick should follow the admirable example of Mike Capuano.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, you may well be thinking. The silver-tongued, smooth-as-silk Patrick should emulate a man this column has previously described as having more rough edges than the Grand Canyon?

Why?

Because in this year’s gubernatorial campaign, Capuano is comporting himself like a political gentleman, while Patrick is on the verge of becoming a little . . . well, unbecoming, to use a word in the news of late.

First, Capuano. After initially signaling that he was only lukewarm about Attorney General Martha Coakley, who beat him in the 2009 Democratic US Senate primary, the Seventh District congressman has rallied around his party’s newly minted gubernatorial nominee.

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But even as he endorsed Coakley, Capuano noted that he has known Republican nominee Charlie Baker for 35 years, holds him in high regard, and wasn’t going to talk trash about him.

“I don’t have anything bad to say about him,” Capuano said. “If you are looking for me to say something mean and nasty and dirty about somebody else, you are just not going to get it.”

Contrast that with Patrick. On election night, speaking at Coakley’s celebration, Patrick fired a blast of bombast into Baker’s backside.

“Between 2010 and today, [he] has occupied every position on every issue,” declared Patrick, who proceeded to charge that Baker had worked to hide the true cost of the Big Dig (actually, to the degree costs were concealed, the responsibility lies with former Weld-Cellucci Transportation czar Jim Kerasiotes) and that in 2010, Baker had thought that “helping the vulnerable was wasteful.”

“I am telling you, we don’t need another Republican willing to say anything to get the job,” Patrick concluded.

The governor was back on the attack the next day at a Democratic Party unity event, charging that Baker “has a whole lot of friends to whom he has promised a whole lot of favors” and that “he’s willing to say whatever it takes to win.”

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Now, Patrick, who once held Baker in high enough regard that he tried to recruit him as a running mate, has several reasons for wanting to see him lose. One is personal. Trying to capitalize on stories about EBT abuse during his 2010 campaign, Baker distributed mock “Deval Patrick’s Massachusetts EBT Welfare Cards” for “booze, cash, cigarettes, and/or lottery tickets.” Patrick, whose family sometimes relied on welfare during his youth, was said to be deeply angered by that.

It was a tinny stunt. On the trail at the time, I noted to Baker that he was really playing to the cheap seats. I don’t recall his exact response, but I do remember him seeming defensive. As well he should have been. The EBT issue itself was fair game, but the tactic was shabby. It’s one of the things Baker did in 2010 that made people who had theretofore held him in high regard lose some respect for him.

Patrick’s bigger reason for wanting Baker to go down to defeat, however, is that this election will be seen, at least in part, as a referendum on the governor’s problem-plagued second term. If Baker wins, one reason will be that after years of soaring vision but mediocre management, voters decided they wanted a governor who would focus more on the nuts and bolts. That’s obviously an unwelcome story line for anyone keeping his national political options open.

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When Andy Metzger of the State House News Service asked Patrick about his tone recently, the governor quickly pivoted to throw another jab at Baker, declaring that “he’s got an authenticity problem.”

Hmmm. Although he ran a lousy, lamentable campaign in 2010, this time around, Baker has waged an intelligent, issue-oriented effort that reflects the thoughtful policy wonk he has long been.

It’s actually Patrick who risks an authenticity problem here. After all, he has always styled himself a high-minded conviction politician, one who values positive campaigning and considers negative broadsides disrespectful of the voters.

But frankly, Patrick has wandered into the gray area. That’s not to say an outgoing governor should stay out of the campaign completely. But Patrick should put down the cudgel and confine himself to making a positive, high-minded case for his favored candidate.

That is, he should follow Mike Capuano’s laudable lead.


Scot Lehigh can be reached at lehigh@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeScotLehigh.