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Reich, an elfin college professor, European-style social democrat,
and former Clinton Cabinet member, threw his hat into the race for
Massachusetts governor last week. Although he entered the race late
and has raised little money, he has a good shot at the Democratic
nod.
While Reich
accepts many of the Left's silly nostrums, he's a difficult man
to hate. He avoided involvement in the Clinton scandals, and wrote
an honest, funny memoir about his time in the Washington snake pit
(1997's Locked
in the Cabinet). And though he's partial to union-inspired
schemes to set up an enormous welfare state, his core intellectual
belief that a skilled workforce does more for a nation's economic
health than sheer corporate might makes a lot of sense. In short,
he looks better than the motley collection of (five) career pols
and party hacks vying for the Democrats' blessing. There's even
a recent precedent for a high-profile candidate without elective
experience getting Massachusetts's Democratic nomination: Boston
University President John Silber lost a nail-biting governor's race
to Republican William Weld in 1990.
While Reich
seems a pleasant enough person, Jane Swift, Massachusetts's Republican
acting governor, seems like a good target for conservatives seeking
to purge leftist influences from the Republican party: She supports
legal abortion, made some ethical gaffes soon after taking office
as lieutenant governor, and has just asked an openly gay man to
share the Republican ticket.
With a left-wing
Democratic frontrunner who is hard to hate and a Republican officeholder
who fails nearly every right-wing litmus test, it would be easy
for conservatives to write-off Massachusetts. Weld, after all, ended
his career in a political steel-cage match against Jesse Helms after
President Clinton tapped the Massachusetts governor to become ambassador
to Mexico.
Swift, however,
has compiled an impressive record in Boston's Beacon Hill statehouse.
As an unusually active lieutenant governor, she spearheaded efforts
on taxes, crime, and education. Her positions are roughly the same
as Rudy Giuliani's except that, whereas he never seriously cut taxes
and actually proved himself a profligate spender during the late
1990s boom, she's helped to cut taxes and keep spending relatively
under control.
The ongoing
income-tax rollback, massive reductions in crime, and education
reforms give Swift a significant record of accomplishment. Since
the Republican party took the state house, Massachusetts has reduced
crime more than any other state east of the Mississippi. Two Massachusetts
police departments — Boston and Lowell — present textbook
cases of effective, community-oriented public-safety reform, and
dozens of small suburban agencies there provide effective services.
While Swift has plenty of friends in police departments, she's made
enemies in the teachers unions through policies that test students
and that hold teachers accountable.
Swift's flaws
aren't serious. The Big Dig, an ambitious project to unsnarl freeway
traffic in central Boston, has seen every kind of corruption and
cost overrun. But Swift herself hasn't been involved. Her anointed
running mate, Patrick Guerriero (who still faces an opponent for
the nomination), shares Swift's moderate Republican views. As a
former mayor and state legislator, he played a major role in wrestling
control of the Republican party apparatus out of the hands of big-spending
Republicans. And as Swift's deputy chief of staff, he has repeatedly
spoken out for the interests of local governments and helped beat
back a proposal that would have let the state micromanage local
parks.
In any case,
even he is far preferable to Robert Reich. The former secretary
of labor would return the state to the bad old days when Michael
Dukakis and a coterie of Democratic leftists attempted to build
Socialism in One State. (The ice-cream-factory owner appointed by
Dukakis to head the state's garbage dumps was so given to talk on
worker revolution that even sympathetic administration insiders
christened his domain the Department of Socialism and Hazardous
Waste Management.) Reich did nothing to reassure voters when he
refused to answer a question about being too liberal. Teddy Kennedy,
indeed, might find himself a bit to the right of his state's governor
were Reich to win in November. Jane Swift, on the other hand, may
not pass every conservative litmus test — but, in a liberal
state, she's a good choice.
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