Slow News Day

In today's news, the Boston Globe investigates Deval Patrick's net assets.

He and his wife are now carrying mortgages worth a total of $5.9 million on their Milton home and a Berkshires vacation home. Based on the interest rates of the loans, which the Globe reviewed, the Patricks' mortgage payments are roughly $27,000 per month.

Is this news? Should I even be repeating this? Some people may think that I was going to write about Deval Patrick in this update; however, I'm much more concerned about the Boston Globe. Quite honestly, the Boston Globe may as well have made this headline for the story, "Candidate for Governor has Really Nice House."

I can't help but think the Globe likes to reveal financial news that calls into question the ability of people to afford to be governor. They absolutely destroyed Reilly's pick for Lt. Governor - and serves Reilly right for not digging at all. However, I can't help but be annoyed by articles like this because it just furthers the conception that one has to be wealthy to be in politics. Instead of investigating something useful, like the positive benefits of public funding for campaigns, we get to learn more about Patrick's vacation home in the Berkshires.

According to the article,

Patrick says that he and his wife can meet their loan obligations if he is elected governor, a post that pays $135,000 a year.

Does anything else matter? He's done nothing illegal or irregular - where's the story?

Still, the debt the couple is carrying raises a political question: If Patrick needs to draw on his own funds for his campaign, how much wealth does he have available to tap?

This is news? At the very end of the article, it finally mentions that Patrick's campaign has started to raise money at least on par with Reilly's campaign, but in the very same sentence it emphasizes that it doesn't really matter because he's so far behind.

Ever since Patrick announced he was going to run for Governor, he's faced endless news stories and Op-Eds on his lack of campaign resources. Yet, momentum has built in his campaign and he crushed Reilly in the caucuses. He's running a different kind of campaign, a grassroots campaign, that has had a lot of success despite his financial limitations. Now, that would be a great story for the Globe to write.