A Reason to Believe_ Lessons From an Improbable Life - Deval Patrick [72]
I sat on the brown leather sofa of the type and kind that adorns every federal office. Obama sat opposite me on a leather and wooden chair that was also standard issue. He leaned back in his chair and rocked on the two back legs, looking first at me and then into the middle distance. After a few minutes he spoke.
“I’m in,” he said. “What do you want me to do?”
Suddenly I had my first major political endorsement. I was grateful. Notwithstanding his skepticism, Obama was exuberant. He immediately proposed to come to Massachusetts for a fundraiser, but I told him it was too early. My own senators weren’t on board yet; no point in embarrassing them.
“Oh, yeah,” he remembered. “They are my colleagues.” We were both new to the big leagues.
Idealism was the theme of my first race for governor. I found I couldn’t make a case for changing our policies without also talking about changing our broken politics, about fixing our “broken civic life.” Acknowledging how disillusioned so many of our citizens had become, I urged those who had lost faith in their public leaders to return to the political process and to renew their belief that they could make a difference. Against the urging of many of my own supporters and political advisers, we shunned negative ads and maintained a positive message of hope and change.
I was called everything from naive to an “empty suit.” Supporters were cautious, as detractors made idealism seem either misleading or dumb. All that led to a remarkable exchange at a candidates’ forum in the general election. The moderator asked each of us to say something positive about the other candidate. I complimented the Republican nominee, Kerry Healey, for putting her ideas and her vision on the line and subjecting them to scrutiny and criticism. She had been a leader in response to substance abuse in teenagers as well, and I may have acknowledged that, too. When her turn came, she said rather grudgingly, “Well, he can give a good speech.”
Healey’s campaign made some withering attacks on my ideas, my experience, my character, and even my family. It was classic fear-mongering, and I was convinced that people were tired of it. When she dismissed what I was trying to get across in my stump speech, it somehow cut to the core of what I was trying to do in the campaign, to ask people to think and act big, to reach beyond our collective grasp. At a late campaign rally, we hit back, calling out her crucial misunderstanding of what our campaign was all about.
“Healey says that all I can do is give a good speech,” I said. “It’s just words, she says.”
I paused. Then, “ ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’ Just words?”
I was warming up. “ ‘We have nothing to fear but fear itself.’ Just words?”
And another one: “ ‘Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.’ Just words?”
The clincher: “ ‘I have a dream.’ Just words?”
Let me be clear: I am no Dr. King, no President Kennedy, no FDR, no Thomas Jefferson. But I do know that certain words survive because they are the indispensable language of inspiration and resolve. No ten-point plan is inscribed on any wall or monument in Washington, D.C. Words that matter capture a noble sentiment, an enduring ideal, a heroic vision. And the right words, spoken from the heart, are a call to action.
The night I was elected governor, I began my acceptance speech by saying that the people of Massachusetts had taken back their government. Then I said, “This was not a victory just for me. This was not a victory just for Democrats. This was a victory for hope.”
Hope, it turns out, was springing eternal.
In early