Just two weeks before election day, Republican gubernatorial candidate Kerry Healey has fallen to 27 points behind Democrat candidate Deval Patrick, according to a poll released Tuesday.
The 7News-Suffolk University poll of probable voters, which surveyed 400 probable voters from Oct. 20 through Oct. 23, suggests Healey's negative campaign tactics may be responsible for the 6 point increase in Patrick's lead during the past month by turning off independent voters.
Sixty-one percent of those polled said "the tone" of Healey's campaign made them "less likely" to vote for her while 53 percent said they had an "unfavorable" opinion of the Lt. Governor.
The controversy centers around two of Healey's ads, which focus on Patrick's correspondence and defense of convicted Florida cop killer Carl Ray Songer and convicted rapist Benjamin LaGuer. At the end of the ads the narrator states "Deval Patrick should be ashamed. Not Governor."
In the first question posed at last Thursday's debate Patrick was asked if he felt the ads were similar to the Bush attack ads in the 1988 presidential race. The Bush ads featured pictures of Willie Horton, an African-American man and convicted murderer, and attacked Michael Dukakis as being soft on crime. Patrick did not answer yes or no.
Vice President of Tufts Republicans and Healey volunteer sophomore Daniel Hartman defended Healey's strategy. "When it comes to crime, she has done a great job of pointing out Patrick's flaws. Deval Patrick called for the release of a man who brutally raped a 59 year old woman for eight hours," Hartman said. "I believe Healey has the right, and should continue her ads to pointing out Patrick's soft-on-crime stances." he said.
Patrick's College Coordinator and senior Mitch Robinson said both candidates' ads reflected the overall messages of their campaigns. "[Patrick's ads] focused on the substantive issues needed to move Massachusetts forward," Robinson said. "Healey has been focused on a politics of fear that ignores the issues. I think voters see through that."
While Robinson said he thought the ads were legitimate and did not contain a racial message, he did say Healey was not serving her reelection efforts with the negative tactics and was worthy of running a more positive campaign.
"I do think that it was despicable that Healey supporters dressed in orange jumpsuits and held 'Inmates for Patrick' signs while marching on Patrick's and [campaign manager] John Walsh's lawn," he said.
On Tuesday the Boston Herald reported that the Healey campaign purchased orange jumpsuits for campaign volunteers to wear. Healey said her supporters "crossed the line" when they wore the suits outside of Deval Patrick's house.
Political Science Professor Jeffrey Berry questioned the level of taste shown in the ads but he disagreed about the effect of Healey's ads on the election. "The ads actually did help her a little by raising questions about Patrick's character and judgment in the minds of some voters," Berry said.
"But I think the first ad, which shows a woman walking in a parking garage, did cross a boundary by implying that women stand a greater chance of being raped if Deval Patrick is elected governor," he said. "Negative campaigning is a part of politics, but that represents an extreme of fierceness and vulgarity."
Berry also outlined some of the roadblocks the Healey campaign faces in the next weeks. "Healey's biggest problem isn't advertising, it's that only 13 percent of the state is registered Republican, while 35 percent are registered Democrats," Berry said. "Assuming Mihos gets five percent; Healey needs to get from 13 to 48 percent to win, while Patrick only has to get from 35 to 48 percent."
"Ultimately the ads do not have much of an impact," Berry said.
He also pointed out that Massachusetts has elected four Republican governors in the past elections, mostly because, in his opinion, the Democrats failed to nominate a viable candidate. Berry also suggested that voters in past elections sought to check the power of Democratic House Speaker Tom Finneran.
"But Finneran is gone now, Patrick is popular among Democrats, and with the Iraq War and Foley scandal it's a bad year for Republicans generally," said Berry. "In such a heavily Democratic state it makes sense that Patrick would be so far ahead in the final weeks of the campaign."
