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The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Wednesday, February 19, 2025

Healey makes final plea in last televised debate

Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey needed a miracle in last night's final televised debate between the canidates for the Nov. 7 Massachusetts gubernatorial election.

What she got was the wrong end of a three-on-one battle in which Democrat Deval Patrick and Independents Christy Mihos and Grace Ross attacked her at every available opportunity. Even though Healey managed to focus much of the debate on the two issues she sought to discuss - taxes and crime - the barrage she received from all the candidates makes it hard to believe that Healey will be able to overcome a 25-point deficit in the polls during the final week of the campaign.

Journalist Cokie Roberts of ABC News moderated the debate, which took place at the New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall in Boston and was sponsored by the Boston Media Consortium.

The format of the debate was complex, with Roberts posing questions during the beginning and end of the debate, and the candidates questioning one another during the middle portion.

After kicking things off with a question about the appropriateness of the Boston Archdiocese's role in urging Catholics to turn out to vote in a gay marriage plebiscite, Roberts asked Patrick about the story of the day.

"I have to ask you the question that's been asked of every Democratic candidate in the country today," Roberts said, "which is about Senator [John] Kerry's [D-MA] botched joke, as he calls it, and where he said today he issues a 'sorta, kinda' apology. Is that enough or should he just come out and say, 'I'm sorry'?"

"I think he has [apologized], and I think he should," Patrick said. "It was a dumb comment, and I think he knows it was a dumb comment and has said so."

Patrick then launched into the first question of the debate, asking Healey whether the Romney administration's retention of the Bechtel Parsons/Brinckerhoff construction company in the Big Dig "made sense."

"Of course it doesn't make sense," Healey said. "It was a terrible mistake. They should never be allowed back in any capacity. All we should be trying to do is recover the money they owe to the people of Massachusetts."

"I think you're right," Patrick responded in the 20 seconds allotted for his rebuttal. "That's great. My question is, why hasn't that happened?"

After Healey returned a volley, asking Patrick if he would return the state to the one-party rule of Michael Dukakis, Mihos got involved for the first time in the night, commencing an attack on Healey that would last for the full hour.

"Your unfavorable rating is at 59 percent; you can't win. My question is, why don't you drop out and let me take over?"

"I've got 50 good ideas to move this commonwealth forward. You've got one good one," Healey replied, referring to Mihos' "Proposition One" tax plan. "Deval's got none."

The exchange devolved into a yelling match between Healey and Mihos, who may have been Patrick's best ally all night. Patrick stood off to the side, looking above the fray as he has done throughout the debates.

Roberts struggled to maintain control of the candidates at several points, and later in the debate, Ross complained that the evening's format had allowed Patrick and Healey to ignore the other two candidates. When Mihos raised his plan to cut 8,000 government jobs in order to balance the budget, Ross said that she was "glad you brought up balancing the budget, an issue that the voters actually care about. Maybe we'll get that out of the two folks not talking to us."

Mihos put his arm around Ross after the exchange. Just a few minutes earlier, Ross and Patrick had a moment of d?©tente, agreeing on the need for Beacon Hill to address the high housing costs facing Massachusetts residents. This temporary alliance underscored the way in which Patrick seemed to escape the independents' ire, leaving Healey to take the brunt of the attacks.

The exchange between Mihos and Healey set a contentious anti-Healey tone for the rest of the debate, but Healey did manage to keep the agenda on spending, taxes and crime, issues on which she tried to chip away at Patrick.

"You are going to have to raise taxes to fund the $8 billion of new spending you're proposing," Healey told Patrick. She referred to the 8 billion number throughout the debate, calling it a "conservative estimate."

"I've made it very clear that there's no new plan to raise taxes," Patrick said in response. "Stop trying to scare people into voting for you."

The debate reached a heated peak when Healey addressed Patrick on crime, a tactic she has used aggressively throughout the last month of the campaign.

"During the course of the last debates, you've said that I am 'just a criminologist,' and belittled my experience. You've said you're a prosecutor. My question is, can you name a case when you put away a criminal?"

Patrick did not name a specific case, instead responding sarcastically.

"Let me tell you what a prosecutor does," Patrick told Healey in a mocking tone. "I've had to make judgments about who to charge and who to not charge. I've had to make hard judgments, including about the death penalty. I will not have trivialized the other work I've done, which includes representing some unsavory defendants."

Later, Healey drew gasps from the crowd when she said that, if elected, she would draft "strong laws that protect against sex offenders," in a barb directed at Patrick's advocacy of parole for convicted rapist Benjamin LaGuer. Despite warnings from Roberts, the audience interjected throughout the debate with applause and jeers.

At the end of the debate, Roberts asked each candidate to make a closing statement.

"I think it's very important that the viewers at home understand that they have a choice next Tuesday," Healey said in a final pitch to voters. "Fiscal conservatives and social moderates who want to maintain the standards of our schools, keep benefits from illegal immigrants and have strong laws against sex offenders should think of what it would mean to have Deval Patrick in office instead of me."

After the debate, Healey called the 25-point gap an "old poll."

In an effort to keep overconfident Democrats from skipping the voting booths, Patrick said that his lead in the polls comes from "the same experts who said I had no chance in the primaries. We're working hard right up until [election day]."