Promise broken
That's what candidate Deval Patrick promised voters when he won election two years ago. But he hasn't delivered. He hasn't ushered in a new era of governmental vision; his grandiose plans for expanding transportation and reforming education have proven to be unaffordable bureaucratic boondoggles. He hasn't brought new openness and transparency to state government; this has so far proven to be one of the most secretive, uncommunicative governorships in recent memory.
And now, he's thrown overboard one of his most appealing promises, to replace old-style Beacon Hill cronyism and feather-bedding with thoughtful, pragmatic policy-making that places the public interest above insider self-interest. That's what the dumping of Transportation Secretary Bernard Cohen (excuse me, his "resignation") and the apparent plan to replace him with one of the architects of the Big Dig fiasco, Jim Aloisi, represents.
Cohen was a pure policy wonk who worked quietly and diligently to restore order to the state's chaotic transportation planning and build working relationships with key political players. But he was not much of a headline-grabber or Patrick kiss-up. And he had a tendency to tell the truth about things, like the state's utter inability to afford the commuter-rail extension to New Bedford that Patrick keeps insisting is still in the cards. So for his trouble, Cohen is now out, to be replaced by Aloisi or someone like him, some wired-in smooth-talker who will convince the governor that he can sell the legislature on the huge toll and tax hikes Patrick apparently believes are necessary.
The problem is, for all their numerous warts, the legislators are more in touch with the public mood than Gov. Cadillac seems to be these days. They seem to realize that jacking up the proposed toll hike far beyond what Cohen said was needed, shying away from plain talk about a gas tax hike, and paving the way for a financially-crippling takeover of the MBTA is not a transportation policy, it's a political suicide mission.
Perhaps Cohen wasn't a dynamic enough advocate for Patrick's "new kind of politics," although he may quickly long for Cohen's low profile when the public gets wind of Aloisi's Big Dig pedigree. But a fish rots from the head, and if the governor sees his grand fantasies of a reinvented state government coming apart in the rain, he need look no further than the mirror for the culprit.
