By Dan Kennedy • The press, politics, technology, culture and other passions

Where was Patrick?

One of the odd side notes to last week’s overwhelming, 108-46 House vote against Gov. Deval Patrick’s casino plan was the absence of the governor, who, it was reported, had gone to New York City on personal business.

Now WBZ-TV (Channel 4) political analyst Jon Keller reports that Patrick was peddling his autobiography, and that he’s hoping for as much as seven figures. Keller writes:

According to a publishing executive who saw the proposal, it promises a highly personal account — “like Barack Obama’s first book” — of Patrick’s childhood growing up poor on Chicago’s South Side, his journey to Milton Academy courtesy of a scholarship program that helps underprivileged kids obtain top-shelf secondary educations, and his matriculation at Harvard University.

Not that it was a big deal that he’d skipped town — everyone knew the vote was going to go against him. Interesting nevertheless.

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6 Comments

  1. Anonymous

    I guess there weren’t any gambling addicts on the South Side when Deval was a kid.

  2. o-fish-l

    Was that two NY trips for Patrick within 96 hours during that crucial week? I ask because today on WRKO, Howie Carr was discussing today’s damaging NYT piece on Patrick and mentioned that during the critical run-up to the casino vote, Patrick was in Albany for the swearing-in of Gov. David Patterson. I think the swearing-in was on Monday 3/17 and the casino vote was on Thursday 3/20. So much for the Dems criticism of Romney being an absentee.

  3. jvwalt

    What is it about Massachusetts that makes its Governors not want to be there? Bill Weld tries to go to Mexico, settles for New York… Argeo Paul ditches the Governorship for the pleasures of Ottawa… Jane Swift leaves the capitol at every opportunity for her home in North Adams (which, admittedly was within state boundaries, barely)… the Mittster tried desperately to not only leave the state, but deny its very existence… and now Deval lights out for New York during a crucial, though admittedly doomed, Legislative vote. What’s the problem? Cockroaches in the corner office?

  4. Anonymous

    Best line of the morning, from Gene Lavanchy on Fox 25, “title of the Patrick book is ‘Just Passing Through'”

  5. Anonymous

    He’s done. He’ll be defeated in the primary next election, unless a Democratic national victory in November makes possible a kick upstairs to a federal position. I don’t think in over thirty years that I’ve ever been so disappointed by a politician I voted for, and I suspect my opinion is shared by many.

  6. Peter Porcupine

    DK – not a big deal to bail on your proposal, eh?Wait until he wants to unveil ANY subsequent proposal. His erstwhile supporters will think twice and three times before boarding such a ship of fools, the S.S. I Can Count, where the captain is the only one in the lifeboat.

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