"GET ENGAGED"

Deval Patrick, Milton Academy Class of 1974, was inaugurated as the 71st Governor of Massachusetts on January 4, 2007.

He is Milton Academy’s first governor; he is the state’s first, and the nation’s second, African-American governor.

While his leadership has already earned historic markers, Deval’s journey to office broke new political ground as well. Marked by creativity and innovation, dogged optimism, and relentless grass-roots work, Deval and his core campaign staff galvanized a remarkably diverse group of volunteers and supporters.

Pundits across the country marveled that a candidate with little name recognition, little money, and (in the early days) a message from the party regulars that he should wait his turn (and his turn was not now) could come up with the elements of success. It was 56 percent worth of success, in a race that included the now-typical retinue of screened insults and innuendoes.

His themes struck home:

• “I’ve learned how to build bridges across different worlds; how to take the time to listen, as I have to people all over this state; and how not to put people in an ideological box, just as I insist that you not put me in one. And I’ve learned one other thing: I’ve learned about the power of hope, the power of saying, ‘yes, we can.’”

• “Standing on the brink of an uncertain future, with all the challenges we face today in Massachusetts, all I know how to do is to hope for the best and work for it.”

• “What we need today is a spirit of active collaboration, between government, business, universities, nonprofits, community groups. We need a new spirit of civic responsibility, less about party politics and more about problem solving. And we had better start by being clear-eyed and candid about our challenges—and creative and collaborative in finding solutions. ”

• “Our cause succeeds only if you see this not as my campaign, but as yours. Not just my chance to be governor, but yours to rebuild our community, to reclaim your stake in your neighbors’ dreams and struggles as well as your own.”

While great numbers of Miltonians were volunteers, donors, partisans and celebrants, three Milton graduates of the ’90s were staffers who put their life plans on hold and took up crucial roles at the core of the campaign. Two knew Deval well from their student days—Doug Chavez and Steven Clarke, both Class of 1993; Doug and Steven were, early and often, among the many people—friends and family, professional colleagues, political cognoscenti—with whom Deval tested the idea of running for office. The third, Janet Lin, Class of 1997, was already a local legend, a community organizer and affordable housing advocate, with tested skills and the courage to take on challenges.

Three who made a difference

Steven Clarke ’93

“I had committed to a Ph.D. program in political science and was on my way to California,” Steven said. “Doug and I had been talking with Deval about his candidacy, and after he announced, he asked me to be part of the team to get him started.”

Steven had completed a master’s in architecture at Columbia and was working in New York, but several important experiences working in Africa—in Namibia, Ghana, and Tanzania—led him to want to add policy development to his hands-on architectural skills.

“I have known Deval and Diane [Patrick] since my Milton years, and have always admired their compassion for others and sharp minds. They took Doug, me, and our other friends under their wings and have been like parents to us ever since,” says Steven. “I knew that if enough people had access to Deval, he would succeed. Most of the staff recognized that the issue was access; Deval’s personal charisma and ideas about policy were a winning combination. I wanted to help.”

Steven deferred Stanford for one year, joined the campaign, and served as deputy finance director (although the campaign portfolios for all the staff were much broader than the title indicated) for a critical eight months; even after he joined his girlfriend, who had preceded him to California, he stayed involved in the campaign and worked on fund raising in San Francisco.

“Deval’s finance director, Liz Morningstar (wife of Tim Morningstar, Milton Academy ’93), taught me everything about our viral fund raising strategy and was a great mentor and colleague—she is, in short, a fund-raising genius. Liz fostered camaraderie amongst the finance staff that was essential to meeting the challenges of grass-roots fund raising. We grew into a tight team that grew even tighter and more effective with the addition of Janet [Lin], who was a joy to work with.

“Building from the few people who agreed to host the first fund-raisers, we worked with those who surfaced and were then willing to hold their own events. I spent time on fund-raising strategy and on calendaring out the milestones. I learned a lot and was happy that the fund-raising strategy complemented the overall campaign strategy,” says Steven.

“Deval made a personal commitment to run the campaign in a certain way. He wanted direct connection to the voting population—as opposed to trying to figure out what people were looking for and talking to that,” Steven explained. “I felt, along with Deval and other people in his personal circles, disappointed with the state’s trajectory. We heard people complain about how distant government felt from the people it served.

“Deval stayed true to his values, many of which he attributed to his education and his life experiences. He had learned that government could play a significant role in people’s lives, and he wanted people to re-engage in government. Deval was in Sudan after Harvard, and what he saw was emblematic of a developing country: a government so weak that people had nothing; its weakness was the source of many problems, especially a weak economy without the capacity to grow. He saw a direct connection between a weak government and the lack of progress people were experiencing.

“Deval came from a background of civil rights activism; my parents were active in that, too. That movement utilized people, citizens; people changed government and changed lives. Lately, we have seen dramatic examples of incompetence in government, like after Hurricane Katrina—government by cronies, inattentive to people’s needs. Deval was interested in changing that.

“To his immense credit, Deval refused the sound bite technique. He was adamant and diligent about making sure issues were not dumbed down or oversimplified. His was less ideological than most races in the nation. He elevated the dialogue and focused on the problem. His supporters grew steadily over time. There were Republicans for Deval—all kinds of people for Deval. Many of the people in his campaign were not career political people.

“The people I’ve met here in California are very interested in this campaign; it was one of the most grass-roots campaigns in the history of Massachusetts. People were coming forward who were displeased with the direction of the state. For me, that’s important, to see people making decisions where the party affiliation is less important, and they’re paying more attention to issues. I ended up with tremendous respect for the amount of work and sacrifice that people who run for office go through. It was fascinating to see how much power is involved in the machinations of a state.”

Doug Chavez ’93

Back in New York, catching up on sleep after a campaign’s worth of deprivation, Doug said that the full historic importance of the election gradually dawned on him. He found that Black Entertainment Television had named Deval one of five finalists for person of the year in 2006; a professor at Long Island University, where Doug’s sister is a student, asked Doug to speak to his political science class; and he was asked to speak on a New York radio program as well.

Reflection is a luxury that requires some distance, and Doug was immersed in Deval’s candidacy from when it was merely an idea to when he became governor-elect. “It’s hard to fund raise for someone who hasn’t officially declared yet,” Doug remembers. He did, however, and then left his job as a financial analyst with Sean John Menswear to work with other members of the earliest campaign team.

Doug was the utility infielder, with specialty areas that included connecting with and rallying minority and religious constituencies, but which also included fund raising—the task he found most difficult— especially after Steven transitioned to California.

“At the beginning of the campaign, I worked on getting the minority community behind Deval,” Doug says. “I’d been away from Massachusetts for 11 years, but I started meeting with political activists and community leaders. One of Deval’s major challenges was lack of name recognition; the other was lack of money.”

Doug had worked hard during the Kerry campaign, registering Latino voters in Philadelphia and Allentown, Pennsylvania. “My number one goal is to improve the Latino community in this country,” Doug makes clear. The Latino community in Massachusetts didn’t know Doug: “‘You’re a New Yorker,’ they said,” Doug recalls. “But I didn’t have any baggage, either. Why should Latinos care? Latinos have been ignored by Democrats, because Democrats think they have us, and courted by Republicans, who forget about us as soon as they win.”

Doug found the people he met tired of Romney and hungry for fresh air—a change. With the emotional power of personal experience, Doug introduced Deval to them: “Deval was a father to me, a mentor to me, he was hard on me. He cares about everyone. He cares about justice—he’s proved that in his work. He isn’t perfect, but he’s amazing, brilliant, the kind of person any state and this country needs.”

The June 2005 “issues convention” of delegates was the beginning of the breakthrough in name recognition. “Campaign leaders Nancy Stoleberg and John Walsh did a great job getting political activists from around the state to know Deval,” Doug claims. “We already had hundreds of student volunteers and campaign leaders, and those two had them all wear neon green tee shirts with Deval Patrick across the front. They were everywhere”; Doug says, “they were the buzz. Deval’s speech was electrifying. By the end of it the whole convention was screaming with him ‘Yes, we can.’”

The campaign viewed its flotilla of college interns as a key resource, and made efforts to make sure they were valued and felt like a part of something big, including setting up speakers for them, like Michael Dukakis. They put the students to work on visibility, at intersections, on bridges, in centers of towns. “We were a year and a half away from an election, and still they were out there,” says Doug. “Nancy and John wanted to build name recognition, and they were right. Deval has always been great at getting skilled people around him.”

People were energized; still, the summer of 2005, particularly September, was difficult: Spending threatened to outpace fund- raising. Money eventually began to come in and the campaign was able to open satellite offices in Dorchester and in Springfield, which has a large community of color. “That made it easier for me to bring in volunteers of color,” Doug says. “Although some came, going to the main headquarters in Charlestown was a challenge for many.”

After the convention, Doug added two other constituencies to his list: union activists (not the elected leaders) and the faith community (clerics). “I don’t agree with Deval on this or on that,” Doug says they responded, “but overall I like what he says.” He continued with the Latino communities, especially in Worcester, Lawrence and Fall River, and worked with the African-American community, too.

“Many white progressive liberals, and even some white conservatives, were onboard right away,” Doug remembers. “It took the African-Americans and Latinos longer. African-Americans didn’t know him and asked, like others, what Deval had done for them. They were skeptical that the white community would elect a black governor. My answer to them was ‘we need your help. Get involved.’”

“‘Go to the Web site,’ I said, ‘go to an event; meet the man; give him a chance.’” Deval, John Walsh and strategist Doug Rubin were responsible for the campaign tone; race wasn’t going to be the central issue. “Deval was glad when someone in the audience brought the race question up,” Doug recalls. “‘I am a black man,’ he would say. ‘If people have a problem with that, it’s their problem, not my problem.’”

Between the primary and the general election, Doug focused on the Spanish-speaking media, newspapers and radio stations, going on for interviews after an initial interview with Deval. “Almost all endorsed Deval—Siglo 21, El Planeta, El Vocero,” says Doug. El Mundo, a traditionally conservative paper, did not officially endorse him, but clearly stated that the Republican candidate did not deserve the Latino community’s vote.

“Besides getting good, smart people around him, Deval is a great listener,” according to Doug. “Being a great listener is the key to being a great leader. He listens to everyone. Usually I like to talk—at a meeting, or any kind of gathering—but now I find myself listening a lot more, and I learn so much. I was humbled by the whole experience.”

Janet Lin ’97

“Well, I’m excited about this job and terrified, but the two people I work for are extraordinary leaders and mentors, Dan O’Connell and Deval Patrick,” says Janet Lin. She’s in her second day as chief of staff for Mr. O’Connell, the newly appointed secretary of housing and economic development.

“The governor has elevated the status of affordable housing and economic development by combining them both in this new secretariat. Labor and workforce issues, typically folded in to housing and economic development, are another secretariat. This is revolutionary thinking and structure, to define economic development in terms of the quality of life that skilled workers in Massachusetts should expect, including being able to afford housing,” Janet explains.

“I staffed fund-raisers along with Steven Clarke, and people would ask, ‘What are you going to do about population loss in Massachusetts?’ This secretariat is a direct response to that concern.

“Going to fund-raisers, I used to think that the purpose of the question-and-answer session was that people who came deserved to have their questions answered. Then I realized that this exchange was much more about an approach to governance.”

Janet was more than an observer of political activism when she was asked to join the Patrick campaign. At Brown she majored both in history and computer science, and began her work life first at Raytheon and then on an emerging technology at a start-up hatched in an MIT lab.

The daughter of two immigrants, Janet had always been serious about her grades—both at Milton and Brown—but she says “your outside-of-class life is almost more important; that’s where you find out who you are, where you define yourself as distinct from your peers.” She knew that her life would always involve activism, and while working she always volunteered. She was a community organizer working on affordable housing, tenants’ organizations, and youth activities. Over time she began to feel like that work should be her full-time work.

When Sam Yoon, an affordable housing advocate and developer in Chinatown, decided to run for the Boston City Council—the first Asian-American to run for office in Boston—Janet volunteered for his campaign. After a month, Councilor Yoon asked Janet to be his campaign manager. “Thrilled and honored,” Janet agreed to be his interim until he found an experienced campaign manager.

She learned the Boston political landscape quickly and realized that the black hole in Councilor Yoon’s campaign organization was fund raising. “There’s a direct correlation between dollars and success; you can’t avoid it,” Janet says. “Well, that’s how I learned to be a grass-roots fund-raiser. The donation cap was $500, so you had to have a broad reach to achieve volume. I realized that I had to set up and work with multiple, and often disparate, constituencies if we were going to raise the funds we needed.

“Sam Yoon had popped up on Deval’s radar scan, apparently, because he contributed to the campaign. Later, when I was about to go to the issues convention in June 2005, as a delegate, Deval made a call to introduce himself to me as a candidate.”

Not surprisingly, Janet’s résumé attracted the attention of Liz Morningstar, the Patrick campaign’s finance director, who asked Janet to join the staff as deputy finance director in the fall of 2005. “At the time, I thought I had sacrificed a year of career building to work for Sam Yoon, and now I needed to think about sacrificing again. On the other hand, [Deval] is the same guy that had so excited and inspired me at Milton, when I was a freshman and he was appointed assistant attorney general.

“When I began, Steven Clarke and Liz Morningstar were my mentors; they taught me so much. The campaign really thought, without any polls or research, that Deval would do well with female voters. We all had portfolios beyond fund raising, and I was asked to build the ‘women for Deval’ constituency. I worked closely with Diane Patrick to do that, and she was remarkable. I am so taken with Diane. Building this group was new terrain for both of us, and I really enjoyed that work with her. She and Deval have a model partnership.

“During the campaign, the governor always wanted to know, from people, ‘What is on your mind?’ He led us by example. His staff understood that they were extensions of him, of his approach. We had to be excellent listeners. The way we interacted with people had to meet his own high standards.”


Cathleen Everett

 

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