Hmmm: Reilly Taps Dorchester Rep. for Lieutenant Gov.

Oh, Tom Reilly, what sense can we make of you? First, word trickles down that you want go-to rich Democrat Chris Gabrieli as your running mate. That makes Bostonist think, "Huh. That seems alright, in a picking-running-mates-
who-are-just-like-you-and-have-already-been-
on-a-losing-ticket sort of way." Then someone in the hardworking Reilly campaign juggernaut must have said, "Hey, what if Boston voters and minority voters really do turn out in droves for the primary? Maybe people who are already fed up with having a conservative, out-of-town, rich white guy as their governor won't cotton to an all-white, moderate ticket with a rich guy and a guy from Springfield." So Gabrieli is out and Dorchester State Rep. (and former A.D.A. and Assistant Attorney General) Marie St. Fleur gets the nod.

So we have Reilly, who is generally moderate and has been lukewarm, at best, to liberal causes like gay marriage, tapping the oh-so-liberal and, it should be noted, black and foreign-born, St. Fleur, clearly hoping to gain an advantage in the primary against Milton's Deval Patrick, who is liberal, black, and about a million times more charismatic than Reilly. All of which is not to say that St. Fleur is not a competent candidate - from what Bostonist can tell, she is eminently qualified and we like her politics a lot (in fact, in our dream Commonwealth, she would be Lieutenant Governor under Patrick). But the about-face from Gabrieli to St. Fleur is striking.

Presumably, Reilly wants to get through the primary by offering core Democratic voters a ticket that, while not ideal, is at least palatable and may seem more likely to win in the general election. It's not a crazy strategy, to be sure (after all, pro-choice Kerry Healey's presence on the Republican ticket the last time around was surely meant to soften Mitt Romney's edges), but it could backfire.

Photo: Rep. St. Fleur