Obama Pushes Voters To Head to the Polls

Speaking to a crowd of more than 15,000 people at the “Moving Massachusetts Forward” rally last Saturday, President Barack Obama urged voters to flock to the polls to reelect Governor Deval L. Patrick ’78 and Lieutenant Governor Tim P. Murray on November 2.

The rally, which was held at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston, was sponsored by the Massachusetts Democratic Party and the Patrick-Murray campaign and featured a lineup of Democrats speaking in support of the incumbents.

With a little more than two weeks before the election, the rally sought to close the gap in enthusiasm between Democratic and Republican voters.

“This will be the largest get-out-the-vote operation in the history of this state, but only if you do your part,” Obama said.

According to Obama, Republicans have exploited the electorate’s frustration.

Republicans thought that if they “said no to policies that they have historically said yes to, they could ride peoples’ frustration and anger to the ballots,” Obama said.

The president added that “Deval Patrick chose to lead in the toughest of times.”

The rally reeled in 7,500 new volunteers who will “ensure that voters get out and vote for Deval Patrick and Tim Murray on election day,” according to a press release.

Obama said that a Democratic win would prevent the country from reverting to “backward” Republican ideas on jobs, education, and health care—areas where the Patrick-Murray administration has made significant strides, the president added.

“The biggest mistake we can make right now is, out of hurt and confusion, to go back to the past,” Obama said.

According to 10th-district congressional candidate James Kennedy—who also spoke at the rally—although Massachusetts ranked 48th nationally in manufacturing jobs four years ago, “[Patrick] led the state to the number-one recovering economy in the U.S.”

Steve Grossman, the Democratic candidate for state treasurer, said at the rally that the Patrick-Murray administration has been able to add 65,000 more jobs in the past seven months and that the state is now ranked as the fifth-best for business.

“We’re the ones who have the best ideas to create jobs. We stand for jobs. We stand for small businesses,” Grossman said.

According to Patrick, his state’s economy has been growing at twice the rate as the rest of the country since the recession.

“For the first time in 20 years, families are moving in the Commonwealth faster than they are moving out,” the governor said.

Applauding the Patrick-Murray administration for creating more jobs, Obama said that if Patrick’s Republican opponent Charlie Baker is elected, he will implement Republican ideas that are “not just a threat to our Democrats,” but “a threat to our democracy,” including tax schemes that favor the wealthiest of Americans.

According to a Suffolk University/7 News survey released last week, 46 percent of likely voters in Massachusetts back Patrick, and 39 percent support Baker in the traditionally Democratic state.

Noting that Republican candidates were planning to cut education funding by 20 percent, Obama also lauded the Patrick-Murray administration for leading Massachusetts to rank first nationally in education achievement and health care.

In the state, 97.5 percent of citizens have health insurance.

“We believe the government should do for the people what they cannot do better for themselves,” Obama said.

For Patrick, it was important that he and Murray “finish the job that [they] started,” since there is work to be done in education, job creation, and health care—particularly for senior citizens and veterans.

Looking back to the 16 years that Republicans occupied the governorship, Patrick added that “four years ago, we worked hard to change the guard.”

“Now we need to work hard to guard the change,” he continued.

Although not all Democrats have agreed with Patrick’s policy changes over the past four years, the governor defended his record, saying that these “times demand more than making each other comfortable.”

Echoing this sentiment, Murray said “we’ve made tough choices, and we’ve made the right choices,” adding that Massachusetts is the only state in the country to have added jobs since the recession.

“I don’t want to re-litigate the past; I don’t want to relive it,” Obama said, adding that “all of us together will rebuild the middle class and restore the American dream.”

—Staff writer Rediet T. Abebe can be reached at rtesfaye@college.harvard.edu.