Miller thinks that’s bullshit. “Oh, come on, Christy,” he retorts. “In my little town of Needham, they don’t just decide to build a school. What they do is they say, ‘All right, let’s look at it. Let’s investigate it, let’s get the cost, let’s find out what the legal ramifications are.’ They don’t just decide one night at a school-board meeting to build a new high school. . . . They have to take time to look at how much it’s gonna cost and what the ramifications are.” (Note the similarity to Patrick’s actual comments.)
Then Miller moves in for the kill: “It’d be reckless otherwise to govern that way,” he scolds Mihos. “And if I may say it, it sounds like you’re advocating that sort of impulsive form of government. And I don’t think that’s necessarily very good for the state.” Mihos pauses, then tries again, apparently unaware that the game is rigged.
John DePetro, 9 am–noon
Pro-Healey talking point: the great new Healey TV ad
DePetro seems poised to follow Miller’s lead, since he gets Mihos on the air just after nine. But DePetro — a/k/a “The Independent Man” — is notably less combative with Mihos than Miller was, maybe because he’s hot for Mihos’s 25-year-old daughter, Ashley. “Hey, uh, Christy, I certainly look forward to seeing Ashley Mihos,” DePetro says as the interview wraps up. When Mihos conveys Ashley’s greetings, DePetro shouts to his producer, “You hear that! Ashley says hello!” (DePetro’s Web site features several photos of Ashley.)
Instead, DePetro focuses on a new Healey ad that features a rapist stalking a woman through an empty parking garage, and quotes Patrick calling convicted rapist Ben LaGuer “eloquent” and “thoughtful.” Sex and violence have been good for DePetro’s career: when he argued that Imette St. Guillen paved the way for her own rape and murder last February by staying out late, alone and drunk, in New York City, DePetro’s national profile rose for a week or two. Now, DePetro can’t heap enough praise on Healey’s new spot, calling it “absolutely awesome,” “so powerful,” “maybe the most powerful commercial I’ve seen,” “very dramatic,” “a brilliant political ad,” a “very powerful commercial,” “very gripping,” “very dramatic,” “a woman’s worst nightmare,” and “very effective.”
That said, he also wants to know what the ladies think. The first female caller, Linda from Weymouth, sounds like she’ll bolster DePetro’s case; when she watched the ad at home yesterday, Linda says, her heart beat faster and she “just felt really vulnerable.” But then there’s a twist: “I think honestly that [Healey] is exploiting the vulnerability of women in a way men can’t understand,” she continues. “And you almost resent her more for doing this. I think the subliminal message of the ad is, you vote for Deval Patrick and you’re going to be raped.”
This isn’t what DePetro wants to hear. “What is your reaction to Deval’s describing a convicted rapist as someone who’s thoughtful and eloquent?” he demands. “This is my reaction,” she begins. “I took it in its full context —” “So that doesn’t bother you?!?” DePetro talks over Linda, and then cuts her off altogether so he can dismiss her points without disagreement.
