Keller @ Large: Hard Work Ahead For Smart Voters In Governor's Race
BOSTON (CBS) - Republican gubernatorial candidate Charlie Baker has a new video on his website in which he and his brother talk about how supportive Baker was when the brother came out as gay 30 years ago.
It's a nice glimpse of the real person behind Baker's sometimes off-putting public persona, and I suspect the vast majority of voters who see it will appreciate the tolerance and unconditional brotherly support he demonstrates.
The Baker campaign says they have no plans to convert the video into a TV ad that far more people might see, and that seems like a lost opportunity.
But the truth is, no voter should make up their mind who the governor should be based on some vague sense of how nice they are.
I have personally met all the candidates for governor, including the two independents, and I get no whiff of major character flaws from any of them.
That's the opposite of what you hear from the hyper-partisans and garbage-peddlers of the left and right.
Perhaps you've seen the amateurish TV attack ad on Baker from a local public-worker union that portrays him as a money-grubbing jerk.
Just as bad is the notion advanced by the always-perceptive Frank Phillips of the Globe that the video of Baker and his brother is "likely to stir some controversy among the social conservatives within the state Republican Party who have strongly resisted the state's first-in-nation move to allow same-sex marriages."
Really?
They'd have a man turn his back on his own brother over his sexual preference?
Disgraceful, if true, as is the fact that smart voters of all types are going to have to work hard to screen out the campaign character assassination that's already well underway.
Listen to Jon's commentary:
Keller at Large May 16 2014
You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.
MORE LOCAL NEWS FROM CBS BOSTON
