Healey: Patrick Should Demand Johnston To Resign

It’s sweet justice when a Democrat finally gets called to task when playing the race card, as in the case with Massachusetts Democratic Party Chairman Phil Johnston, the Boston Herald reports.

Bringing the brief, postprimary lull in partisan rancor to an abrupt end, yesterday Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey’s campaign called on rival Deval Patrick to demand Democratic Party Chairman Phil Johnston’s ouster after Johnston accused Healey of “race-baiting.”

Speaking to WCVB-TV’s Janet Wu in an interview yesterday, Johnston accused Healey of using immigration and crime as racially infused wedge issues.

“I think the language that she’s using is – borders on race-baiting and I think that it’s fear-mongering of the worst sort and I think she ought to stop it,” Johnston said. “She should not run a campaign that plays to the worst instincts in people.”

Healey’s campaign manager Tim O’Brien said, “It’s disgraceful that Phil Johnston is injecting race into this campaign, we call on Deval Patrick to immediately demand chairman Johnston’s resignation.”

Because the party is now partially funding Patrick’s campaign, not calling for his ouster would be the equivalent of cosigning his sentiments, O’Brien said. “We don’t believe this is the type of campaign Deval Patrick intends to run, but failure to demand this resignation will demonstrate otherwise and indicate he’ll do or say anything to get elected.”

We definately shouldn’t hold any expectation that Johnston would actually resign, nor should we expect Patrick to ask for the resignation.

Johnston’s statement was less than apologetic.

“My comments today in no way reflect the position of the Deval Patrick campaign,” the statement read. “In reviewing my comments I now realize I may have gone too far. I have been concerned about how certain issues will be used by the Republican Party, and I let that influence my word choice.”

Aaron Margolis is a life long resident of the Bay State, and works at an architectural firm north of Boston. Aaron has a Master of Architecture Degree from Boston Architectural College and is currently in the process of becoming of a Registered Architect.

One Response to “Healey: Patrick Should Demand Johnston To Resign”

1. Knightbrigade says:

   September 22, 2006 at 1:44 pm

   This is the perfect example of what I mentioned in a previous post. Deval will not have to go negative, he have enough asshats in this state to jump at the chance to do it for him. And he gets to distance himself and look squeaky clean. It’s going to a be tough…race