Patrick says he erred in call to firm. Effort to aid lender shakes supporters.

By Frank Phillips, Globe Staff | March 7, 2007

Facing an uproar that is shaking even his own supporters, Governor Deval Patrick said yesterday that he made a mistake when he called a top executive at Citigroup, which has operations that are regulated by the state, to vouch for a controversial lending firm.

"I regret the mistake," Patrick said in a statement issued late yesterday, his second public mea culpa in two weeks over politically sensitive errors in judgment.

Two weeks ago, Patrick placed a call to former US Treasury secretary Robert E. Rubin, now a top executive at Citigroup, interceding on behalf of owners of Ameriquest Mortgage, which was seeking urgent financial assistance from the giant firm. When questioned by the Globe late Friday, Patrick defended the call, saying that he was not acting in his role as governor and that he simply offered a reference at the request of a top official at ACC Capital Holdings, which owns Ameriquest and other financial firms.

In yesterday's statement, Patrick backed down from his adamant stance that the call was appropriate, but reiterated that he was not compensated by the owners of Ameriquest Mortgage and does not have a financial interest in the company.

More:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2007/03/07/patrick_says_he_erred_in_call_to_firm/?rss_id=Boston+Globe+--+City%2FRegion+News

How unfortunate that we Democrats can't be more like the Republickers, who would just blindly support their candidate no matter what they did. If Deval Patrick were a Republicker, they would support him even if he invaded Rhode Island based upon cherry-picked intelligence claiming they had souped-up Cameros of Mass Disruption.

Corporate favoritism.

Patrick, however, is more of an enigma. On the one hand he provides a reference -- from his office -- for a corp on whose board he sat, on the other he moves to close corporate tax loopholes.

Considering that any republic governor would do the former but not the latter, I'm still prepared to give Patrick the benefit of the doubt until I start seeing policies (not personal behavior, but bona-fide policies) that run counter to the populist message he ran on.