Patrick Strategist Tries To Spin Supporters

Politics often seems like the Theatre of the Absurd, but with a bigger audience.

And politics is particularly absurd when campaign operatives try to spin their own supporters into believing that up is down when they get bad poll numbers.

If you want a textbook example of absurd spin, consider an e-blast yesterday from Gov. Deval Patrick’s senior strategist, Doug Rubin, to campaign supporters. Here’s Rubin (emphasis his):

Today’s poll in the Boston Globe, showing Governor Patrick with a 1 point lead over Charlie Baker, is exactly what our campaign needs to win on November 2nd. Here’s why. Many of us who care about creating good jobs, investing in public education, providing affordable health care, and supporting clean energy say we learned our lesson from the Scott Brown race. We say we will never take the threat to these issues, and the values we share, for granted again. Yet there are some out there who still need a wake up call, a reminder, about what’s at stake in this election. Today’s Boston Globe poll provides that for us.

That is absurd spin. Does Rubin really think supporters will believe it’s good for Baker to gain momentum in the final weeks, as Brown achieved? Does he think supporters will believe that a poll proving that the Patrick ad campaign is unpersuasive is a good thing because “there are some out there who still need a wake up call, a reminder, about what’s at stake in this election”?

A former Democratic activist e-mailed this sarcastic reaction to me:

It’s VERY good news because people will finally take this seriously and see how important Deval and Doug are. Aside from that, they’re telling us — the base — that the only way to win this is to ring door bells and get 2.2% more people who think exactly like us to drag ourselves to the polls. The other 56-58% of the people are just misguided. What a mandate!

The notion that Rubin has shepherded Patrick right where he wants him might be more credible if Rubin had not guided Steve Pagliuca into fourth place in the Democratic Senate primary to oppose Brown. Pags spent $6 million to wind up in fourth place — which was particularly bad because there were only four candidates.

Patrick seems to have more common sense than his spinning strategist. Maybe he’ll be e-mailing something more believable to his supporters today.