Coakley campaign revving up get-out-the-vote effort

Attorney General Martha Coakley rallies Democratic Party activists during a campaign stop in Brockton. Looking on are Democratic City Committee co-Chairman Ossie Jordan (far left), at-large Brockton City Councilor Moises Rodrigues and Gov. Deval Patrick. (Banner photo)

Attorney General Martha Coakley spent much of the last few weeks rallying troops in the traditional Democratic strongholds: at Dorchester’s Strand Theatre with Michelle Obama, in Worcester with former President Bill Clinton and, last Friday, in Brockton with Gov. Deval Patrick and a host of Metro South and South Coast elected officials.

With just two weeks until the Nov. 4 election, Coakley and Democratic Party activists are pulling out the stops in a race where the Democratic and Republican candidates for governor have been locked in a dead heat.

Crowded into a Brockton strip mall storefront packed with black, white, Cape Verdean and Haitian activists and elected officials, Coakley spoke with a sense of urgency.

“If you have my back for the next two-and-a-half weeks, I will have your back for the next four years,” she said.

Like many of Coakley’s events in communities of color, the Brockton appearance was part rally, part volunteer recruitment event. Attendees signed up for canvassing and phone banking as part of the campaign’s effort to mobilize tens of thousands of voters across the state, particularly in the cities.

Republican Charlie Baker can expect to draw votes from the conservative-leaning towns in the South Shore and South Coast, from the North Shore and Worcester County — the traditional base of Republican votes in the state’s hinterlands. Coakley, on the other hand, will likely win in the state’s cities, the Metro Boston suburbs and in the Berkshires.

Both campaigns are channeling considerable resources into get-out-the-vote efforts. For Coakley, the cities are a key battleground and black elected officials are a key component of that battle. While Coakley has a lock on black and Latino elected officials in Massachusetts, Baker’s campaign has been making a play for voters in black and Latino communities, seeking to expand the 3-5 percent of the vote GOP candidates traditionally garner from those communities.

Baker opened an office on Blue Hill Ave. in Dorchester and held an endorsement event last week, drawing a crowd of about 50 black, Latino and Asian supporters. Coakley has made high-profile appearances in the cities, where the state’s communities of color are concentrated, but she has had to work harder for votes in the hinterlands, notes 1st Suffolk District Sen. Linda Dorcena Forry.

“She’s been in our communities,” Dorcena Forry said of Coakley. “But there are 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts, and she has to be in those cities as well. That’s why a lot of the elected officials are behind Martha and are speaking on her behalf. The other candidate, he may already have part of the state locked, so now he can focus on our urban communities.”

New Bedford City Councilor Dana Ribeiro, Communities of Color Director for the Massachusetts Democratic Party, said Coakley has a more low-key approach to campaigning than Baker.

“She’s not going to go to a block party and dance like Baker,” Ribeiro said. “But she’s done a lot of good in the community. Baker will do more harm than good.”

The issues

Coakley and her supporters in communities of color stress the importance of her campaign’s emphasis on families and children.

“We’re still working to make sure we have kids who get early education,” she said. “We have 17,000 kids in Massachusetts who are waiting for a chance for early education. We still have people in Massachusetts who have no earned sick time. We still have kids in Massachusetts who can’t afford to go to college and get the education that would allow them to get a good job. So, that’s work we can continue to do. I know how to do it. I’m excited to get started. That’s why I’m asking for everybody’s vote on Nov. 4.”

Gov. Deval Patrick says black voters should examine the issues both candidates are pushing in their campaigns before making a decision.

“I don’t accept that the black community anywhere is monolithic,” he told the Banner. “There’s a range of views in the black community as is the case anywhere else. But I think what should be clear is that the issues in this community — issues around affordable housing, transportation, community investment — the Democrats are overwhelmingly on the right side of that, historically and today. We have a candidate who is talking about investing in universal early education, not tax cuts for businesses that don’t need them.”

Baker, who has made welfare reform a cornerstone of his campaigning in white communities, released an urban agenda at last week’s office opening in Dorchester. While that agenda made no mention of welfare reform, Baker said his administration would focus on initiatives to build more affordable housing, to lift the cap on charter schools, and provide alternatives to prison sentences for drug offenders.

Also last week, the Baker campaign blasted Coakley for a lawsuit her office filed against Fannie Mae for the mortgage giant’s refusal to comply with a state law barring discrimination against former owners seeking to buy back homes lost to foreclosure. While Fannie Mae refuses to sell foreclosed homes back to former owners, a Roxbury-based nonprofit headed by a Coakley campaign donor helps homeowners buy their homes back after foreclosures, which Baker campaign officials said raised questions of a conflict of interest.

In Brockton, Democratic activists spoke in support of Coakley’s lawsuit.

“When the banks got bailed out, they told us to get out, but Martha Coakley changed the dynamic,” said Bishop Henry W. Seemore, pastor of the House of Prayer #5 in Brockton.

In the end, Coakley supporters said, the outcome of the race hinges largely on the Democratic Party’s ability to turn out its base, including communities of color. Brockton at-large City Councilor Moises Rodrigues says the party is ready to turn out Coakley supporters.

“It’s going to be door-to-door, one call after another,” he said. “We’re working for the future of our state. We don’t want all the progress of the Patrick administration to be tossed aside.”