Part of me wishes I could be as easily impressed as all those in the media chorus who jumped last week to salute the governor’s choice for gaming commissioner.
Here, for example, was the effusive praise the Springfield Republican showered on Stephen Crosby, dean of the McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies at UMass-Boston:
“Crosby, who was named on Tuesday [Dec. 13] to the $150,000-a-year post by Gov. Deval L. Patrick, appears to have the right stuff to take on the challenge of choosing sites for three resort-style casinos—and for keeping them honest once they’re up and running.
“The new commissioner has an undergraduate degree from Harvard and a law degree from Boston University. And, although most of his experience in politics has been on the Republican side of the aisle, he has the trust and confidence of the Democratic governor.”
Indeed, as most newspaper reports noted last week, Patrick has tapped Crosby’s expertise—whatever that is, exactly—before. Crosby, now 66, served as co-chair of Patrick’s transition team after the governor won election in 2006—a transition marked by his scandalous expenditures on a Cadillac and fancy office drapery. In 2009, when Patrick found himself entangled in an ugly patronage scandal involving former state senator Marian Walsh—Patrick attempted to install Walsh in a $175,000 job that had been vacant for 12 years—he asked Crosby, his Mr. Clean, to review executive salaries and benefits at the state’s quasi-public agencies.
Had Patrick not initially dismissed as “trivial” the Walsh issue, which drew heated public criticism at a time when the state was laying people off and cutting aid to cities and towns, he might not have had to call on Crosby, who issued a report to little fanfare and without much consequence well after the governor’s public relations problem had receded.
While a bit more sober than the Republican’s editorial, most of the Crosby coverage last week gave Patrick particular credit for being bipartisan, noting that Crosby worked in the Cellucci and Swift administrations. Crosby, in fact, has been in politics since the 1970s, working for Republican governor Frank Sargent and a fair number of high-profile Democrats, including former Boston mayor Kevin White and former Gov. Michael Dukakis. From such a resume and because Crosby has, for the most part, avoided becoming the subject of controversy, the Boston Globe, among others, gave the new gaming commissioner credit for having earned a reputation for honesty.
Many editorial pages also quoted former state attorney general L. Scott Harshbarger, a staunch opponent of expanded gambling in Massachusetts, who called Patrick’s selection of Crosby “an inspired choice.”
While I lack the unrestrained enthusiasm for Crosby that other media wags have expressed, it isn’t due to any particular concern about the man’s past. Crosby has spoken out against gambling, calling it bad public policy, and appears to come to his new post without the conflicts of interest we saw from the governor and leaders in the Legislature—politicians who’ve been taking cash from casino lobbyists for years.
Still, in accepting the job, Crosby seems willing to assume his role in the governor’s passion play, joining a long list of former casino opponents who, in the spirit of “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em,” ultimately see their continued opposition as impractical and politically inexpedient. Like the flipflop of state Sen. Stan Rosenberg, who was against gambling before he was for it, Crosby’s move to what sounds like middle ground is really a move to legitimize and facilitate gambling.
“Some people abhor [gambling], some people love it,” Crosby told reporters last week. “It has public good and public bad, like the liquor industry, the gun industry, coal-fired power plants and banks, to name just a few.”
Crosby clearly knows what’s at stake, though his reasons for wanting to be at the center of it all sound more like the confessions of an action junkie than the commitment of a reluctant steward. When asked in a radio interview last week why he would give up his $195,000 sinecure at UMass-Boston, Crosby said, “It’s a huge challenge. I love this stuff. Next to something like the Big Dig or the Quabbin Reservoir back many, many years ago, a hundred years ago, what else is the public sector going to do in a single action that’s going to have a bigger impact than making these decisions for good or ill? So if somebody has to do it, quite honestly, I’d just as soon it be I.”
