Malone On Perry, Perry On Malone

By: Michael C. Bailey
Published: 08/20/10

In the world of politics, the Republican Party has a credo: “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.”

That motto, popularized by Ronald W. Reagan during his 1966 gubernatorial run, is not in full effect in the race for US Representative of the 10th Congressional District.

Over the past several weeks Joseph D. Malone has come out swinging against State Representative Jeffrey D. Perry (R – Sandwich) over the latter’s connections to a disgraced Wareham police officer, while Rep. Perry has thus far refrained from answering in kind over a scandal that followed Mr. Malone’s departure from the state treasury.

“Did I want to get into all this when I first got into the race? I didn’t even know these stories existed,” Mr. Malone said, “but when they came up and he was giving the impression that he was the victim – frankly it was very offensive.”

“It’s disappointing that some candidates decide to make their campaign about attacking me or another candidate,” Rep. Perry said, “and I will not go into the gutter with folks or throw mud at them because it may be a politically opportune time to do so.”

The controversies shadowing the two men are very different in the details, but similar in that they both tie the men to wrongdoing by people under their authority.

In 1991 and 1992 Scott Flanagan, a Wareham police officer, conducted illegal strip-searches on two teenage girls. Rep. Perry, at the time a sergeant on the Wareham Police Department, was at the scene of the first incident but maintains he did not witness anything, and followed up on the second incident with a visit to the victim’s parents (Mr. Flanagan lied to then-Sgt. Perry about the circumstances of that incident, telling him that the girl exposed herself voluntarily).

Mr. Flanagan was fired from his job and did jail time for the offenses, and one family received a settlement from the town of Wareham, but Rep. Perry was never charged with any offenses, held liable in an civil action (he was dropped from the civil case), or disciplined by the Wareham PD.

In 1999, weeks after Mr. Malone left his post as state treasurer, seven men, including his head campaign fundraiser and a deputy treasurer he appointed, stole $9.4 million from the treasury – the largest theft of state funds in Massachusetts history. The subsequent investigation led to several convictions. Mr. Malone himself was never implicated in the crimes.

Mr. Malone has been more aggressive than his rival in revisiting the past. Mr. Malone first voiced his opinion on Rep. Perry’s past during a July radio interview with Howie Carr, challenging his rival to come clean on the matter.

He reiterated that challenge during an interview with the Enterprise, in which Mr. Malone said the media has just cause to re-examine the case “because [Rep. Perry] hasn’t been forthright. He hasn’t answered the questions in an honest manner.”

In a press release issued Monday, Mr. Malone’s campaign manager Ted Langill blasted Rep. Perry for remarks he made during a recent interview with Janet Wu on WCVB-TV that apparently contradict standing information, and for taking the issue and spinning it into “an attack on Joe Malone.”

“We are not going to let this stand,” Mr. Langill said. “Mr. Perry’s track record is one of shifting blame to innocent people to protect himself, his friends, and now his campaign.”

“One of my primary opponents is trying to make this an issue. He’s running kind of a negative campaign, doing some of the mudslinging,” Rep. Perry said in that interview – the extent of his criticism against Mr. Malone, who he did not mention by name in that segment.

He also did not refer to Mr. Malone specifically when speaking to the Enterprise about the public’s distaste for the tactic of running negative. “I don’t think people like, I don’t think it works,” Rep. Perry said, “and I think it reflects more on the person who is throwing the mud than the person who is getting hit by the mud.”

He added, “In politics, you don’t attack when you’re winning.”

Mr. Malone called Rep. Perry’s lament of negative politicking “nonsense.”

Past Is Fair Game

Mr. Malone said both Rep. Perry’s past, as well as his own, are “absolutely” fair game for the media and the campaign. “I’ve answered the issue of the treasury embezzlement on many occasions, and I recognize that I’ll be answering them in the future, and that’s fair game,” he said.

“If you make a mistake, you take responsibility for it,” Mr. Malone said, reiterating that he accepts “full responsibility” for the treasury embezzlement scandal because it happened on his watch.

Rep. Perry agreed that a person’s life is “an open book” when they run for office, and issues “of personal character are relevant to why a voter may choose to cast their ballot for any given candidate…people have a right to know what they want to know,” politically or personally.

However, Rep. Perry said there is a point at which the media and voters must move on and start focusing on the issues and the candidates’ qualifications. “The media drives a lot of what people are talking about,” he said, “and so there’s a responsible line there that the media has, I think, to balance what is really relevant to a given election.”

Traditionally, when a primary race comes to a close the runners-up will rally around the winner in the name of party unity. Mr. Malone said if Rep. Perry prevails, he would only consider offering a formal endorsement “if he apologized to the young women who were victimized” and their families. “But the fact that he hasn’t apologized leaves me, really, in a situation where I couldn’t support him.”

Rep. Perry was less committal one way or the other. “I’ll reserve my final judgment until we see who the victor is,” he said, “but I want a Republican in this seat…I believe that for the best interests of Massachusetts and the best interests of the United States, that Congress would be better served having a Republican representing the 10th district.”

If the candidates are to make peace, they may have to do so on their own; Tarah Breed, spokesman for the Massachusetts Republican Party, said that it is not party policy to get involved with races during the primary stage.