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	Related links Deval Patrick, Democrat for Governor The official campaign Web site, which exhorts voters to "Believe again!" and has a substantial multimedia component (video of Patrick discussing education and health care, photos of Patrick with Bill Clinton and Muhammad Ali). Massachusetts attorney general Tom Reilly The official state home page of Tom Reilly, attorney general and Democratic candidate for governor. Announcement of Governor Mitt Romney’s new death-penalty legislation Official gubernatorial press release touting Romney’s bill, which has already split the two Democratic gubernatorial contenders and which Romney calls the "gold standard for the death penalty in the modern scientific age." 2005 Massachusetts Democratic Party Platform Convention Highlights of next week’s Democratic shindig in Lowell, where the nascent split in the party could be smoothed over or exacerbated.

Even so, the notion that Reilly constitutes a grave threat to Republican control of the governor’s office — and that Patrick is a harmless decoy Romney can blithely manipulate — seems a bit far-fetched. Reilly backers routinely note that he’s been elected statewide two times; in other words, unlike Patrick, the attorney general is supposedly battle-ready. But Reilly’s muddled response to the death-penalty bill shows that he still has plenty to learn when it comes to running a race of this magnitude. Furthermore, just as Republican strategists painted 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry as a flip-flopper (with plenty of help from the candidate himself, of course), Romney and his advisers have a head start on casting Reilly as a politician who draws excessively fine distinctions and can’t make up his mind. The recent confusion about whether Reilly’s position on gay marriage had evolved or not was bad enough (see "Social Distortion," News and Features, February 18). But Reilly’s new take on the death penalty — he’s for it, except when the governor has new legislation on the table — might well become the equivalent of John Kerry’s voting for Congress’s $87 billion military appropriation before voting against it.

Given Reilly’s continued struggles, some Democrats have already concluded that Patrick, not Reilly, could be the biggest obstacle between Romney and re-election next year. "Romney would rather take the race against Reilly," says Lou DiNatale, a former Democratic analyst who is now executive director of public affairs at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. "If he’s facing Patrick, Patrick’s scored an upset victory in a Democratic primary, which will propel him to a double-digit lead.... Patrick would be the first African-American in history to have a chance to win the Massachusetts governor’s race, so Romney would be facing history. And he’d be facing the potential that, if Patrick’s the nominee, his national cachet will get the Clintons and the national Democratic Party to show up with some money, [hoping to] embarrass Romney. All of a sudden, Romney doesn’t have a three-to-one or four-to-one or five-to-one fundraising advantage — maybe it’s two-to-one or less, and Patrick’s the surprise winner."

THE CAVEAT, as always, is that Romney’s future plans remain unclear. Several weeks ago, as Romney was working the red-state circuit and poking fun at Massachusetts, many Democrats were insisting that the governor would struggle to get re-elected in Massachusetts and would probably skip the 2006 race to gird for a 2008 presidential campaign. But now some Romney watchers claim his fascination with the Democratic field — combined with his recent ad campaign urging bipartisan cooperation on Beacon Hill — indicates he’ll be the GOP’s gubernatorial candidate next year. Still others speculate that even Romney doesn’t yet know his plans. "I still believe he lies in bed wondering what to do," says the source close to Reilly. (Julie Teer, Romney’s press secretary, declined comment for this article.)

Whether or not Romney runs again — and if he does, whichever Democrat he’d prefer to face — the challenge facing Reilly and Patrick in the coming months is clear: they can’t allow Romney to continue dictating the terms of the Democratic gubernatorial campaign. With his death-penalty initiative and renewed push for a tax cut (which was bolstered by the state’s unexpectedly strong revenues in April), Romney is guiding the political conversation and keeping his would-be challengers on their heels. And by doing so, the governor — whose ability to accomplish anything substantive will always be limited by the Democrats’ overwhelming state legislative majority — is again demonstrating his tactical acumen.

Right now, this is something Reilly and Patrick seem to lack. "I assume that the strategy is to divide and conquer," says Massachusetts Democratic Party chair Phil Johnston. "To the extent that they can foment problems or divisiveness within the Democratic Party, so much the better for them. Taxes and capital punishment are hot-button issues which generally favor the Republicans, and I think it’s in our best interest to ignore Romney’s attempts to pursue these issues." (Thus far, Johnston adds, Reilly and Patrick have failed to do this.)

Steve Grossman, a Reilly backer and former chair of the state and national Democratic parties, makes a similar point. "The Massachusetts Republicans are intent upon creating a highly competitive battle which will divide Democrats and cause every candidate to spend most if not all of their resources on a highly competitive primary — which, because it’s only seven weeks before the general election, will virtually ensure that the Democratic nominee will be at a severe financial disadvantage to any Republican running," he says. "Romney has made it clear he’ll exploit the differences between Deval Patrick and Tom Reilly on tax policy. He will undoubtedly continue to exploit differences on the death penalty. And he will undoubtedly do the same on equal marriage.

"That’s enough," Grossman concludes. "[Romney’s communications director] Eric Fehrnstrom would probably tell you, ‘We don’t need six issues; we need two or three issues that are going to cause activists to pick sides and start hurling stones and spears at one another.’ Fehrnstrom’s stock in trade is trying to sow the seeds of dissent in the Democratic Party, and you know what? He happens to be very good at it."

If Johnston and Grossman are correct, the danger for the Democrats is clear. But will Patrick and Reilly recognize it before it’s too late?

Adam Reilly can be reached at areilly[a]phx.com