THE CANDIDATES have a point. Many of their alleged similarities have about as much weight as the similarities between a personal ad and the actual blind date. Indeed, upon closer examination, their likenesses begin to fade away. Grossman was born in Newton to a wealthy political family (see "Is Grossman Our Next Governor?" News and Features, March 17, 2000). In contrast, Reich was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and raised in South Salem, New York. His middle-class parents owned a small dress store and were too busy for politics. After attending Princeton, Grossman gravitated to a network of activities in Boston’s Jewish and philanthropic communities, eventually becoming the head of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a major pro-Israel lobbying group. Reich, whose family was "not religious," attended Dartmouth, Oxford (as a Rhodes scholar), and Yale Law School. He met Bill Clinton on board ship, as the Rhodes scholars made their way to England, when Reich needed something: chicken soup for seasickness, which the future president delivered to him. Grossman, who first met Clinton prior to an AIPAC speech in 1989, grew close to the president when Clinton needed something: Grossman’s fundraising skills.

Both men’s dealings with Clinton reflect their politics and position in the Democratic Party. And here, their differences really count. Clinton called on Reich in 1992 to help draft the then–Arkansas governor’s campaign agenda, "Putting People First." The president relied on his secretary of labor to sell the North American Free Trade Agreement to the American public — over Reich’s reservations. In 1996, Reich strongly opposed Clinton’s decision to sign the welfare-reform law that, among other things, banned immigrants from receiving federal aid. (For a detailed interview with Reich on his role during the Clinton administration see http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/clinton/interviews/reich3.html.)

After Congressman Newt Gingrich became House Speaker, Clinton — inspired by pollster Dick Morris — began his tactic of "triangulation" that moved his agenda closer to the Republicans’ and away from the sort of liberalism advocated by Reich. In his 1997 memoir Locked in the Cabinet (Alfred A. Knopf), Reich wrote that Morris "shaped the [1996] presidential campaign around a mythical suburban swing concerned about crime, drugs, school uniforms and V-chips rather than the economic trends pulling the nation apart." (Reich’s memoir was the subject of controversy when it emerged that several accounts included in it — none related to his feelings about the oleaginous Morris — deviated from the public record. Reich corrected the disputed passages, most of which dealt with his interactions with labor leaders and other Washington insiders, for the paperback edition. Today, when asked about the fracas, he says, "Memory is fallible.")

Reich resigned as secretary of labor in 1996 after the election and subsequently publicly criticized Clinton on numerous issues, including the president’s relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky. "I do think that, as historians look back on this administration, one of the first things they will say is ‘Monica Lewinsky,’" he told Bill O’Reilly of Fox News in January 1999. Later, Reich enraged his former White House allies even more by campaigning for former New Jersey senator Bill Bradley against Vice-President Al Gore in the Democratic primary fight. He even expects Bradley to campaign for him in Massachusetts.

While Reich was falling out with Clinton, Grossman was growing closer to the Arkansan; in 2000, he strongly backed Gore. Grossman became chair of the DNC following the 1996 fundraising scandals and helped clean up the party. He then set to work raising party money. Grossman caused a stir in September 1998, when in a speech to Democratic donors he praised Clinton for having "a higher commitment to the kind of moral leadership that I value in public service and public policy than any person that I have ever met." During that speech Grossman made a distinction between personal morals and public morals. But it was a distinction lost on critics such as conservative columnist Robert Novak, who excoriated the party chair. Grossman subsequently blamed the episode on "irrational exuberance" — meaning that the heat of the impeachment struggle influenced the way he phrased his statement.

Reich and Grossman’s differences over Clinton reflect deep tensions within the national Democratic Party. Depending on where you stand, Clinton is either to be praised or damned for moving the Democratic Party to the center. In the 1998 midterm election (the first following the 1996 presidential election that made Reich so angry), the Democratic Party actually picked up seats, something a president’s party had not accomplished since 1822. Grossman had provided the financial ammunition that enabled Clinton to hold off the Gingrich-inspired Republican onslaught. While far to the left of Southern conservative Democrats, such as Senator John Breaux of Louisiana and Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, Grossman does represent the fundraising apparatus of the Democratic Party, which has drawn the ire of the party’s Green/left elements. Still, Grossman’s pragmatism should not overshadow his social liberalism. Since 1999, Grossman, who likes to call himself a "genetic Democrat," has been reaching out to Latinos and gays for support. (He helped establish domestic-partnership benefits at the DNC, and many of the city’s gay and lesbian movers and shakers attended an October Club Café fundraiser that featured Vermont governor Howard Dean.)

But while both men can be fairly characterized as social liberals, Reich, who launched his campaign effort in the Boston Globe by speaking out in favor of a new capital-gains tax in Massachusetts, readily admits that he is "to the left of the party."

Indeed, it’s on issues like the capital-gains tax that Reich and Grossman really show their differences. "Does this make me a liberal or a paleoliberal or a neoliberal?" asks Reich, noting that Massachusetts had a capital-gains tax until 1994 (assets held for more than six years are no longer subject to a capital-gains tax in Massachusetts). "If the state is absolutely up against the wall and the choice is between cutting education or asking the rich to bear a little bit more of the burden, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to want to at least examine it."

Grossman spokeswoman Zaroulis is quick to pounce on Reich’s position. Zaroulis, noting the difficult battle Democrats face in statewide general elections, where 51 percent of voters are not Democrats, says Grossman’s business expertise and his opposition to the capital-gains tax make him the superior candidate. "Steve is the one candidate who pairs up very nicely the fiscally disciplined approach with the values that voters in this state want," says Zaroulis. "Democrats do not want to elect a tax-and-spend, old-fashioned, old way of doing things. They want a sensible but progressive candidate."