Like fellow Bay Stater Senator Warren, our most recent ex-Governor has decided his talents can be put to better use than the current primary race. From his hometown paper, the Boston Globe:
Deval Patrick is joining the Boston investment giant Bain Capital, where the former governor will start a new line of business, directing investments in companies that produce profits but also have a positive impact on social problems.
Patrick, a Democrat who led the state of Massachusetts for eight years, joins a firm founded by his Republican predecessor in the State House, Mitt Romney.
It marks a return to business pursuits for a high-profile former governor whose plans for the future were fodder for intense speculation in political circles…
Patrick has long said that he wanted to return to the private sector after his second term as governor, even as observers wondered if he had designs on Washington. He has considered academia, running a corporation, and starting his own venture capital firm…
The new fund is not philanthropy, Bain executives said. There will be significant pressure on Patrick to find strong investments, companies that can both address major social needs and produce profits, though not necessarily on the scale Bain typically expects of its multibillion-dollar private equity deals.
Investment funds at Bain typically run into the hundreds of millions of dollars, but raising that kind of money should not be hard. Bain Capital executives will invest some of their personal money in it, as they do with all their funds. And there is a growing appetite for so-called impact investing, from pension funds, endowments, and nonprofits such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation…
For Bain Capital, the Patrick hiring goes beyond the common practice of giving a politician a desk and a rainmaker’s role between elections. It is a way for a firm known for hard-core business deals to provide clients such as pension funds and wealthy individuals with a social outlet for their money…
[Patrick] would not say whether he had signed a contract to stay at Bain for a certain period of time. Bain executives indicated they would not have entered into this arrangement for only a brief stint…Boger suggested it is probably at least a three- to five-year investment: “This is not the kind of thing where you make three phone calls, get two people together, and get a reward for it.’’
Patrick’s been saying for months that he intended to stick to his promise to his wife to get out of politics once he left the governor’s office — which hasn’t stopped people from believing that he might yet be persuaded to run, if there was an opening. He’s still a young man in political terms, but we might as well cross him off the list for 2016.
Steeplejack (tablet)
Okay, there’s “return[ing] to the private sector,” and then there’s signing up at Mordor Inc. Bain Capital? Srsly?
mikefromArlington
Vulture Capitalist was the best thing Gov. Goodhair ever said
BillinGlendaleCA
@Steeplejack (tablet): Maybe they’re better since the “Binders full of Women” dude left.
SectionH
The best lack all conviction, while the worst are filled with passionate intensity…
/Best I could do from memory, I’m sure something’s wrong. Also too in the paraphrase.
ETA
Sounds good, but sadly the niggly details don’t fit.
OzarkHillbilly
@SectionH: It’s right.
Socially responsible investing is not what Bain does. They are far more into rape, pillage, and burning.
raven
Man there are some hysterical fucking people at Rubio’s event! WOOOOOOOO!
Baud
@raven:
Like Rubio?
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: What are they doing?
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: Just the way there was screaming when he’d spout some of his dumb shit.
Baud
@raven:
Like “I’m running for president”?
raven
The Pony Express Google Doodle is great!
https://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en
raven
@Baud: And “Hillary is an old bag”!
OzarkHillbilly
@raven:It’s the Elvis effect.
Mustang Bobby
Rubio’s slogan is “The New American Century,” so he tells NPR he wants to break off diplomatic relations with Cuba and Iran again. So which century is he talking about, ’cause that’s what we did in the old one.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mustang Bobby: Sounds way to much like these folk: Project for the New American Century.
Baud
@Mustang Bobby:
The century that was initiated by Bush before the usurper ran us off the tracks.
Calouste
@Mustang Bobby: Rubio is a GOPer, so the new century to them is the 18th. Although for some elements, like Michele Bachmann, it’s the 14th.
raven
The working class guys on Joe think it was the greatest speech EVAH!!!!!!!
Baud
@raven:
How many Reagans did they give it?
raven
Where do these people get the idea that Rubio is a good speaker?
Valdivia
I just cannot with the slobbering of the Village over Rubio. Pure Cold War thinking packaged in a young seemingly 21st century bow, but it will still be old school Republican hawkism no matter the packaging.
Don’t these people get that what makes a candidate ‘fresh’ is not the optics, but the content of their policies?
Valdivia
@raven:
apparently, from yesterday. The adjectives they were giving him were right over the moon. As Booman said: does anyone even remember what he said at the 2012 convention?
ETA: too many typos, not enough coffee
Baud
@raven:
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Baud
@Valdivia:
But his tax cut proposal is apparently the biggest. So, leader.
Mustang Bobby
@Valdivia: He is about as fresh as a dish of yogurt left out in the sun for a couple of hours. Already the Teabaggers are ganging up on him for writing the immigration bill, and there’s a burgeoning birther contingent because although he was born in Miami, his parents weren’t citizens when he was downloaded in 1971.
Valdivia
@Baud:
head.desk.
@Mustang Bobby:
it baffles me how the Village all parrot these words as if they were true. Glad to hear he’s getting grief from the crazies.
Lol about the download :)
raven
@Valdivia: He stumbled on words, took more drinks and looks dopey.
Baud
@raven:
Really? You would think that would be the first thing they worked on.
raven
@Baud: I was stunned.
Calouste
@Valdivia: Since when does the Village care about, much less understand policies?
On one hand I like that both Cruz and Rubio are in the race. The GOP must have high that McCain droning on about 1969 was such a winner in 2008, that we’ll now have two candidates droning on about 1959.
Mustang Bobby
@raven: It gets hot here in Miami this time of year. It’s the humidity that affects him; certainly not the humility. And they say Obama has an ego problem.
raven
@Mustang Bobby: I wonder if my buddy that teaches at FIU runs into him on campus? His area of expertise is water!
Baud
@Valdivia:
Via Vox
The sop to regular folks is a $2500 nonrefundable child tax credit.
Mustang Bobby
@raven: I suspect that’s where Mr. Rubio will end up once this charlie-foxtrot is over. They can have lunch together over at the Chinese buffet across SW 107th Ave.
raven
@Mustang Bobby: Doesn’t he teach a class there now?
Valdivia
@raven: since not many people saw it (I didn’t) the assessment that gets play is the one of the journalists who kept saying ‘he’s a natural’ ‘he’s so good at this!’ etc. Glad you saw it and can give us a true account.
@Calouste: yeah, a girl can dream that someday policies will actually matter.
Mustang Bobby
@raven: I don’t know. If he does, it’s probably one of those classes with his name on it but taught largely by T.A.’s, like when I was in grad school and we had a famous playwright in residence. We all signed up for the class hoping to learn at the feet of the master, but after the first class where he regaled us with Broadway gossip, we were all handed assignment sheets and a syllabus and didn’t see him again until the end of the semester; the bored T.A. took attendance and reviewed our work. We all knew he was banging every hot guy he could get his hands on and getting paid for it. Nice work if you can get it.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Do they want to eliminate the standard deduction?
Valdivia
@Baud:
I saw this piece at the new TNR which is a good summary of all the lies contained in his tax plan. Worth the read as a compliment to the Vox piece.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
I don’t know those details.
Raven
@Mustang Bobby: Sounds like Hugh Durham’s basketball camp . He came the first day, said no grabass in the shower and was never see again’
Baud
@Valdivia:
Thanks.
OzarkHillbilly
@Valdivia: Lies, damn lies, and Republican tax proposals.
brantl
If he did this with any scruples left, who found a dose of Kool-Aid that would make him buy that those assholes ever did anything good?
JMG
Patrick repeatedly said as he left office he would seek to make a bunch of money in the private sector. The guy was general counsel for Coca-Cola, only in our stilted politics would he be considered a lefty. I know people who worked for him, and have been informed the only government job that would really appeal to him is Supreme Court justice.
Cervantes
@JMG:
He left Coca-Cola because the board refused to allow an independent investigation of human-rights and labor abuses at the company’s plants in Latin America (Colombia, primarily).
He was also general counsel at Texaco — which needed his cover desperately at the time, as you may recall.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Jesus, have we really, finally, swung that far to the right, where a guy like this is considered a liberal?
Mino
Let him please do the work in American neighborhoods. The Gate’s initiative has done quite enough damage to the fisheries of Africa with their mosquito nets.
Irony Abounds
Political office is simply an internship before the big money job selling influence starts up. Eff them all.
Carol Ryan
My most fervent wish is that he NEVER runs for president.
Elie
The Republicans are indeed on the wrong page and if their policies are followed, we will be devastated. It is hard to figure how these people persist in the level of shear stupidity and ignorance. They are unable to actually think and follow logic based on facts not ideology or fairytales. In, for example, undermining the administration on getting a deal with Iran, its as though they do not recognize that another ME war is not only not in our economic or security interests, but will actually cost us power, prestige and standing in the world. It is not in our strategic interest to maintain a significant presence with boots on the ground in the ME. This reality follows years of accumulated knowledge and experience synthesized from our foreign policy under both Republican and Democratic administrations.