Just like rappers diss other rappers to get publicity, Tom Reilly took the most shots by far at tonight’s debate to revive his stalled campaign. He did not bother even answering some question at the beginning; instead randomly went on the attack against Chris Gabrieli  over allegations his campaign unethically leaked information about Marie St. Lafleur. His constant babbling about that issue ( an issue the public does not give a damn about) at the start of the debate led to the first laugh line for Deval Patrick; after Reilly ignored a question about Taxes to attack Gabrieli, Patrick asked “ are we still talking about taxes?”. Reilly also attacked Patrick regarding a past tax lien against his house and working for Ameriquest. At one point Reilly even seemed to pound his chest ( I was wondering if he was going to scream out G-Unit as he did that) while taking credit for writing a whistle-blower law that Gabrieli had mentioned earlier.

            While Reilly was the attack dog of the night, Patrick constantly hit on his optimistic message of what he believes can be accomplished via public and private partnership. Patrick repeatedly used the tag line o getting people “checked back in” and pointed out that his campaign has the most grass roots organization and support; differentiating himself from Gabrieli who only has around 1500 total donors compared to Patrick’s 20,000.

            Gabrieli went with the pragmatic policy wonk approach to the debate. A big distinction between his and Patrick approach on governing and campaigning was seen on the debate on health care. Gabrieli seemed to say that the bill to insure the uninsured that passed last year may not be feasible for the state. On the other hand, Patrick kept saying that they need to implement the bill and deal with issues of the health care bill as they crop up. All three candidates talked about being more active then Romney has been in promoting businesses to create jobs in Massachusetts. Gabrieli again took a more measured approach on that issue saying that the idea of convincing businesses to relocate to Massachusetts was a “pipedream.” Patrick talked about doing a Bond Bill in order to finance stem cell research similar to the one that California just passed.

            Overall, I don’t see this debate swaying many people in any direction. Reilly does not have a chance in hell to win and his attacks did nothing to bolster his standing. The race is a toss up between Patrick and Gabrieli whose experience and many policy initiatives are pretty similar. In the end the vote will come down a lot to personally style and likeability.

For the record, I am a Patrick supporter.