There is one positive thing, besides the jokes, about Deval Patrick jumping into bed with various plutocratic monsters and demonstrably evil Massachusetts entities: Now that he’s accepted a position as the head of so-called “social impact” investing at Bain Capital, even people who are too stubborn to admit he was a failure in office have to concede that the former governor is less picky about where his money comes from than a junkie hooker working the bus depot.
Of course we already knew this about Patrick, who somehow skated into elected office on wafts of leftist rhetoric despite having worked for companies like Coca-Cola. As some have pointed out this week, he lamely refused to criticize Bain for its deplorable practices when his predecessor (and the private equity firm’s founder) Mitt Romney was running for president, and it’s no surprise why. We’ll never know what kind of offers Patrick had on the table for his current position, but as governor he took in excess of $11,000 in campaign donations from Bain employees (plus more if you also count their spouses, which would require an entire afternoon of research just to further prove what everyone already knows).
Not everybody in the Boston media is totally delusional. WBZ commentator and journalist Jon Keller, for one, eviscerated Patrick last week, writing, “I could drag you through the litany of failures that especially plagued his last couple of years in office: the demolition of our functioning health-care website for purely partisan political reasons; the horrible oversight of the Department for Children and Families, the Department of Health, and numerous other failed boards and commissions; the scattershot economic development schemes that didn’t pay off, and so on.”
Otherwise, most reporters have been as kind to Patrick since he left office as they were during his tenure, and all have seemingly failed to point out that “social impact” investing at Bain Capital sounds more ridiculous than the militant wing of the Salvation Army. Sure, Patrick got a couple of slaps on the wrist for his hideous decision to flank the Boston 2024 Olympics for $7,500 a day, but otherwise it seems his free pass hasn’t expired. Warning: The Globe excerpt you are about to read may have the ring of a Scientology pamphlet, but it was actually published in a newspaper …
There are two chestnuts that drive Bain Capital partners crazy: First, the notion that they are ruthless capitalists who enjoy firing people. Second, that they are all card-carrying Republicans.
We feel awful for having stereotyped them. Please, go on …
The newest Bain employee — and the public spirit implied by his new job — would seem to contradict the firm’s old image. But current and former partners, and close observers of the firm say Bain Capital is more of a big tent than many might think.
Wowsers. What are you going to tell us now? That there are a bunch of Democrats working there too!?!
Today’s Bain Capital, with 950 employees and more than $75 billion under management, is hardly a GOP enclave. Its top ranks include at least as many high-profile Democratic donors and voters as Republicans, a review of campaign contributions shows. Among 10 top executives at the firm in the last election cycle, six supported Romney and four backed Barack Obama.
Looks like we had those guys all wrong. Oh, but there is just one little thing … While we would never suggest that Globe editors twist stories due to advertiser influence, for kicks we Googled “Bain Capital” and “Hewlett Packard,” the latter of which has a prominent advertisement next to the Patrick and Bain puff piece. How funny, we thought, would it be if those two companies happened to do business with each other? So you can imagine how loudly we howled upon stumbling onto a 2012 New York Times article subtitled “Bain Capital Tied to Surveillance Push in China” …
BEIJING – As the Chinese government forges ahead on a multibillion-dollar effort to blanket the country with surveillance cameras, one American company stands to profit: Bain Capital, the private equity firm founded by Mitt Romney.
In December, a Bain-run find in which a Romney family blind trust has holdings purchased the video surveillance division of a Chinese company that claims to be the largest supplier to the government’s Safe Cities program, a highly advanced monitoring system …
The Bain-owned company, Uniview Technologies, produces what it calls “infrared antiriot” cameras and software that enable police officials in different jurisdictions to share images in real time through the Internet …
Until now, Bain’s takeover of Uniview has drawn little attention outside China. The company was formerly the surveillance division of H3C, a joint venture between 3Com and Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications giant whose expansion plans in the United States have faced resistance from Congress over questions about its ties to the Chinese military …
In 2010, 3Com, along with H3C, became a subsidiary of Hewlett-Packard in a $2.7 billion buyout deal.
Talk about a social impact.
Dig Staff means this article was a collaborative effort. Teamwork, as we like to call it.
