John Deaton Sits Down With Mike Kennealy About Running For Governor

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Don't even think of touching that dial or changing the
channel because it's Sunday at seven pm on IHEARTWRKOAM six
't eighty and you're locked into the Hard Truth with
John Daton. You can email the show at John at
Haardtruthshow dot com. That's John at Hardtruthshow dot com. You
can also follow me on x at John E. Daton One.

(00:24):
Good evening, everyone, I'm John Deaton and welcome to tonight's
show on WRKO. Last week's show was an introduction of
who I am and Why I'm on the radio. Look,
we have big fricking problems in this country, and Massachusetts
is right at the tip of the spear. It's ground
zero when it comes to issues facing America. For example,

(00:48):
how about illegal immigration. We're definitely ground zero regarding that.
In fact, Massachusetts has been hit harder than other states
because we're the only state in the country that has
a to shelter law that doesn't require residency in any
form to qualify for that right to shelter law. Now

(01:08):
New York could say they've been hit hard, but we
learned recently through Dozea's efforts, that New York received fifty
nine million dollars just in FEMA money to pay for
hotels and for illegal migrants. Massachusetts hasn't seen any federal
dollars to my knowledge. Nope, you and I have been
the ones flipping the bill. Now, what's insane is that

(01:31):
we have a governor that won't be transparent about how
much money has been spent in a state legislature that
refuses to honor the law passed by seventy two percent
of voters who demanded that the state auditor audit the legislature.
I can tell you this, in the last four years,

(01:51):
Governor Morra Healy has spent somewhere between one billion and
three billion hard dollars. That's for hotel rooms, catered mills,
and taxi and uber rides for these illegal migrants. When
you add up the cost those costs to our infrastructure
costs including impact on schools, police departments, and first responders,

(02:15):
emergency rooms, healthcare costs, it's likely between three and five
billion dollars of taxpayer money in the last four years. Now,
that's illegal immigration. What butut inflation. We're ground zero there too.
Massachusetts is officially the second most expensive state to live

(02:35):
in America. We're only behind Hawaii. We have a serious
affordability crisis here. The average home in Massachusetts costs about
six hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and if you're in
the Greater Boston area, it's over a million dollars. The
average home in Massachusetts is two hundred and fifty grand

(02:57):
more than the national average. Working families can't afford homes here.
Young people can't move out, Retirees are being forced to leave,
people are leaving the Commonwealth and droves. And one reason
is now officially Massachusetts is the fiftieth It ranks fiftieth
out of fifty states in new job creation. But the

(03:21):
greatest crisis we face in Massachusetts is a crisis of leadership.
And that crisis can be summed up by one phrase,
one party rule, because eighty eight percent of the entire
legislature is made up of Democrats. On top of that,
every statewide office in Massachusetts is occupied not just by Democrats,

(03:45):
but by far left radicals. The governor, Lieutenant governor, Attorney General,
Secretary of state, treasurer, auditor. There are Democrats every single
congressional representative in Massachusetts. There's nine of them. Richard Neil,
Jim McGovern Lorie Trehan, Jake Auchinclaus Kathline Clark, Seth Molten,

(04:05):
Diana Presley, Stephen Lynch, and Bill Keating all nine Democrats,
and some of them radical, far left individuals. And that's
the House. Then we look over to the Senate, and
the two United States Senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren
are far left individuals. Hell Marky's even more left than Warren.

(04:27):
He pushes one hundred trillion dollar green New Deal and
supports these green energy mandates like solar and offshore winds
serve charges even though it has nothing to do with
individual homeowners that are causing everyone's electric bills to skyrocket.
And the problem here is that the Democrats have been

(04:48):
in charge so long that they think they can do
whatever they want and get away with it. Look how
they're fighting that audit that you and I voted for.
How arrogant and corrupt do you have to be to say,
I don't care what seventy two percent of the voters demanded,
We don't want to be audited. We're not going to

(05:10):
be audited. And look, if Republicans were in charge to
the extent that Democrats are here and they were acting
the same way. I'd be the first person to call
them out. Now, part of the reason for doing this
show is to try and inspire people to get involved,
to vote, to have their voices heard. Even if we disagree,

(05:31):
we have to start listening to each other or we
are doomed. Now, speaking of listening to each other, I
told you on last week's first show that I would
read your emails on the air, regardless of whether they're good,
they're bad, beautiful or even ugly. I said I'd read
them and I would respond. And so let's find out

(05:55):
what Jason from Swansea had to write me. Let me
make sure I read it correctly. For Jason from Swansea, John,
you weren't born here and you're not from here, and
the last thing that we need in Massachusetts is another
carpet bagger rhino, So please leave and go try and

(06:18):
save the crap hole. Except he didn't say it that way,
the crap hole you were born and raised in in Detroit. Sincerely,
Jason from Swansea. Well tell me how you really feel, Jason,
and I got to tell you that email. The part
I love the most about it is the please where
he says, please leave and go try and save the

(06:42):
crap hole that you were from. So I guess it
shows you a level of sincerity. Listen, there's two themes
in Jason's email, carpetbagger and rhino. We'll do it with the
rhino later because there's a couple other emails that say
the same thing. Let me address this car carpet bagger
nonsense first. Okay, Listen, I ran against Elizabeth Warren last year,

(07:06):
and people said he's a carpetbagger who moved to Massachusetts
just to run against Warren. What's crazy is if you
look up what carpetbagger really means, it's someone who moves
to a state to run for public office in a
race that's easily winnable for that person. Okay, so, for example,

(07:28):
Hillary Clinton moved to New York because it was going
to be easy for her to win the Senate seat
in New York. That's what a carpetbagger is. I doubt,
seriously if anyone thinks that I thought that trying to
beat Elizabeth Warren as a first time candidate with no
name recognition and limited resources was going to be an

(07:50):
easy win. But nevertheless, that's what a carpetbagger really means
now I'm more, definitely more connected to Massachusetts than Senator
Warren ever could be, although I must admit, for a
while there she was considered Harvard's first woman of color
at that school. And that's not a joke. I'm not

(08:12):
exaggerating it. That's exactly what was thought in the mid
and late nineteen nineties. Now I'm curious about how many
towns in cities Jason from Swansea has lived, because I've
lived in Roxbury, East, Boston, Mauden, Swansea just like him,

(08:34):
and now Bolton. Okay, So that's five towns or cities
in Massachusetts that I've resided. While I was in law
school at New England School of Law in Boston, i
worked at Legal Seafood at the Copley Mall. You don't
get any more Massachusetts than New England and New England

(08:55):
that's legal Seafood. Trust me. My daughter Jordan graduated at
U mass Amhurst and listen here, I literally bled for
Boston and Massachusetts even before I moved to Massachusetts and
became a lawyer here. Now, last week I told you
that my only connection to Massachusetts and why I came

(09:17):
to Boston was I was the biggest Larry Bird fan
that you had ever seen. Well, it comes back to
my childhood in the late seventies. I'm about ten years old,
and my favorite basketball player was Julius Irving, otherwise known
as Doctor J. And Doctor J had basketball moves, you know,

(09:39):
like Michael Jordan before Michael Jordan. And I'd be in
the alley and I was the only white kid in
the neighborhood, and I would shoot the rock, and as
I shot the rock and I left my hands, I
would say doctor J. M effort, Doctor J Homie, and
the kids bust out laughing. I mean they're on the
ground laughing. My friends in the alley. You can't be

(10:00):
Doctor Jay. You're white. You gotta be Rick Barry or
Rick Roby or Kelly Trepuk or some other lame white
basketball player. And so one day, after being laughed at
like that, I was with my mom and we're in
the supermarket and I see Sports Illustrated and it says
college Basketball's secret weapon, Larry Bird. And so the next

(10:24):
time I'm in the alley, right, I shoot the ball
and I go Larry Bird. No one knew who I
was talking about, and just so happened that, you know,
Magic Johnson was a hero in Michigan because he was
at Michigan State. And that year Larry Bird an Indiana State,
met Irvin Magic Johnson and Michigan State for the National championship,

(10:47):
and so Bird then became well known. And then I
was living in Detroit and the Pistons were trying to
beat the Celtics, and so I literally got beat up
because I was such a bird. I got multiple fights
because I would wear Boston Celtics jersey of Bird jersey,
and that era when the Pistons and the Celtics were

(11:08):
at war with each other, I literally would fight people.
Sometimes I won, sometimes I lost, And so I bled
for Boston before I even got here. Now, as I
told you last week on the first show, that one
of the biggest honors of my life was serving the

(11:29):
Marine Corps. And after the break, I'm going to show
you just how connected and how faithful I am to
the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. But before then, just remember you
can contact the show and email me at John at
Hardtruthshow dot com. That's John at Hard Truthshow dot com.

(11:50):
You can follow me on x at Johnny Daton Come
back after the Welcome back to the show. I'm John
Daton and you are listening to the Hard Truth. Remember
you can email me me at the show at John
at Hard Truthshow dot com. That's John at Hardtruthshow dot com.
Now let's get to another email that was sent after

(12:12):
the first show. Now let me read it. Let me
get my glasses on so I don't miss quote. Eddie.
This is Eddie from New Bedford. Looks like I got
people listening on the South coast there, all right, Eddie,
writes John Deaton. I read your book and I respect

(12:33):
all that you've overcome in your life, and I'm disappointed
because after all the crap you've been through, except you
didn't write crap, I would expect you to be a
lot harder than you are. You're a rhino, John. I
saw your commercial on TV and you had a picture
of you and Charlie Baker together, and it pissed me off.

(12:56):
So I didn't vote for you. As far as I'm concerned,
I might as well vote for Marky or Pocahontas instead
of voting in another rhino. Okay, Now, this is something
that I really really want to address. It's this maga
versus rhino nonsense. And I call it nonsense because you know, Eddie,

(13:22):
I want to be respectful to you. But let me
tell you something, brother, something that other people might not
tell you. You might be a moron. And I mean
that sincerely, because if you're gonna take the position that
you might as well vote for Senator Warren or Senator

(13:43):
Ed Markey instead of me, because I'm a rhino and
to you, there's no difference. That, sir, is an idiotic
way to think, period. Okay, because if you even got
the slightest, slightest con conservative bone in your body, you
would prefer me over them. Listen, do I think that

(14:09):
I'm more conservative than former Governor Charlie Baker? Yes? If
I were the you know, president of the NC Douba,
would I have acted differently or decided things differently than
former Governor Baker? Yes? Okay, but you got to understand

(14:32):
where you live, man. Massachusetts has eight percent registered Republicans,
eight percent twenty seven percent are Democrats. That means sixty
four percent of the electorate in Massachusetts are registered independents.

(14:55):
And Charlie Baker, whether you like him or not, love
them hate him, think he's a ryano. Whatever your opinion is.
Seventy two percent of the voters in Massachusetts approved of
Charlie Baker. He had the number one approval rating in
the country for governors, despite what you folks, some of

(15:18):
you out there think, And so of course, I'm trying
to appeal to those sixty four percent of dependence and I'm saying, look,
you know this governor that you're so fond of. Look
he's taking a picture with me. He supports me over
Elizabeth Warren. Why witn't I do that? And it kills

(15:42):
me because you've got to get a seat at the table. People,
You've got to get a seat at the table in
order to effectuate change, because otherwise just go outside and
start screaming at the clouds, because you're going to have
the same impact that you have on pop You know,
here's a reality. In twenty twenty, President Trump lost Massachusetts.

(16:06):
It was tied for number one in the country. He
lost it by thirty three points. Okay, you may love
President Trump, and there are things that President Trump's doing
that are fantastic, and I'm going to highlight those things,
but he has an unfavorable rating here in Massachusetts. We
live in Massachusetts, we don't live in Alabama, we don't

(16:29):
live in Georgia. And if we don't get a seat
at the table, we're never going to be able to
change things here. I mean, you've got to realize, eighty
eight percent of the state legislature are Democrats. Every single
statewide office and federal office in Massachusetts are Democrats. Do

(16:51):
you know when you have a supermajority like that, there's
nothing you can do to change it. Here in Massachusetts,
the Democrats they get to wake up in the morning
one day and say, you know what we're going to
do today. We're going to take off mom and dad,
mother and father, We're going to take them off birth certificates.

(17:13):
And there's nothing we can do about it. They just
go ahead and do it. You know what they get
to do. They get to wake up the following day
and they get to say, you know what that pesky
thing called the Second Amendment, which is going to write
a bill that's so vague that you won't be able
to comply with it, and that we're talking about that

(17:34):
gun law that Governor Healy signed into law, you know,
and it's so vague that you can't comply with it.
And if you can't comply with it, or if the
state doesn't have the infrastructure set up to meet the compliance,
then it acts as a ban of guns. And there's

(17:54):
your Second Amendment, right, But guess what, you can't argue it,
you can't stall it, you can't do anything about it
because you don't have a seat at the table. So
you got to get a seat at the table to
effectuate change. It's crazy. And so the people out there
that like Eddie here from New Bedford that says, well,

(18:18):
I might as well vote for Ed Markey instead of
a John Deaton because John Deaton's a rhino. Okay, that's idiotic.
I'm sorry, because there's a huge difference between me and
someone like Senator Warren or Senator Markey. Okay, Ed Markey
votes against border security every time. It does not bother

(18:42):
him that thousands, tens of thousands of people come here
and we just put them up in hotels and we
bankrupt this state. Right. He voted against border security every
single time. He supported the open borders. I believe in
zero tolerance, zero illegal immigration. I believe that we need

(19:02):
to expand the legal immigration in this country, but have
a zero tolerance for illegal crossings. Period, huge difference. Senator
Markie co authored the Green New Deal, this one hundred
trillion dollar plan that is so unrealistic and unreasonable that

(19:26):
he supports those alternative energy surg charges that you're seeing
on your electric bills. That's crazy, right, You're being charged
solar surve charges and offshore wind surve charges even though
you've got nothing to do with it. He supports that

(19:47):
Ed Markey supports biological men competing against women in sports.
I have three daughters. I have a six year old daughter.
I don't support that nonsense. So to say that there's
no difference is insane to me. And what kills me

(20:07):
is that President Trump doesn't have that position. President Trump
would say, you know what, I don't care if the
guy supported me or didn't support me. We want a seat.
We want that seat because if you control the Senate
or you control the House, you get to dictate policy.
And if you don't. So right now, President Trump has

(20:29):
the presidency, the Senate, and the House, and after the
twenty twenty six mid terms, if the House flips and
there's only five seats separating Democrat control of Republican, then
the policies that you support will never get implemented because
it'll be back to gridlock. So Eddie, with all due respect, brother,

(20:51):
you know that position that you have that there is
no difference because you think I'm a rhino is insane.
You know, people can't afford homes here, as I said,
young people can't move out, Retirees are being forced to leave.
You know, there's a huge difference. We've got to come
together because listen, we agree on more than we disagree.

(21:16):
I'll give you an example. Someone came up to me
when I was running for office and said, John, you
know I'm hesitant to vote for you because you're pro choice.
And this was a pro life female voter, and I said,
I understand that I respect that you have a difference
of opinion with me, and she said, well, you know,

(21:38):
I just don't like it that you support a woman's
right to choose an abortion. And my response was, that
doesn't mean I support late term abortions, but I support,
up unto a certain point, a woman's right to choose.
And guess what, eighty two percent of Massachusetts voters agree

(21:59):
with me. We live in Massachusetts. If I had any
other approach, and I said to her, if I was
as pro life as you are, I wouldn't be electable.
I mean, here in Massachusetts, eighty percent of the people
believe in a woman's right to choose up into a
certain extent. So I looked at this voter and I said,

(22:20):
let me just ask you, other than the abortion question,
how much do you agree with me on all the
other policies that you've heard me talk about. And the
female voter said to me, she goes, oh, about eighty percent.
And I looked at her with all sincerity and I said, so,

(22:41):
are you really going to focus on the twenty percent
that I disappoint you than the eighty percent that you
agree with me? And that's what I think we have
to do. If we don't come together, we're going to
be stuck with more healing. If we don't come together,
we're going to be stuck with Ed Markey Senator Warren

(23:03):
eighty eight percent Democratic legislature, Every elected seat statewide and
federal in Massachusetts will remain in Democratic far left control.
And so stick with me. When we come back from
the break, we're gonna have Mike Kanneely, who's the first
to announce that he's running to unseat Moray Healy as

(23:27):
governor of Massachusetts. We're gonna have two sessions with him.
Stand by. Remember you can right to the show at
John at Hartruthshow dot com. John at Hartruthshow dot com.
Thank you. We'll be right back. Don't touch that dial
you listen to ihearts WRKO. You're locked into the hard
truth with John Deaton and I got a special guest tonight,

(23:50):
and it is the person who wants to be your
next governor of Massachusetts, Mike Conneely. Mike, thanks for being here,
brother Don, thanks for having me.

Speaker 2 (23:57):
Great to be here.

Speaker 1 (23:58):
Thanks so much. Well, I just said that you have
this specific intent to retire more Healy, correct, I do.

Speaker 2 (24:06):
I want to be the next governor of Massachusetts for sure.
That is our objective.

Speaker 1 (24:10):
Well, the first thing I'm gonna do. So why don't
you instead of me reading your accolades. Obviously I know
who you are, I know what your history is, but
the listeners need to find that for themselves. So sure,
so in a couple of minutes, tell us who Mike
Kennely is. Absolutely, we'll get into why vote for you?

Speaker 2 (24:24):
Let okay, fair enough, fair enough for me. I would
start with the fact that I'm a son of Massachusetts.
Raised in Medford and Reading. My mom took care of
four kids. My dad was a member of the local
steel workers union, put himself through nine years of nights
school at Bentley College, God has a county degree. I
became an accountant join one of his clients, Roach Brothers Supermarkets,
and then became their CEO years later. So for me,

(24:46):
a former part of my experience growing up was watching
my dad go from the factory floor to the CEO
suite and learned a lot about hard work and determination.
My parents definitely instilled faith in me as well. I've
been a lifelong Catholic. My faith is very important to me.
Those are kind of the values I grew up with,
the faith and family and hard work. I have my
own career in business. For a number of years in
the private equity business. I traveled to forty states. I

(25:08):
met with a thousand CEOs. Our firm, you know, invested
in one hundred companies. We've built businesses, created jobs, and
it was great work. But I decided what I really
wanted to do about a dozen years ago was working
public service full time in Massachusetts. So that's what I've
done the last twelve years, full time in public service.
I love to get into kind of what I've done
in the in that arena. But two years up in

(25:30):
Lawrence working on the turnaround of the public school district.

Speaker 1 (25:33):
All right, I want to talk about that. Let's first,
So obviously you saw your dad, Yeah, yeah, And what
was the main thing you learned from that?

Speaker 2 (25:42):
Work hard, apply yourself, have a goal, and work hard. Look,
I went to my dad's college graduation, So this is fantastic.
This was nine years That's one of my earliest memories
is watching him get his diploma. And so he had,
you know, at that time, two kids at home and
working full time during the day and getting his accounting
degree at night. And I just saw that all in fold.

(26:03):
I saw his career from the earliest stages, and it
just it was an incredibly and still is an inspiring example.
I've had, candidly a much easier path, thanks thanks to
the sacrifices my parents made and my dad's success. But
that's something I saw earlier on just just being able
to work really hard, focus on the task at hand,
have ambition, have focus, have goals, and work really hard

(26:25):
at them. Well at the same time, paying attention to
your family and that you've got to have that balance.
And I want at some point talking about my family
as well as we're.

Speaker 1 (26:33):
Going to get in background right now. So tell us,
tell us where you live and yeah, yeah, a little
bit about your family.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
So I live in Lexington. We've been there since. I'm
about almost twenty two years, married for twenty six years,
three kids, daughter who's a couple of years out of college,
two boys in college, and we've had this wonderful family life.
I talked about the importance of family growing up and
what I saw in that regard. I was so fortunate
to meet Trisha. We were classmates in business school and

(27:00):
married about twenty six years, as I said, and it's
been this, this wonderful family life. Our kids are all
very close to each other and very close to us.
I'm it's sad they all have moved on in different ways.
You know, one out of college too, in college.

Speaker 1 (27:12):
Don't get me crying my daughters. You know, I got
two college graduates and a six year old in kind Yeah,
there you go, I got a second, there you go.

Speaker 2 (27:23):
But it's just been wonderful.

Speaker 1 (27:24):
I you know, for us, you.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
Know, I I Meutritionia is an amazing person, my wife, and.

Speaker 1 (27:30):
What she'd have to be to put up with you
going public.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
Oh absolutely, yeah, for sure, and she knew, you know,
going back to our days in business school, I definitely
had the ambition of doing business and then public service.
So this was not a not a total surprise by
any means. But it's just been, you know, in an
addition to my working hard in my career for a
lot of years as my dad did, raising those three
amazing kids and being married Toatricia's been just the adventure

(27:54):
of a lifetime.

Speaker 1 (27:55):
So all right, well listen, I want to disabuse people.
You know, when I something, I was shocked, you know
a little bit about my story sure foodstamp warrior, foodstamps, welfare,
single mom, extreme poverty, and I was shocked at how
we sometimes punish success now, you know, like Elizabeth Warren

(28:15):
when I debated her, she you know, talked about how
rich I might be, you know what I mean, And
I'm like, wait, yeah, isn't that something? So uh, maybe
we disabuse You're not just another rich guy from Lexington.
I don't think so. No.

Speaker 2 (28:28):
I think for me, I look at you know, I've
been fortunate to have some success in my business, career.
But I will say a couple of in that regard.
I walked away from that at age forty five. So
I've been twelve years now full time in public service.
And why we're gonna tell about that, that's a great question.
I wanted to make a difference, and a lot of
that is motivated by faith. And I recognized I majored
in government in college, and I get really interested in

(28:50):
politics and policy, and I thought, Okay, that's an arena
I want to be in at some point. That's why
I think I can make my mark. But I first
wanted to get some experience and really learn about business
and financing economy. It was a bit of a bit
of a plan. I wanted to do business and then
have my impact in the public arena. But for me,
it comes back to faith. John just this idea that
we're really here to work hard and make a difference.

(29:13):
And people are inspired by different things, but for me,
it's always been my faith. It's the base of Christian faith.
Love God, love your neighbor, and try to have an impact.
And so when I walked away from business at age
forty five, I thought, Okay, a couple of things. I'm
never going to stop working. That's just kind of how
I'm wired. And given the age I walked away from business,
I now have decades to go out there and make
a difference. And so that's what I remember pursuing the.

Speaker 1 (29:35):
Last What made you now? You were talking about Lawrence, Yeah,
and it seemed like you wanted something to say about that.

Speaker 2 (29:40):
So it was a transformative experience for me. I went
from a private equity partnership in downtown Boston to Lawrence
Public schools in a matter of a week or so,
and as of just a very different environment to work in.

Speaker 1 (29:54):
What were you doing there?

Speaker 2 (29:55):
So I joined up with a guy named Jeff Riley,
who had been appointed the receiver of the Lawren in
school district. The schools were so bad the state took
them over and put them into state receivership. And what
that means is the receiver has a lot of authority.
So the receiver has the power of the superintendent plus
the school committee in one person, and he can bypass

(30:15):
the unions. So this was a construct made to drive
rapid change, and I thought that was kind of inspiring.
I spent a lot of time in twenty twelve meeting
people in and around the education space where I thought
that could be my first place to spend some time
and get introduced to Jeff actually through Charlie Baker and
went up and Jeff and I teamed up and I
was there for a couple of years. But for me,

(30:36):
I thought, this what an amazing opportunity to make a
difference in the lives of the kids and Lawrence. You know,
we got there, the high school graduation rate was fifty
two percent, and that is you know, that's that's not
where it needs to be, to say the least. And
we came in and made a lot of changes quickly.
We cut the size of the bureocracy by forty percent,
put the money in the classroom, introduced innovative new programs,

(30:59):
and really brought the community together parents, teachers, and community members.
And that fifty two percent high school graduation rate became
seventy two percent two years later. So for me, that
was just an amazing two year experience on the ground
in Lawrence with a team that had the authorities that
drive a lot of change, and we did all.

Speaker 1 (31:16):
Right. Now, I want to talk about something I saw
in your resume, Mike, that is dear to me was
boys and Girls Club that you you had something to
do with that, you know, as an underprivileged kid. Actually
what made me go to the border was when they
took that Roxbury rec Center from the kids and the Migraine.
That caused me to go to the border because they've

(31:36):
taken one of the few amenities that poor kids have.
And So what was your involvement in Boys and Girls
Club and why did you do it?

Speaker 2 (31:44):
Yeah, a great question, John. So, after after the Lawrence experience,
I was eight years in the Baker administration, I knew
that was going to come to an end at some point.
We knew our when our term was up in early January,
and I started talking in the middle of twenty twenty two,
middle late twenty twenty two this Robert Lewis Junior, who
had just been appointed CEO of Boys and Girls Clubs
of Boston, and I decided I wanted to keep doing

(32:06):
public service, keep doing high impact work. I liked Robert
a lot, and Robert had a vision for how the
clubs could do more for the kids. I mean, it's
an amazing institution, been really well run for a very
long period of time. And a couple of Robert's objectives
who are more academic support and more workforce readiness programs
for the kids, and I thought I can jump in

(32:26):
and do this. So we talked about a two year role,
which I did, and I was senior advisor and chief
strategy officer for Robert. I did it unpaid, but it
was a real job with a responsibility and we got
some good things done. And we looked at the academic
performance of kids in the Boston public schools and realized
we could play a role helping the kids do better
in school. And this idea of readiness, you know, we

(32:49):
wanted to have an objective where when our members are
done with their time at the club, they graduated high school,
their AGA team, we want them all to have a
plan for life, whether it's college, career, military, whatever it
may be, and that they're ready for that plan. And
so if the plan was college, how can we have reading, writing,
math and college prep instruction for those kids and get
them ready. If it's careers, what we have dedicated workforce

(33:12):
pathway programs and healthcare in the trades and other areas
to get them ready for that. So that that was
the work there, but again similar to the work in Lawrence,
you know, addressing communities where there's just there's a lot
of opportunity. There's challenges, but the huge opportunities you can
really commit to make a difference.

Speaker 1 (33:26):
All Right. You mentioned obviously that you're part of the
governor of the Governor Baker administration. What was your role there?
And I want to ask you before we take a break.
We'll get into policy issues when we come back after
the break, but what did you learn in that job
that you think is going to prepare you for governor?

Speaker 2 (33:45):
I learned what a governor has to do, which is
lead and set an agenda and bring people together and
get up every day and want to get stuff done.
I mean I came away from that job with that
my role in the minist with just a point of
view about what it means to be a governor. And
I think the governor has to make sure that the
government is being run well. That's the first priority. You're

(34:07):
running the executive branch of state government, that you're communicating
with people and being very transparent and communicative. People who
can see you out there in their communities, they know
what you're about, they know what you're doing. You have
to want to work with people, and we work with business, government,
community leaders all over the state to get things done,
and then finally you have to want to do a
couple big things. That's how I looked at the job.

(34:28):
Run the government, well, communicate, collaborate and have a couple
of big goals. And that was how I tried to
approach my role as the Cabinet secretary with then Housing
and Economic Development. And it is my point of view
and what the governor has to do and how the
governor has to approach the job.

Speaker 1 (34:42):
What would be the number one thing you would do?
We got about a minute before the break.

Speaker 2 (34:47):
Oh, we've got three things in a campaign, cost of living,
economic opportunity, and better government. And we will happy to
talk about any one of those. But I think those
three things Governor Heally is failing us, and those are
really important for the future of the state. People are
leaving the state every week as they simply can't afford
deliver you or housing, energy taxes, or too much. I
talk about opportunity, it's having a very high growth, robust

(35:09):
economy where it's a lot of good jobs and citizens
who are able to capitalize on that through education and
training and in better government. Our government today is not
fiscally responsible, it's not accountable, it's not transparent. They can't
manage your crisis. There is a lot of things there.
So those are our three themes about affordability, opportunity, and
better government.

Speaker 1 (35:27):
All right, so listen. You can reach the show at
John at Hard Truthshow dot com. John at Hardtruthshow dot com.
Share your comments thoughts on Mike Conneely and what we've
learned so far, and when we come back, we're going
to get into some real policy issues. I'm gonna ask
you some tough questions. Mike.

Speaker 2 (35:42):
I'm ready, John, I'm ready.

Speaker 1 (35:43):
Welcome back to the Hard Truth. You're listening to John
Deaton and I have Mike Kaneely who is intent on
retiring Mora Healy as governor and becoming the next governor
of this great Commonwealth. Now, Mike, I said before the
breakouys ask you some tough questions. Listen. As you know,
I ran for office against Senator Warrens last year.

Speaker 2 (36:02):
It's brought to support you.

Speaker 1 (36:03):
I appreciate that. And certainly it doesn't take anyone a
genius to find out if it's you versus Mora Heally
who I'm voting for. Okay, but you know being a
Republican in Massachusetts is challenging and there's division out there
and I try to address it when I can. And

(36:23):
you know, President Trump has some unfavorabilities. You know a
post recent post showed that he has a sixty percent
on favorability. At the same time, there's thirty percent of
the electorate that take a bullet for the man, And
there's reasons he's got great on policy on some certain issues.
And like me, you chose not to vote for President

(36:45):
Trump last time, and you know in a primary people
are going to challenge that, and what's your thoughts on it?

Speaker 2 (36:53):
My thought is anybody aspiring for public office should be
out there every day listening to people, listening to their issues,
their opportunities, their concerns, their ambitions, and coming up with
policies and strategies to address them. Period. And we said
from the start that's how we're going to run this campaign,
that this is not about labels, it's not about ideology,

(37:14):
it's not about comparing me to any other politician. Actually,
I will take the comparison with Governor Heally, That comparison
I will take, But no, it's about my agenda, my
vision informed by talking to the people of Massachusetts. So
that's why I view the race. Just be out there
and talk about the issues, and I think that's what's
most important. This is a really, really important election for
a lot of reasons. I think the state is really

(37:35):
not on a good path right now. So I'm going
to be out every day talking about the issues we
think are important, listening to people. I think that's how
you gain support for a campaign. It's also how you
gained support to govern too. People think you're out there
working hard on their behalf, serving the people. That gives
you a lot authority to get good things done.

Speaker 1 (37:51):
Okay, let me you know one thing that shocks me
and what proves itself that we need change, we have
to make progress in this one part rule. And the
perfect example of that is this failure to support the
audit that voters demanded demand. Yeah, they demanded an audit
in law of the state legislature. Yet yet our elected

(38:13):
leaders on Beacon Hill, and I include Mori Heely, I
include Andrew cam are not supporting the will of the
People's what's your take on that?

Speaker 2 (38:24):
You said it, Well, they're not supporting the will of
the people. That that was an upper down vote and
by the way, I voted for it. I'm part of
the seventy two percent. I was proud to donate to
the campaign to get the get that question done. But
seventy two percent of the people upper down votes of
the audit, the legislature like period and all of Beacon Deal,

(38:44):
I do include Governor Hilly and that and the Attorney
General are saying no that they're basically saying, in so
many words, we don't care what the people said. This
is not going to happen. And I hear you know,
people will ascribe, you know, different motives to the auditor,
and they get into the politics and the personsonalities of it.
It doesn't matter. The voters have spoken. Seventy two percent
voter for this, and it has to happen. And I've

(39:06):
talked about a number of things that that would happen
day one in my administration day one. If that thing
isn't done yet, I will do whatever I can through
my office as governor to make sure that gets done.
But the people have spoken. You always need to listen
to the people.

Speaker 1 (39:20):
Yeah, and let's point out that the state auditor is
a fellow Democrat. This is right, and the legislature is
somewhere between eighty five and eighty percent demotright, that's right,
and every state wide office in Massachusetts Democrat, and every
federal office in mass Rights Democrats. So that's why one
of my missions is for Republicans or independents who lean

(39:42):
you know, right, if they consider themselves center right, or
even if they consider themselves center left, that they should
look for candidates like you and others who like that's right.
For example, I think what I learned is that they
went so far left, Mike, that they have offended center
left folks. You know what I mean. I'm someone I'm
center right, but I have friends who are lifelong Democrats

(40:06):
who are upset. An example of that is how much
time is spent on the trans issue and the fact
that biological men can compete against women. So where do
you stand on.

Speaker 2 (40:18):
That girls teams are for girls only? In my view,
that just shouldn't happen, and it is part of a
larger pattern of just common sense. Common sense has to
prevail on this stuff. Right, And you're comment about they've
turned off folks all over the political spectrum. I agree
with that. What we have now is one party rule
that is not acting in any common sense men, or

(40:39):
across a whole bunch of things, including that issue about
sports teams. But no, we need to see a return
to common sense. I think that will have very broad
appeal across the political spectrum of Massachusetts.

Speaker 1 (40:49):
Okay, now another issue. You tell me where you ranked
this issue. But you know, I'm someone who believes that
climate change is real. You know it's a real issue
the world. But Massachusetts can't solve climate change by itself now,
and I don't believe that we can disadvantage our businesses

(41:10):
by imposing unreasonable restraints on them that fellow states don't
have to do it, certainly other countries don't have to do. Right.
People are seeing like charges for this green alternative energy mandate. Right,
people who don't have solar are being charged surcharges or whatnot.
So what's your point on your position as it relates

(41:32):
to what I view as an energy issue which leads
to the unaffordability issue that I know you've been all right, Look, we.

Speaker 2 (41:40):
Should try to do well by the climate. However, when
you start mandating things, it takes your economy, takes your society,
and directions that aren't sustainable and so I think it's
notable that this governor has a climate chief that I'm
told that the cabinet secretaries are supposed to report to
about how their individual secretariats behave visa be the climate.

(42:02):
That's wrong. In my administration, the Cabinet secretary is report
to one person, which is me as governor. But I
think governing's about in a lot of ways, is about balance.
So we want to do well by the climate. We
also need a cost of living that sustainable. Here we
need to build housing right, we need affordability. And and
this governor does not have an energy policy. She has
a climate agenda, which is making energy a lot more expensive.

(42:25):
So she really has gone all in on the climate
issue to the detriment of other things. And that's why
I see all these charges on utility bills meant to
facilitate a so called energy transition. It's why you see
things like mandates to buy electric cars. They had a
mandate to buy heavy duty electric trucks at one point.
If you talk to anybody that has a business where
they depend on trucks, they'll tell you it's complete nonsense.

(42:48):
It just doesn't make any economic sense at all. So
we should try to do well by the climate. Recognize,
as you said, it's a global issue. I think last
time we checked, Massachusetts is zero point one percent of
global emissions. Why are we going to try to address
that tiny part of the overall equation in ways that
are detrimental to our citizens and our businesses. We've gotten
way out of balance on that one.

Speaker 1 (43:09):
One other thing is you're running for governors, so you've
obviously prepared yourself. So I want to talk about transparency,
and I want to ask you, if you become the governor,
are you going to be more transparent than our current governor?
Because I want to ask you a question to see
if you can answer it. And you might think it's
a trick question, Mike, but can you say, as someone
who has studied this, been in government, you're preparing to

(43:32):
battle governor more Healy how much she's spent on the
migrant crisis.

Speaker 2 (43:39):
I've been saying that I think the state has spent
three billion dollars. But I say I think because I
don't think it's really known or knowable at this point
in the level of detail you want to see, because
part of it is housing, part of it is transportation,
part of it or is food where there's been some
no bid contracts, that there's been a real lack of

(43:59):
transport and saying that one. So I think that we
have spent three billion dollars, I'm going to say we,
I mean we the government doesn't spend the money. It's
our money, so it's taxpayer money. So I think is
the answer about three billion?

Speaker 1 (44:10):
Now that's the point. The fact that we don't know
is shocking. Another reason why we need that audit at
the federal level. Listen, federal policies obviously can impact the
commonwealth pretty significantly. Sure For one, for example, there is
a movement to end Department Education and to return the

(44:31):
billions and billions and billions of dollars that are spent
on the Department of Education back to the states. As
someone who gave up private practice to sort of go
into that educational area, if that happened, if billions came
to Massachusetts for education, what would you do with it?

Speaker 2 (44:50):
Oh my gosh, I love this question. I mean, I would,
in contrast to Governor Heally, I would have an education strategy.
I couldn't begin to tell you what our education strategy is.
She brags about the fact that we're number one on
the National Assessment, which is true, but our kids scores
on that same test peaked about a dozen years ago,
and we have some of the biggest achievement gaps of
any state in the country. On fourth grade reading, we're

(45:12):
not number one, one, number six behind Mississippi. And last
time I checked, about forty percent of our kids kind
of a blended average over many grades over reading. In math,
about forty percent or a grade level proficient, and about
twenty percent of our Black and Latino kids are So
we've got major issues here. What I would do is
do we did Lawrence, which is put the kids first,

(45:33):
figure out what's going to work best for the kids.
Part of that has to be our on high quality
reading instruction, of which this governor has twenty five million
dollars allocated out of a sixty one billion dollar budget.
So you really get reading done. If kids can't read
proficionally by third grade, they're on a very different trajectory
in life. So we got to get that one done.
You know, things like high dosage tutoring. We did some

(45:53):
of that on Lawrence. It works really well. I'd want
to see a lot more of that. Again, that's a
twenty five million dollar item in this governor's budget. That's
not a serious effort to get after that one. We
need a strategy for artificial intelligence that could transform public
education and other parts of our economy. We need to
replace the MCAST as a graduation requirement. The voters I
voted the other way in that one. I wanted to

(46:14):
keep a standard for graduation. We don't have one today.
We got to get back to that one. And the
other arena is around workforce skills development. I'm a big
believer in our votetech high schools for example, and putting
more money into those schools. And we're having a debate
now around basically who should get into what shou the
emissions process look like. That's the wrong debate. The debate
we should have is how do we expand capacity of

(46:36):
these schools. I'm big believers in them, so much higher
quality standards based K through twelve education, we really put
the needs of the kids above everything else. And then
a much more robust strategy and workforce skills development through
a votech high schools and other programs.

Speaker 1 (46:50):
This has flown by so fast. I was going to
give you two minutes, but I'm going to give you
forty five seconds. I'm sorry, but why vote for Mike Kney.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
There is no one in this race that has my
experience around business, state government, education, nonprofit space, and local government.
There's no one with that track record. Okay, and I
can do the most for Massachusetts anybody in the race
now or anybody likely to get in the race. And
this is a moment in time in Massachusetts on the
three issues you talked about, affordability, opportunity, and better government.

(47:24):
This is an incredibly important election and you need someone
with a broad set of experiences, someone who's worked well
with people all over the state.

Speaker 1 (47:31):
To interrupt you. Plug your site, Mike Kanealy dot com,
Mike kenneelely dot com. If you want to support Mike,
you go to Mike Kenneely dot com and support them.
We must retire more of Healey. See you in the
next segment.