Free Republic

BOSTON - Marie St. Fleur, a little more than 24 hours after entering the lieutenant governor’s race, decided Wednesday to abandon her campaign after revelations of tax and loan delinquency, according to a top aide to her running mate, Attorney General Tom Reilly. St. Fleur’s financial troubles sparked revelations from another politician in the thick of this year’s gubernatorial campaign: Deval Patrick, Reilly’s top rival for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, released a statement disclosing that he, too, had been a tax delinquent. “More than a decade ago, Diane and I had an installment agreement with the IRS to pay, on...

Deval Patrick first came to Massachusetts when he was 14, a poor kid from Chicago with a rare opportunity to learn at a prestigious private school in a leafy Boston suburb. From Milton Academy, he went on to Harvard, then Harvard Law School. As a young lawyer he worked in the Clinton White House, and later provided counsel to some of America's corporate giants. Now he wants the top job in Massachusetts politics. But first, Deval Patrick has to tell voters who he is.