Boston Common - Niche Media - A side of Boston that's anything but common.
Issue link: http://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/555971
clockwise from top: Baker being sworn in in January; Baker and the outgoing governor, Deval Patrick, watch as their wives, Lauren Baker and Diane Patrick, embrace; the State House. photography by pat greenhouse/The BosTon GloBe via getty images (swearing in. Deval patrick); glenn leblanc/getty images (state house) INSIGHT favorite local historical site: "You're sitting in it. The State House. Massachusetts has zillions of awesome historical sites, and one of the great things about running for offce is getting to visit them." most-admired democrat: "One thing I loved about [late Boston mayor] Tom Menino is that he earned the title 'urban mechanic.' I think sweating the details is a good thing. He was a customer of mine at Harvard Pilgrim, and he would call me about the smallest things and make sure we would fx them." most-admired republican: "Besides Abraham Lincoln, probably Bill Weld. He taught me about public service and public life." time defeating Attorney General Martha Coakley by 1.9 percent. Unleashing his inner Rotarian, Baker ran as a more genial, personable candidate the second time around—from awkwardly dancing to "My Girl" at a Roxbury barbecue to dialing back the fiscal hec- toring that had grated on many voters' ears four years earlier. But in fact the stage had been set much earlier. The son of a businessman who served under Volpe during his stint as secretary of transportation in the Nixon and Ford administrations, Baker grew up listening to his conservative Republican father and liberal Democratic mother debate around the dinner table in a fashion that shaped his consensus-building approach to governance. "My parents were very good at disagreeing without being disagreeable," he says. "They've been happily married for almost 60 years. And they don't really agree on much of anything when it comes to politics. With them, it was always a conversation, and I would hope that most of the folks around here would say it's a conversation—that we can disagree without being disagreeable." Raised in Needham, where he attended public schools and starred in schoolboy sports, Baker went to Harvard (and played on its basketball team) and then Northwestern, where he earned an MBA and met his future wife. Back in Massachusetts, Baker eventually settled in Swampscott, the old North Shore fishing village turned high-end sub- urb, where he and Lauren raised their three kids while he worked in the administrations of Weld and Governor Paul Cellucci before leaving to guide Harvard Pilgrim through a stressful period of receivership and recovery. "I like to sweat the details," he says. Along the way, Baker ran for and won a seat on the five-member Swampscott Board of Selectmen when the town was facing fiscal challenges. His decision to seek the office was opposed by Virginia Buckingham, a close friend who served as Weld's and Cellucci's chief of staff. "I read him the riot act," she says. "He was taking a risk in running for a town office, because if he lost, he would tarnish the brand. [But] he stopped me cold. He said to me, 'My town's in trouble and I want to help.' It was really a lesson for me: There are things more important than political opportunities down the road. That is who Charlie is." bc "i hope people come away from any engagement with me feeling pretty good about public servants." —governor charlie baker bostoncommon-magazine.com 69