Gonzalez begins stretch run in Beverly

Oct. 30--BEVERLY -- Jay Gonzalez's kicked off his last full week of campaigning on Monday morning by bringing his "little guy" campaign to Beverly.

The Democratic candidate for governor spoke to about 30 people at Turtle Woods, an affordable housing community for seniors.

Gonzalez acknowledged that he is facing an uphill climb in his campaign to unseat Republican Gov. Charlie Baker. He characterized himself as the little guy "literally and figuratively," a reference to the fact that at 5-foot-4-inches he is more than a foot shorter than Baker.

"But I also know that time and time again little guys overcome overwhelming odds when their cause is just, they aim high, work hard and support each other along the way," Gonzalez told the gathering. "That's the lesson my parents taught me. It's the American story."

Gonzalez, like Baker, is a former health care executive who once served as the state's administration and finance secretary (Gonzalez under Gov. Deval Patrick, Baker under Gov. Paul Cellucci).

Gonzalez said Baker, whom polls show is the country's most popular governor, has benefited from the fact that national politics are in disarray and have become so divisive.

"For many, it's just a relief to have a governor who seems nice and isn't a crazy right-wing extremist, right?," he said. "With Donald Trump setting the bar so low, nice and not crazy seems pretty good. But it's not good enough. Not for Massachusetts. Now is not the time for us to be lowering expectations."

Gonzalez laid out an ambitious plan to fix the state's "broken" transportation system, make state colleges more affordable, invest in affordable housing, fight the opioid crisis, take on climate change, and advocate for a single-payer health care system.

"This is a former health insurance CEO telling you we need to get rid of health insurance companies, and when I'm governor we will," he said.

Gonzalez said he would invest an extra $3 billion per year in education and transportation, and ask the wealthy to "pay their fair share" in order to fund it.

Asked for specifics after his talk, Gonzalez said some of that money would be raised by taxing college endowments of over $1 billion. He said he would also advocate for a millionaires tax to be on the ballot in the 2022 election.

Gonzalez's appearance was part of a Meet the Candidates forum sponsored by Harborlight Community Partners, a Beverly-based affordable housing agency that operates Turtle Woods. Baker appeared two weeks ago.

Asked by the audience about how he would create more affordable housing, Gonzalez said the state needs to take a regional approach to overcome obstacles set up by individual communities.

"We need to make it easier because right now we have 351 different cities and towns in Massachusetts who are all making decisions in isolation in how we deal with this," he said.

Carol Giles, a resident of the neighboring Turtle Creek community, said after the talk that she was impressed by Gonzalez and planned to vote for him.

"He's talking about needing more places like this," she said, referring to affordable housing. "I thought that was very good."

Among the audience members was former Beverly Mayor Bill Scanlon, who worked with Gonzalez on getting the MBTA garage built in Beverly when Gonzalez served in the Patrick administration.

"He was literally one of the first people when it was reported that I was running for governor who reached out to me and said, 'I'm all in,'" Gonzalez said. "He has been one of our greatest supporters throughout the entire campaign."

Staff writer Paul Leighton can be reached at 978-338-2675 or pleighton@salemnews.com.

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