The Hiller Instinct: Hiller Instinct: Governor race images

Campaigns are about images. Images you've seen so often, they have become cliches like "meeting and greeting" and "pressing the flesh."

To win elections, candidates try to control their own image and create one for their opponents, and it's already happening in the governor's race.

Look at Deval Patrick, for example, and this is what you see. But he has a dream that what you'll see in your mind's eye are Martin Luther King or even John F. Kennedy, two inspirational leaders.

"We turned a political campaign into a movement for change," Patrick said.

But the picture Kerry Healey wants to paint of Deval is "devil" Patrick -- a clever, evil spirit, who will bankrupt the state.

"Deval Patrick’s kind of change puts our economy at risk," Healey said. "A risk... we can't afford to take."

While Healey looks in the mirror and sees this, what she would like you to see is a tough cop, who'll protect you from crime, or a bank guard, who'll protect your money.

"A more affordable Massachusetts, that's the kind of change I’ll bring," Healey said.

But, in Patrick’s photo album, Healey is a zombie, which the dictionary defines as a person whose behavior is wooden. He'd also like you to see President Bush, who has split the nation along political and cultural lines.

"Kerry, if the best you have is what divides us, let me tell you what I know from the grassroots," Patrick said. "We have all had enough of that."

As for Christy Mihos, he likely sees himself as a caped crusader, flying over the Massachusetts Turnpike to take down the tolls.

But his opponents will try to make him look like a political apprentice, desperately trying to win a job he's not qualified for.

What people really want today is the picture of who's going to win this election, but that's still being developed.

This race is out there to be won, or lost, and who'll win depends on who best frames their own images and best frames their opponent.

Live in the newsroom, I’m Andy Hiller, and that's my Instinct.

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