A racial benchmark, with race not a factor

The Boston Globe
By Derrick Z. Jackson
Globe Columnist / November 6, 2010

AFTER ROILING the nation’s political waters in January with Scott Brown’s election, Massachusetts made history in the midterms with barely a ripple. Governor Deval Patrick, the nation’s second-ever elected African-American governor, became the first such governor in US politics ever to be re-elected.
Nit-pickers could say this was not the most difficult distinction to achieve. The other elected governor, Doug Wilder of Virginia (1990-94), could not run again because that state does not allow consecutive terms. Only two other African Americans have ever held the office. P.B.S. Pinchback of Louisiana was appointed to fill out the final month of a disgraced predecessor during Reconstruction. David Paterson rose from lieutenant governor in New York to the top office in 2008 when Governor Eliot Spitzer was felled by a prostitution scandal. Paterson, wounded by miscues and ethics questions, chose not to run for a full term.

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