Some deaths hit particularly hard. For several generations of Massachusetts politicians, the transfer of Dan Payne marks the loss of a uniquely creative political consultant and ad maker, a loyal and generous friend, a valuable advisor, a madman, a sage, a source and a commentator.
It is daunting to try to summarize all that Payne, who died on May 9 of cancer at the age of 79, brought to politics and life. Mark Horan, a friend and admirer, emailed that for this task, “it goes without saying that Ralph would be best, but alas . . .” Ralph as Whitehead, a former Amherst professor of journalism at the University of Massachusetts and a longtime friend of Payne’s. Oh how in: But he’s gone too. Whitehead died in May 2022. In the year since his death, as I’ve watched the evolution of today’s tumultuous political universe, I’ve had the same almost conscious thought as Horan: I need to call Ralph for his opinion.
There was no need to call Dan for hers. For years, he could be heard weekly on WBUR or read on the Globe’s opinion page, where he was a contributing columnist. Millions of Americans have undoubtedly laughed at a Payne TV spot, because Dan used humor to light effect in political ads that delivered both a laugh and a message.
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In 1994, when Angus King launched an independent candidacy for governor of Maine, he had never held or postulated for public office. What he did have was name recognition from hosting a current affairs show on Maine Public Television, and a brother-in-law who convinced his friend Dan Payne to sign on.
King, who credits Payne’s creative ads with helping him win, notes that voters still bring up points from that first campaign. “If someone 20 years later tells you they remember an ad, that’s as good as it gets,” he said.
The Maine senator recalled a classic Payne spot from his 1998 re-election bid. It featured a crusty old Mainer holding a worn LL Bean boot and sending this message: At first, “I wasn’t so sure about Angus King,” because he was “from afar,” but now he thought of King as a reliable old man. bot: “Once you get it working, it’ll serve you pretty well.”
“He understood what people needed to know about his candidates, and he brought that to life,” said Democratic strategist Mary Beth Cahill.
An example: Liz Bankowski, who managed by Madeleine Kunin The 1984 governor’s campaign, which broke the glass ceiling in Vermont, recalled that a troubling percentage of voters told pollsters they would not consider a woman for the state’s top job. To attack this bias, Payne ran an ad that began with black letters on a white screen and pointed out that only one candidate had this or that important qualification. Only after this message had been impressed upon viewers did the spot show Kunin’s photo and mention his name.
“It was great,” Bankowski said.
In 1988, when Mike Dukakis ran for president, a rival early in the primary season Richard Gephardt he had transformed himself from a privileged Washington conservative into a populist. This political repackaging worked, until Payne and his associate Mike Shea produced an ad showing a gymnast doing flips and flips while detailing Gephardt’s ideological contortions.
“In addition to his high-level creativity, he was a wonderful person, always optimistic,” Dukakis strategist John Sasso said of Payne, who was also a mainstay of Dukakis’ gubernatorial campaigns.
“Just a great guy to know and work with,” Dukakis emailed. “One of the best.”
To work for you, Payne had to believe in you, his friend Chris Gregory recalled. But when he did, “He gave you his heart and soul.”
An abbreviated list of his Massachusetts clients also includes former Boston Mayor Kevin White, former U.S. Reps. Barney Frank and Reverend Robert Drinan, and former US Senator John Kerry.
Mind you, Payne didn’t lack for an edge. Several friends recall Payne’s criticism of a client-poaching rival: “He writes the best concession speech in American politics.”
Payne did the famous “the bosses can tell me where to sit; no one tells me where to stand.” this helped Ed Markey win his seat in the US House. He won a clio, an advertising award, for a 1984 spot featuring Senate candidate Kerry at a hardware store, highlighting the difference between the actual price of a hammer and what the Pentagon had paid its contractors for the tool. That award sat proudly in Payne’s office until, his wife recalls, a thief broke a window and made off.
My favorite was an ad he ran for Kerry’s re-election campaign in 1990. The freshman senator’s opponent was well-funded, hard-charging, hard-hitting Republican Jim Rappaport. The Rappaport family, who owned a large farm in Vermont, had been involved in a series of politically problematic financial maneuvers, one of which involved one family entity selling a beloved cow to another.
Payne made a series of announcements about Rappaport that began, if we recall, like an old movie, with curtains parted to reveal the title. Vermont’s machinations were explored in a spot that began, “Chapter Two: We Buy Ourselves a Cow.”
“This was really one of the best of many, many great places,” laughed Kerry.
“He didn’t want his spots to look like everyone else’s,” said Nicole, his wife of 56 years.
Don’t worry, because both as an ad creator and as a person, Dan Payne was in a league of his own.
Scot Lehigh is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at scot.lehigh@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeScotLehigh.
