After almost countless conversations with Dan Payne on the radio over many election nights and on WBUR’s Morning Edition, it’s very hard to say goodbye.
Dan Payne.
Dan, on the Democratic side, and Todd Domke, on the Republican side, were regulars on WBUR for many, many years as we covered the happenings and craziness of local political races in everything from municipal, gubernatorial and of Congress in Massachusetts. , in the United States Senate campaigns, in the New Hampshire presidential primary and in the general election.
Dan died earlier this month aged 79 from cancer. The political consultant and commentator had a storied career with clients that included US Senators John Kerry and Ed Markey, and US Representatives Barney Frank and John Tierney. He taught at Harvard’s Kennedy School and commented on presidential campaigns for NPR and WBUR, as well as The Boston Globe and other media in the area.
I remember the first time I asked Dan and Todd to start having our political conversations live on Morning Edition instead of taping them a day in advance.
“What time in the morning do you want us to come in?” Dan complained, knowing full well (I like to believe) that he would even if it was 6am
So they’d walk—Dan drunkenly drinking something warm, and Todd with his series of scribbled notes—and off we’d go, delving into the campaign or policy at hand.
From my point of view, the beauty and value of these conversations was that even though Dan and Todd, as longtime political consultants, had done a lot of work for candidates in their own parties, they were perfectly willing to to be critical, sometimes very critical, of my point of view. pulse of his own political persuasion.
“A bonehead who’s boneheaded deserves it,” Dan told me at one point. Then we laughed.
Dan’s, and Todd’s, willingness to be frank gave them instant and deep credibility with WBUR listeners. Many listeners have written or messaged me over the years expressing appreciation.
But Dan’s partisanship spread in late 2016 after Donald Trump’s presidential victory. Shortly before the election, Dan and his wife, Nicole, threw a party at their home for a handful of political writers. I was there too. The game of the night was for each of us to predict what the polling station map would look like after the ballots were counted.
I remember counting heavily for Trump, giving him a Midwestern bloc and battleground states like Pennsylvania. Dan thought he was betting too much on red. But he called me shortly after Election Day expressing his political regret that I was right, telling me that he had won the party’s prize, one of those now-ubiquitous red MAGA baseball caps.
I told Dan that as a non-partisan reporter, he couldn’t take the hat and had to keep it as a souvenir. He laughed and said, “Well, as a very partisan political guy, I’m going to break the damn hat.”
I have laughed many times since then as I imagine Dan grinding the hat and re-shredding it, repeatedly, over the years.
I would like to say, “Calm down, my friend.”
But I prefer to think of Dan now forever whispering sage advice into the ears of political figures and their advisers. Or walking up, looking them in the eye and saying “You bonehead”.
I miss Dan already.
