John Walsh, 'godfather' of modern grassroots campaigns, dies at 65
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John Walsh addresses a party celebrating Ed Markey's U.S. Senate special election victory in 2013. Photo: Christopher Evans/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images
Politicians across Massachusetts are mourning the loss of John Walsh, the political adviser behind former Gov. Deval Patrick’s unprecedented victory in 2006.
Why it matters: Walsh’s grassroots campaigning playbook for sending Patrick to Beacon Hill — the same strategies he used on Sen. Ed Markey’s reelection campaign in the 2020 Democratic primary — became a model Barack Obama built upon to win the presidency in 2008.
Catch up fast: Walsh died in hospice care Monday at age 65, the Globe first reported.
- He had been diagnosed with stomach cancer earlier this year.
What’s happening: Politicians and friends, from U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley to Larry Carpman, John Kerry’s former press secretary, shared their memories of Walsh in the wake of his death.
Flashback: The son of Irish immigrants, Walsh graduated to Princeton University and returned to Plymouth County, where he helped a friend launch an unsuccessful campaign for Abington School Committee in 1981, according to the Abington News.
- His friend lost.
- Walsh ran for the local board of selectman two years later and went onto serve 10 years on the board.
- He rose up the ranks in local politics, ultimately leading Patrick’s campaign for governor before serving as chair of the Massachusetts Democratic Party between 2007 and 2013.
What they’re saying: With Patrick's campaign, Walsh brought relational organizing back to the forefront of Massachusetts politics, at a time when campaigns relied on TV ad buys.
- "He knew that the path of justice runs through the kitchen tables, civic centers, schools and town squares in every corner of Massachusetts and our country," Markey said in a statement.
Alex Goldstein, CEO of 90 West communications, started his career on the Patrick campaign with Walsh, who served as Patrick's campaign manager.
- “To have the opportunity for your first job in politics to be learning from John Walsh, the godfather of the grassroots, as a grassroots organizer is about as good as it can possibly get,” Goldstein said.
- Goldstein remembers most Walsh’s optimism and compassion: “He was always the one to pull the rest of us out of the darkness when things got bad.”
It’s why Carpman, a public relations veteran and a close friend of Walsh, said he started calling him “Captain Sunshine.”
- The nickname stuck through the years, even into Markey’s campaign in 2020.
The bottom line: "It's hard to imagine a world without John Walsh,” Carpman said.