Black Democrat wins Mass governor race -networks

BOSTON, Nov 8 (Reuters) Democrat Deval Patrick, a former top US civil rights enforcer, was elected governor of Massachusetts, becoming the second black ever elected to lead a US state.

Breaking a 16-year Republican hold on the office in a state that is generally Democratic, Patrick beat Republican Lt Gov Kerry Healey, according to early projections by the CBS and ABC news affiliates in Boston.

Patrick, 50, a Harvard-educated lawyer who served as assistant US attorney general for civil rights under President Bill Clinton and held executive jobs at Texaco Inc and Coca-Cola Co, rallied Democratic faithful in a grass-roots campaign.

He also won over moderate Republicans and independent voters impressed by the clean-cut corporate lawyer who rose from poverty on Chicago's South Side.

''It marks the emergence in Massachusetts of a new kind of Democratic moment,'' said Julian Zelizer, Boston University professor of contemporary American politics.

''Given the fact that he is in a national spotlight, I think it's going to help put Massachusetts at the forefront of a national debate about the Democratic Party,'' he said.

While six blacks are making serious bids for senator or governor across the country in 2006, the issue of race has figured little, at least on the surface. In Massachusetts, voters clamored for change after 15 years of Republican governors.

Opinion polls show voters believe the state is headed in the wrong direction.

Healey, who would have been the state's first female elected governor, lacked Patrick's charisma while portraying him as a classic tax-and-spend liberal who is soft on crime.

Patrick exploited Healey's links to Republican Gov. Mitt Romney, whose popularity has sunk in the liberal state as he carves out conservative stances on hot-button policy issues to rally conservative Republicans ahead of a potential presidential bid in 2008.

Romney decided not to seek another term as governor.

Patrick's rise underscores dramatic social change in a state where black school children were pelted with rocks and bottles as they were bused into Boston's white neighborhoods 32 years ago in court-ordered school desegregation.

Patrick's campaign, focused on ''the politics of hope,'' called for expanding health care, improving public schools, overhauling creaking infrastructure and attracting growth industries to create jobs in the only US state whose population has declined for two straight years.

Although a liberal bastion, Massachusetts has elected Republican governors since 1991 -- in part to maintain a check on spending by the Democratic-controlled legislature.

Historically, blacks have faced steep obstacles running for statewide offices in the United States. Only one black, Democrat Douglas Wilder of Virginia, has been elected governor, holding the job from 1990 to 1994.

REUTERS DH BST0753