Ex-Labor Sec. Reich runs for Mass. gov

BOSTON, Jan. 9 (UPI) -- Robert Reich, a liberal Democrat and former labor secretary in President Clinton's Cabinet, announced Wednesday he is running for governor in Massachusetts.

In announcing his first bid for elective office, Reich touted his experience in fighting for working men and women.

"I believe that my background and my experience and my skills can be very, very important for getting this commonwealth back on track," Reich told a Boston news conference.

"One third of our workers are not prepared for the jobs of the future," he said. "Twenty percent are functionally illiterate, and we have a wider and wider gap between the have-mores and the have-lessers."

Reich has been described as a "flamboyant speaker" well known for his liberal Democratic views.

Reich's immediate problem is to win the backing of enough delegates to the state party convention in June. He needs 15 percent of the delegates to have his name placed on the primary ballot.

He has three weeks to win over the delegates, who will be pledging their support to a candidate at local committee caucuses on Feb. 2.

Reich may have some problems with some Democratic Party regulars for his split with Clinton and failure to support Vice President Al Gore in the 2000 presidential primaries.

He accused Clinton of leaving the Democratic Party "dead as a doornail."

Last November Reich made local political headlines by branding Republican acting Gov. Jane Swift as "an embarrassment in terms of her incompetence."

He recently told the Boston Globe that he's "going to inject energy into the party" and he would be "like a shot in the arm. I will bring people back who are turned off by politics."

Reich will be battling other well-known state Democrats for the party's nomination, including former Democratic National Committee Chairman Steve Grossman, Senate President Thomas F. Birmingham, Secretary of State William F. Galvin, former state Sen. Warren Tolman, and the only woman in the race, state Treasurer Shannon P. O'Brien.

Reich, 55, joined the Clinton administration in 1993 after teaching for a dozen years at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

A graduate of Dartmouth College and Yale Law School, Reich was a Rhodes Scholar classmate of Clinton's at Oxford University.

Reich now teaches social and economic policy at Brandeis University, and lives with his wife, Clare Dalton, and their two sons in Cambridge.

He is the second member of the Clinton administration to announce a gubernatorial run. Former Attorney General Janet Reno will be seeking the Democratic Party nomination to face Florida Gov. Jeb. Bush, the brother of the current president.