The Boston Globe reports that supporters of Massachusetts governor (and Harvard alum) Deval Patrick have been issued talking points for use in rebutting charges that his two-month-old administration is flailing.

These talking points, according to a copy obtained by the Globe, include statistics on the corporate tax changes Patrick has proposed, his concerns about children affected by the New Bedford immigration raid, and his efforts to lower premium costs under the state's new healthcare law.

Patrick has had a spectacularly bad two months. First, he decided to spend taxpayer money redecorating his office and hiring a pricey aide for his wife. Then his wife turned out to be suffering some serious depression. Finally he was revealed to have made a phone call to Bob Rubin at Citigroup on behalf of a troubled mortgage lender on whose board he had once sat.

In other words, you pretty much couldn't ask for a worse start to your administration. As a result, Patrick's approval numbers are down 20%.

In modern politics, the answer to such a thing, of course, is "talking points." But that won't fool anyone. There's still a reservoir of goodwill toward Patrick. People voted for him; they want to see him do well. What Governor Patrick has to do is get his act together and start governing. Truth is, if you look at those talking points, they're not very impressive—even the propaganda isn't convincing.

So far, Deval Patrick is failing at both the substance and the presentation of governing. If he concerns himself more with the former, the latter will follow.