Tom Menino needs a good challenger

23 February 2001

Mayor Thomas Menino's mayoralty is in trouble. The best thing that could happen to him this year is that someone challenges his bid for a third term.

That's a claim that undoubtedly would puzzle Menino and his campaign advisers. Menino's mayoralty appears to have been an enormous success. He consistently enjoys high popularity ratings, the kind that would make any politician envious.

Moreover, after winning his first race in 1993, Menino had no opponent when he ran for a second term. Even now, just seven months from the preliminary election for a third term, only two potential candidates - Councilors Mickey Roache and Peggy Davis-Mullen - have floated their names. Yet neither has any significant money and the common belief is that either would be just a sacrificial lamb.

If so, that's a shame. Because the truth is that Menino's second term has been aimless and lackluster. It's hard to figure out his vision for the city. On top of that, the mayor seems to be losing his political clout.

Why? There was no race for mayor in 1997. Should there be no race, or a weak race, in 2001, Menino's third term could be disastrous.

Elections are the means by which we think through issues. Having made decisions about those issues, voters confer upon the victor the power to implement those choices.

Menino's first election in 1993 - arguably one of Boston's most important - came at a time when there was much debate about the future of the city. Menino's vision was that city government should cater to the middle class to rebuild Boston's residential base. Other candidates disagreed. Some said it was fruitless, that cities would inevitably lose their residential populations. Others argued that government's proper role was to serve the needy and downtrodden.

Menino's victory, along with the election of a new City Council that was largely sympathetic to his middle-class values, gave him leave to become the "urban mechanic" one columnist dubbed him. He moved rapidly to address public safety (dramatically boosting the number of police and implementing community policing), education (firing the school superintendent and putting in place his own pick) and quality of life issues (creating, for example, a graffiti cleanup program). He did all this with a surprising amount of support and great success.

And since then? In 1997, when he was unopposed, Menino never had to rejustify himself. He never had to figure out what voters liked and disliked. He never received a mandate for his second term.

And it shows. The last four years have lacked the drama of the first term, with Menino functioning more like a caretaker than a leader. He suggests small ideas - classes to help new immigrants learn to speak English, money for job training - but his broad vision ("build on our success") is vague and unfocused. The urban mechanic seems to be just tinkering.

And the nature of Menino's political power has changed. To be sure, the mayor still has the power to stop things. But his ability to create coalitions and accomplish things has diminished.

Compare, for example, Boston City Hospital and the Boston Red Sox. Early in his first term, Menino moved to sell the city-owned Boston City Hospital to the Boston University Medical Center. It had been an issue during the campaign. Menino believed that the hospital's operating deficits could overwhelm the city's budget. The privatization of the hospital was enormously controversial. Still, Menino steamrolled his way through any opposition, persuading a super- majority of a skeptical City Council to go along.

Four years later, a similarly high-profile task - finding a new home for the Red Sox - has proved far less tractable. Menino has encountered roadblocks at every turn. Opposition within the council and from residents has mounted and seems to have caught the administration unawares. Plans for the new park seem in disarray. Rather than dictating events, Menino appears to be responding to them.

Indeed, whether it's negotiating the teachers' contract, trying to develop the South Boston waterfront or passing a city budget, Menino is more often on the defensive.

The cure? A real election, with a tough opponent and a genuine engagement of ideas. It would force Menino to figure out an agenda for himself and the city. It would give him the political strength to achieve those goals.

Sounds like a great scenario to me. Although there is, of course, one small problem.

Menino could lose.