Biggest nail-biter: Menino's margin
26 October 2001
Who should be the next mayor of
Not, who will be? We know the answer to that. Incumbent Thomas Menino almost certainly will roll to victory in just 11 days. The only nail-biter is whether Menino wins by the biggest margin ever. To do so he will have to beat the 75 percent Ray Flynn attained in 1991 when he beat Boston Teachers Union President Ed Doherty. A recent Herald poll shows Menino with 72 percent and 18 percent undecided, giving him a good chance of besting Flynn's record.
Whoop-de-doo.
These days, this is what passes for excitement in
Meanwhile, the merits of the two candidates have been virtually undiscussed during the course of the campaign.
The reason for that, of course, is there hasn't been much of a campaign.
Menino's camp effectively - really, brilliantly - played the
expectations game from the outset. Since Menino was expected
to win, there was little reason for anyone to contribute or write about or make
much effort working on Peggy Davis-Mullen's campaign. Davis- Mullen did little
to refute that claim and, eventually, expectations become reality. Indeed, the
The best opportunity to have some sort of clash of ideas and philosophy would have been through a series of mayoral debates. However, Menino kept putting them off, knowing that any debate would give air time and credibility to Davis-Mullen. It may have been bad for democracy, but it was smart politics.
Still, he figured he had to have one, and so he finally capitulated. The 30-minute debate was broadcast at 10:30 p.m. last Saturday. I'm embarrassed to admit that I stayed home to watch it.
The advance word on the debate was that Menino lost, blowing up after it was over and stalking off. On screen there certainly was, as my brother the psychologist would say, "a lot of anger." The two plainly loathe each other. When they shook hands at the beginning, Menino looked like he feared Davis-Mullen had one of those gag buzzers in her hand. Given their history, no one would have been surprised if she did.
If political debates were scored like fights, Davis-Mullen would have won. Like a boxer, she kept jabbing at Menino, needling him, keeping him off balance, and never giving him a change to gain firm footing. But the purpose of political debates is to persuade voters, not win arguments. By that criterion, Menino did better.
The debate got off to a fast start when Davis-Mullen scored Menino on education, his weakest issue. Davis-Mullen could have taken him on for his unwillingness to risk the educational establishment's wrath by proposing dramatic reforms. Instead she argued he should be spending millions more to build new schools.
She then criticized him for the recent rise in the city's murder rate, maintaining the solution was more spending on police.
From there, she attacked him on affordable housing, saying
You get the idea. At every turn, Davis-Mullen said she wanted "new priorities." Yet, those new priorities sounded a lot like a call simply to spend more on everything.
To his credit, Menino took the route of the dour curmudgeon, pointing out that, particularly in city government, money is limited and choices have to be made. It may not have amounted to great political theater, but it did show an understanding of responsible governance.
The debate ended with host Jon Keller asking the classic "Ted Kennedy" question: "Why are you running?"
"How we've handled the waterfront is certainly a
leading reason why I'm running," Davis-Mullen said, hammering on a
year-old issue: Menino reneging on a rich community
benefits deal for
It was a weak answer. Rather than offering a vision of the city under her leadership, Davis-Mullen picked at an old neighborhood wound, making her campaign sound like it was premised on a fit of pique.
In contrast, Menino's answer was thoughtful and forward looking. He said he was proud of his record and the improvements the city had made over the last eight years. He also made it clear he was not satisfied. "It's important to make this city work for all our people, not just some," he said.
In saying that, Menino touched on what may be his greatest
accomplishment as mayor: the comity he has brought to
Menino could have tried to promise all things to all people.
Instead, a man not known for his eloquence spoke movingly of making