This millennium had a rough start

28 December 2001

Having tasted a year of the new millennium, can we have the old one back?

It hasn't been a good year. And I'm not just talking about the big issues: terrorism, war and recession. It wasn't a good year for local politics either.

A few examples:

-- Jane Swift became acting governor in February when Paul Cellucci left his job for ambassador to Canada. Her popularity ratings were dismal until she gave birth in May to twins. That gave her national headlines and a surge in the polls. But she seemed indecisive when dealing with Massport after Sept. 11. On top of that, two supposedly stalwart Republican board members of the Turnpike Authority revolted, refusing to vote through a hike in tolls. That put Swift in the ignominious position of having to defend in court her dismissal of the two so commuter tolls would go up.

Swift's numbers are down. Looks like it might be time for another pregnancy.

-- Has anyone else noticed the parallel of multimillionaire Jim Rappaport to the annoying donkey played by Eddie Murphy in "Shrek"? In the movie, the donkey jumps up and down, shouting to the oblivious ogre, "Choose me! Choose me!" Same with Rappaport, who desperately wants to be Swift's lieutenant governor. Swift spent the year asking everyone else but the eager Rappaport. The problem is, everyone else keeps turning her down.

-- Tom Finneran, speaker of the House, makes a good bogeyman and has gotten the lion's share of criticism for killing Clean Elections. Nevertheless, he can't do these things alone. Incumbents greatly feared the new law, which would provide campaign funds to challengers. Zeroing it out delighted Finneran's real constituents - the House members who vote him in as speaker. That's why talk of a revolt fizzled: Finneran takes care of his own.

-- Tom Birmingham, Senate president and candidate for governor, is in thrall to a showy vocabulary. However, he was always a step behind Finneran during budget negotiations. When the budget finally passed, with Finneran seemingly the only one who had read the document, Birmingham was reduced to writing opeds promising changes next time around. That's the fear: If he becomes governor, the speaker will be in even more control of the process.

-- With sky-high numbers, a third term for Boston Mayor Tom Menino seemed a breeze. His challenger, Councilor at large Peggy Davis- Mullen, had no money, no staff and no support. Most pols, handed the opportunity for a coronation instead of a battle, would have been delighted.

Not Menino. He turned grumpy. He spent the year obsessing about Davis-Mullen and doing little else. And when he won, with a record- setting 72 percent, he snapped at reporters, stalking away when they asked him questions.

-- The Boston City Council began the year electing the lightly regarded Charles Yancey its president. It was a bit of a joke, a figurative expletive deleted by outgoing President James Kelly, who engineered Yancey's election when he saw chances of his own re- election failing. Yancey set out to prove he was a man of gravitas.

He failed.

In February, he proposed a 12 percent pay increase for councilors. Shot down by the press and other councilors, he retreated. Then, in December, he proposed an even larger pay increase. Coming as it did while state and local governments were cutting budgets, it deserved some sort of award for Best Bad Timing. The other 12 councilors, all of whom opposed the raise, were acutely embarrassed.

Don't bet on Yancey for president in 2002.

-- Major legislation passed by the council this year included uh, pretty much nothing. The council voted to ban the use of the word "minority" in city documents, a tempest that gave much delight to lexicographers. It spent the first half of the year battling with the mayor over its right to hire a staff attorney. The issue - of absolutely no public interest whatsoever - became a near-mania. The council sued the mayor. It lost. In July, it dramatically cut the $5.2 million budget of the legal department, threatening to shut down a lot of city business unless it got its way. The council caved in when the mayor agreed to a new position called "legislative analyst."

Put together, these have the makings of a homegrown situation comedy. And it is amusing - except that politics, as Sept. 11 reminded us forcefully, is serious business with serious consequences. The goofy way the Legislature passed the state budget is funny, unless you happen to be poor and facing the loss of your home. The council's obsession with petty politics is good theater too, until you are a parent facing the prospect of leaving Boston because of its still-woeful schools.

Still, don't despair. As New Englanders say about the Red Sox, "There's always next year."

The problem, of course, is when next year turns out to be just as bad.