Op-Ed; In treasurer's race it's manager vs. pol

THOMAS M. KEANE JR.
863 words
13 September 2002
Boston Herald
All Editions
027
English
(Copyright 2002)

Jim Segel and Steve Murphy, the two leading contenders in the Democratic primary for treasurer, are near opposites.

One is suburban, the other urban. One is a classic Dukakis-era liberal; the other a meat-and-potatoes supporter of labor. One styles himself as a professional manager; the other is unabashedly a politician. And their campaigns reflect those differences. The question for each, with still upwards of half the electorate undecided, is who can win over voters in the scant few days remaining?

For Segel, running for treasurer is less a political campaign than it is a job interview. Meet with him and he hands you his resume. His qualifications for the job are striking. After five years as a state representative, he held several jobs in public finance, including executive director of the Massachusetts Municipal Association and vice president for public finance at Solomon Brothers. At various times along the way he has been tapped by governors and mayors to handle special, difficult projects.

If treasurer were an appointed job, the kind of position where one hired simply on the basis of expertise, Segel would undoubtedly get the nod. Treasurer just seems the next logical step in a lustrous career.

And indeed, Segel's campaign itself seems deliberately apolitical. After laying out his qualifications, he gives you his references. It's an impressive list. Six of the state's 10 congressmen have endorsed him, as have almost all major newspapers and a number of high-profile pols such as former Suffolk County District Attorney Ralph Martin and former U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy. Segel's argument is simple: The guy with the most experience should get the position.

Steve Murphy's take on the job - and his campaign to get it - could not be more different.

The way he figures it, treasurer really is a political job. Staff at the treasurer's office should be professionals, but a good treasurer should be a good politician. It's a well-taken point; the current incumbent, Shannon O'Brien, was a politician who did not enter the position with much finance experience either.

Murphy has been an at-large Boston city councilor for the last seven years. He won his job through classic campaigning: meeting and wooing voters, identifying his supporters and putting together a field organization to get them to the polls on election days.

In Boston, Murphy's organizing skills are envied. He has loyalists in every Boston neighborhood who will work hard for him; election after election, he has steadily built up his vote totals.

And his campaign for treasurer is really just a City Council campaign writ large. Murphy relishes the hurly-burly of the campaign trail.

"I get in their faces, I shake their hands, I make sure voters know me," he says.

Distracted by the high-spending gubernatorial campaigns and Sept. 11 commemorations, most voters so far have paid little attention to the treasurer's race. With only four days remaining, that poses a serious problem for each candidate. Segel is betting on a last- minute advertising blitz. His campaign manager says he'll spend $200,000 on television in the week before the election. The ads trumpet Segel's endorsements and the hope is that will be enough to sway voters when they eventually do focus on the race. But for Segel, traditional grassroots politics - such as get-out-the-vote efforts on Election Day - will be almost nonexistent.

Does it work? There's a general belief among campaign professionals that endorsements matter much less today than they once did. Voters are more educated; they are less inclined to follow someone else's instruction about how to vote. Yet, Segel argues, endorsements very well might matter a lot in low-profile races, such that for treasurer, about which voters don't spend much time thinking. In that case, then the recommendations of outsiders - such as politicians or editorial writers - could be decisive.

Murphy also says he'll spend $200,000 on television. But he's not counting on TV to bring home his vote. Unlike Segel, Murphy has an extensive field organization. His campaign is aggressively working his strongholds, including Suffolk County and other urban areas around the state. Buoyed by the support of the AFL-CIO, volunteers are manning phone banks, tracking voters on a scale of one to five (with a "one" being a sure Murphy vote and a "five" being a vote for Segel). On Election Day, they'll cover the polls and aggressively work their one's and two's, making sure they vote.

If Murphy pulls off a win, it will be a striking turn of events. He was given little chance by many when he first threw his hat in the ring. Conventional wisdom these days is that grassroots campaigns don't win statewide elections. Yet Murphy is following the most important rule of politicking: He's going to voters directly, asking them for their votes. On Tuesday, that may be his margin of victory.

Tom Keane can be reached at tomkeane@tomkeane.com.

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