Sheriff now looks like a falling star
9 July 2004
Black, female and no-nonsense professional, Suffolk County Sheriff Andrea Cabral is "a rising star of the Democratic Party," enthuses her campaign manager, Matt O'Malley. She's on the platform steering committee for the Democratic National Convention. Her campaign expects her to be a presence throughout the week, generating "buzz" among the gathered politicos. Cabral is looking forward to working on national topics such as criminal justice, concerns of communities of color and women's issues.
Heady stuff indeed. Meanwhile, she's in the midst of an election campaign and her only opponent, Boston City Councilor Stephen Murphy, won't be attending any convention events whatsoever. Instead, he'll be working neighborhood streets, shaking hands and trying to persuade voters to support him in September's primary.
Cabral's plans sound like fun. But if you're looking to win an election, Murphy's might make more sense.
That's because this is turning out to be a tough and increasingly bitter race. At times Cabral seems personally offended that Murphy even dared challenge her. She has accused him of "engaging in Jurassic politics." For his part, Murphy questions Cabral's competence and charges that she has violated state pension laws. Issues of race and gender have been injected into the fight. Moreover, there are elements of a grudge match. After Sheriff Richard Rouse resigned in 2002, both Cabral and Murphy were finalists for appointment to the job. When then-Gov. Jane Swift's staff made party affiliation an issue, Cabral gladly registered as a Republican. Murphy, a Democrat, refused. Just over a year ago, however, Cabral had a change of heart, switching party affiliations and leaving Murphy feeling burned.
Despite being an incumbent, Cabral now faces voters at a disadvantage.
For all except a handful of precincts, the sheriff's race is the only election
on the
Yet with just over eight weeks until the election, that image is now threatened by a storm of negative press. Consider this sampling.
Cabral has withheld payments from the Boston Retirement
Fund, accruing over $140,000 in late fees. Veterans' groups charge that Cabral
is illegally preventing soldiers from accruing vacation and sick time while
overseas. Cabral fired her top training officer after he questioned the
department's preparedness for the Democratic National Convention. Her head of
internal investigations got 138 parking tickets on his official vehicle
dismissed, 117 of which were suspiciously right by his
Heck, Cabral even missed paying the department's water bill.
True, some (but not all) of the stories have been pushed by the Murphy campaign. And Cabral has responses to most. The campaign law violations are trivial, she says (and, in the furniture case, she suspended the offending employee for two weeks). Late payments have occurred because the department is under enormous financial pressure. (It was forced last year to pay a $5.2 million judgment to plaintiffs who were illegally strip-searched. The illegal searches happened before Cabral became sheriff, but she still bore the burden.) Cabral also denies she is violating state law when it comes to veterans' benefits. Other incidents she dismisses as internal employee matters.
Beside, Cabral argues, the real measure of her success should be her performance. She points with particular pride to programs she has introduced that try to combat recidivism. Reduce the likelihood that someone who has been jailed will commit another crime and everyone is better off.
That's a hard point with which to disagree (and Murphy professes that he would be at least as aggressive as Cabral in pushing anti- recidivism programs). Yet Cabral's negative press is clearly having an effect, one that frustrates her and makes Murphy's job all the easier. Individual problems can be explained away, but collectively they are dimming Cabral's luster. If she wants to remain a rising star, she needs to win an election. The prospects of that occurring look ever more difficult.