It’s election day in Boston, which means all eyes are on Tom Menino. Political watchers are wondering whether he can tamp down an insurrection in South Boston, whether his political machine will run roughshod over its opponents in Dorchester, and whether he can drag Steve Murphy over the finish line again, sticking a dagger in Mike Flaherty’s comeback for good measure.
It is this way because it has always been this way. Boston’s Mayor for Life has owned municipal politics for the past two decades. There’s a paradox emerging in Menino’s reign over Boston, though. At the same time he’s sucking the oxygen out of the city and out-raising the City Council field and commanding front page Globe stories for elections he’s not even running in, he’s also having to work harder to maintain the status quo he dominates.
Some of the shifts have been subtle. Menino’s political support has been more overt this year than it has been in the past. Before, the word went out from City Hall, the machine sprang into action, and everybody in the neighborhoods knew which way to walk. In this year’s City Council race, however, Menino is appearing on campaign mailers and endorsing the at-large field. “I’m supporting the incumbents because they are positive,” he tells the Globe today. Forget, for a minute, the question of, positive for whom? The mayor’s syntax is often open to debate. The bigger takeaway should be the spectacle of Boston’s mayor openly maneuvering to maintain his hold on a city council he has long owned. He’s never had to campaign for his candidates so vigorously.
Eileen McNamara absolutely blows up Menino’s political legacy in this month’s Boston magazine. She pins low turnout and voter apathy on a couple decades of having one guy own the civic conversation. “Why bother voting for powerless city councillors?” she asks. “They either rubber-stamp Menino’s decisions or provide token, meaningless opposition. The mayor could teach Middle East rulers the meaning of entrenched power.” Later in the piece, she adds, “The complacency and arrogance that a long tenure can breed is risky enough in a legislative body where individual power is tempered by the need to forge consensus. It is perilous in a chief executive who governs a city that, by charter, has a powerful mayor and a weak city council. It is especially destructive in a mayor as thin-skinned and prone to petty retaliation as Menino.”
That’s what we’re seeing today. Last week, Dorchester Reporter publisher Ed Forry published a personal endorsement of Frank Baker, who’s vying to succeed Maureen Feeney on the City Council. Baker is not Menino’s candidate of choice. John O’Toole is — a fact Forry’s editorial highlighted prominently: “From the outset of this contest, it has been very clear that O’Toole’s campaign has been managed in large part by elements of Mayor Tom Menino’s political machine… Why would Dorchester want to select as its next councilor someone who is so clearly in league with a mayor who already wields such great power in City Hall? ”
–PAUL MCMORROW
BEACON HILL
The map is out, and Bill Keating is on the phone to the moving company. That’s the bottom line from yesterday’s unveiling of proposed new congressional district boundaries, which have Keating and South Boston’s Steve Lynch both in a reconfigured 8th District. To avoid a head-to-head Democratic showdown, Keating says he’ll move to his vacation address in Bourne and vie for the new open seat that encompasses all of Cape Cod and the Islands along with a good swath of the South Shore and South Coast region. Berkshire County politicians aren’t excited about the proposed map, but acknowledge that it could have been worse. The Worcester Telegram reports on changes in its area. Andover gets split between the districts of Niki Tsongas and John Tierney, the Eagle-Tribune reports. Tierney gains a few towns but doesn’t lose any, the Salem News reports. The Sun Chronicle notes that the reconfigured 4th District resembles an Attleboro-centered district Barney Frank represented in the 1980’s.
The Boston Globe editorial page, which has been backing off for weeks its earlier endorsement of casinos, completes the retreat with today’s offering, which calls on the Legislature to reject current legislation, unless it is radically reshaped.
The Massachusetts Senate is set to debate a bill that would eliminate parole for serial violent criminals while easing penalties for nonviolent drug offenders, the Lowell Sun reports (via State House News).
Seniors in Peabody complain to Attorney General Martha Coakley that they are receiving harassing phone calls from local pharmacies, the Item reports.
State Rep. Richard Bastien, a Republican from Gardner, suggests expanding the bottle deposit law may not be a good idea.
MUNICIPAL MATTERS
Several city councilors and other local leaders are calling for the state to place the Chelsea Housing Authority in receivership following the resignation of the authority’s long-time director, Michael McLaughlin, who was pocketing $360,000 a year and had an underling cut him a check for $200,000 in unused vacation and sick time as he dashed for the door. Political consultant Michael Goldman, writing in the Lowell Sun, gives his personal and generally positive take on McLaughlin.
Nearly 5,000 teachers, city workers, and retirees in Fall River have been notified they won’t have to make their 25 percent health care contribution for the next three months because of savings from joining the Group Insurance Commission and because the insurance trust fund is overflowing. Mayoral challenger Cathy Ann Viveiros questions the timing, coming right before today’s election.
Peter Lucas, writing in the Sun, says the storm problems have whipped up interest in legislation that would allow municipalities to set up their own utilities.
Radio Boston examines the city’s deals with the Red Sox, giving the team the air rights it needed for its Green Monster seats and control of Yawkey Way on game days.
Saint Francis House has become a popular destination for Occupy Boston protesters seeking a hot meal and a shower, a fact that has prompted the homeless shelter to ask the protest’s web site to remove directions to the shelter.
A West Newbury selectman is alleging that his colleagues violated the Open Meeting Law when they met to discuss a forensic audit of the town’s finance department.
NATIONAL POLITICS/WASHINGTON
Polls indicate Ohio voters are likely to throw out a law limiting collective bargaining for public employees, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Occupy Worcester protesters were arrested for violating the city’s 10 pm curfew, NECN reports.
ELECTION 2012
Elizabeth Warren comes to Lowell to recruit troops for what she says will be a “people to people” US Senate campaign, the Sun reports.
The sexual harassment charges that have been plaguing the presidential candidacy of Herman Cain now have a face, a name, and specific details, NECN reports. The New York Times publishes its Sunday Magazine profile of the Cain campaign nearly a week early; the article’s lead acknowledges the campaign’s shifting fortunes, acknowledging the possibility that, “by the time you read this, we’ve learned about some escapade at a Sizzler in Nebraska that was so appalling that Cain has no choice but to bow out.”
Be glad you are not this candidate in running for re-election to the Fairfax County School Board in Northern Virginia.
The Wall Street Journal editorial page begins to warm its notoriously frosty relationship with Mitt Romney. A new Wall Street Journal poll finds President Obama outpolling a generic GOP candidate by three points, but topping Romney by six points. A third-party candidacy by Ron Paul receives 18 percent of the poll’s hypothetical vote.
The youth vote is once again the key to Obama’s chances next November.
BUSINESS/ECONOMY
A new report from the Pew Research Center finds young Americans suffering more financially than the older generations because of education and housing costs, leading to a growing wealth gap. In our special issue on the state of the American Dream, CommonWealth’s Bruce Mohl looks at the income inequality gap from a number of angles.
CommonWealth’s Paul McMorrow, in his weekly Globe column, explains why the housing market crash was the last straw for those already struggling against stagnant income growth.
Officials from Meditech, the medical software company that pulled out of a planned $65 million project to build its headquarters in Freetown because of what they said were onerous requirements from the Massachusetts Historical Commission, had a conciliatory meeting with Secretary of State William Galvin and commission members to try to salvage the project.
The closing of Filene’s Basement and its parent, Syms, will result in the loss of 530 jobs in Massachusetts, according to a letter filed by the company with state officials.
The impact of the national Bank Transfer Day appears to be largely psychological but small banks and credit unions are happy to take the business.
EDUCATION
A new study indicates soda bans in schools are having no impact on the amount of sugary drinks middle school students buy and consume, the New York Times reports.
TRANSPORTATION
The Springfield Republican looks at the folly of trying to get rid of federal subsidies for Amtrak.
ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT
On Greater Boston, National Grid president Marcy Reed tries to explain why it took so long to restore power to all its customers while state Rep. Dan Winslow floats a plan that would force utility companies to issue rebates for massive outages.
Falmouth voters appear to be split about a nonbinding referendum on wind turbine safety.
Some Newton residents want a cap on water bills after charges spiked when new meters were installed.
MEDIA
Dan Kennedy has a remembrance of the late Andy Rooney, including a phone conversation the two had about a decade ago over a mutual tormentor.