If the long knives were coming out at Boston City Hall two weeks ago, when Boston Mayor Tom Menino was merely stuck in the hospital with a bad back, they’ve surely been sharpened now. Five weeks after he checked in to Brigham and Women’s Hospital with a respiratory infection and a blood clot, Brigham doctors released Menino yesterday. Instead of heading home to Hyde Park, however, Menino went straight to Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, where he’ll work on bouncing back from the ailments that cropped up while in the Brigham — a fractured back vertebra, a back infection, and a diabetes diagnosis. Herald columnist Peter Gelzinis wrote two weeks ago that “what has angered Menino most about his prolonged stay is that it has fostered a perception of ‘vulnerability.’” Menino’s problem is that, every time he sends his staff to deliver a peppy assessment about how things are absolutely normal inside City Hall, he comes off looking more vulnerable than before.
Margery Eagan outlines Menino’s dilemma in a Herald column today that paints Hizzoner in a Castro-like light: “We’re told he’s going to be fine. But he’s not fine enough to tell us so himself. Or to let us see him.”
Eagan says the circumstances of Menino’s release from the hospital, five long weeks after his admission, did not contain the trappings of a man who is in “very good health,” as the mayor’s doctor put it yesterday: “No lights, no cameras, no photos, not so much as a single word from the mayor himself. Then later yesterday there’s a press conference. Again, Menino’s spokeswoman Dot Joyce takes questions. She tells reporters she got ‘very good news.’ Then seconds later Menino’s Brigham doctor is reassuring reporters that, ‘Yes, the mayor’s able to walk.’ Able to walk?” That proclamation, Eagan says, is not the extent of the reassurance Bostonians are looking for.
The wider problem for Menino, whether he’s running city government from a Brigham hospital bed, or from Spaulding, or from a recliner in Hyde Park, is that whenever the mayor is confined anywhere, he loses his single greatest asset, which is his ability to be anywhere and everywhere. Menino’s personal power is built on his tireless travels through the city, on his willingness to show up at any event anyone invites him to, whether there are 20 hands to shake there or 2,000.
Boston city councilors often joke that Menino has ruined the mayor’s job for them by setting a personal schedule none of them could match, or would want to. Forget filling potholes; Menino has made the mayor’s job all about 18-hour days cutting ribbons at bakeries and dropping in on Little League games. When he’s laid up in bed or struggling to get around, Menino is not doing the one thing that has kept him in office longer than anyone, which is bear hugging the city into submission.
There are big policymaking dates looming, ones that Menino would ordinarily use to put down markers for next year’s mayoral election. The mayor’s annual Chamber of Commerce speech is still on the calendar for next week; if, as Eagan argued today, Menino wasn’t well enough to even be seen checking out of the Brigham, it’s unclear how he’s going to work a room full of Boston business honchos. The annual State of the City address is suddenly looming, in early January. It was believed that Menino wanted to use the address to trumpet a new school assignment plan, which would serve as the centerpiece of a bid for a sixth term. As important as those major addresses, though, are the humdrum events Menino is missing. The mayor left Boston before Halloween. It’s now tree lighting season, and the third in four years that he’s having to sit out.
–PAUL MCMORROW
BEACON HILL
Human service workers protest delays in raises to lower paid workers who contract with the state. Meanwhile, House Speaker Robert DeLeo announces a 3 percent raise for all House employees.
Casino mogul Steve Wynn, who was rebuffed in Foxborough, now has his sights set on Everett, setting up a showdown for the Boston-area casino license with Caesars Entertainment, which wants a casino at Suffolk Downs.
Herald columnist Joe Battenfeld all but crowns Martha Coakley as the state’s next governor. Coakley has previously brushed aside speculation that she’s running for governor, telling the State House News Service that she’s running for a third term as attorney general. In CommonWealth’s spring issue, Coakley said gubernatorial speculation is “the equivalent, in the political world, of let’s have lunch, or how’s it going—what are you going to do next? It’s just what people say.”
Lowell Sun columnist Peter Lucas says that if Gov. Deval Patrick wants to find out who hired Sheila Burgess he should look in the mirror or walk into Lt. Gov. Tim Murray’s office.
MUNICIPAL MATTERS
Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse’s reversal on casinos sparks a mad dash to the city by gaming operators. Morse’s explanation is here.
Lawrence ends its 2012 fiscal year with a $6.6 million surplus, the Eagle-Tribune reports.
Peabody Mayor Ted Bettencourt seeks approval to hire a liaison with business, the Salem News reports.
NATIONAL POLITICS/WASHINGTON
Democrats’ strong showing on Election Day has complicated deficit-reduction talks, as newly empowered congressional Democrats balk at changes to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Nate Silver says one tax idea being batted around Capitol Hill would raise taxes on the somewhat wealthy, while leaving the tax rates paid by the very wealthy largely unchanged. The Wall Street Journal editorial page rides in to rescue Grover Norquist.
About 45,000 unemployed Massachusetts residents will lose jobless benefits on December 29 unless Congress acts to renew a program funding their payments.
Susan Rice, the White House’s top pick for Secretary of State, will meet with a group of Republican senators. New York magazine makes the case for Rice — and not Sen. John Kerry — following Hillary Clinton at State.
Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire is pushing the lame duck Congress to pass a measure that would allow states to collect sales tax from online retailers, the Associated Press reports (via the Seattle Times).
ELECTIONS
With stratospheric approval ratings in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, it’s all aboard the Chris Christie express to 2016. Christie will run for reelection as governor of New Jersey in 2013. But the big question in the short run is will Newark Mayor Cory Booker try to take him on?
Former GOP officials in Florida admit they were trying to suppress the vote with measures designed to frustrate voters in Democratic areas.
Depending Republicans’ view of what went wrong it’s either a dream come true or their worst nightmare: Rick Santorum says he’s open to another presidential run in 2016.
BUSINESS/ECONOMY
Massachusetts home sales surge more than 20 percent in October, the Associated Press reports (via Lowell Sun). Home sales in the year’s first ten months have already eclipsed last year’s mark.
Exotic dancers sue a Dartmouth “gentlemen’s club,” claiming they are entitled to employee benefits and shouldn’t be treated as independent contractors, South Coast Today reports.
EDUCATION
Massachusetts doesn’t fare that well in the nation’s first state-by-state breakdown of high school graduation rates, the Huffington Post reports.
HEALTH CARE
A new report indicates states would save more than they would spend by adopting Obamacare, Governing reports.
Dr. Joseph Murray, who performed the world’s first successful organ transplant, died at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, where the history-making 1954 operation took place. He was 93.
TRANSPORTATION
A payroll tax on workers earning more than $100,000 is proposed to pay off Big Dig debt and support the MBTA, the Associated Press reports (via Lowell Sun). In CommonWealth, former state transportation secretary James Aloisi begins making the case for transportation investments.
ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT
After a long delay, the state Department of Public Utilities approves a contract requiring NStar to buy power from Cape Wind at an initial price of 18.7 cents a kilowatt hour with an annual escalator clause, South Coast Today reports.
Is there a climate cliff to go along with the fiscal cliff? Time asks.
Not Hitchcock: State wildlife officials tell North Adams residents that they should not be concerned by huge “murders” of crows congregating in the city: It’s just what they do in the winter.
MEDIA
A chart that showcases the challenges facing print media.
Dan Kennedy has the fascinating story of a man being sought by police who first wanted to give an interview to a reporter telling his side of the story before turning himself in.