When Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino announced his retirement in March, he set off Boston’s first truly competitive mayoral election in two decades. On Sept. 24, voters went to the polls to choose two candidates from among the twelve running in the first-round of the city’s non-partisan election. With such a crowded field, a University of New Hampshire/Boston Globe poll found that, just ten days before the election, 34 percent of likely voters were undecided, and that nine candidates were in a position to take one of the first two spots. Despite this uncertainty, however, State Rep. Marty Walsh and At-Large City Councilor John Connolly, both front-runners, advanced to the final, Walsh with 18.5 percent of the vote, Connolly with 17.2 percent. These candidates’ success demonstrated the power of organization and solid financial backing in a low key election. Now, in the lead up to the Nov. 6 final, each campaign has renewed its efforts to define the other and win votes.
Despite his strong showing on Tuesday, Rep. Walsh’s support hovered around 8 percent in the polls before the election, and his surge to first may reflect the solid support he has among certain constituencies. Widely viewed as the candidate of organized labor, Walsh, a former union worker who lives in Dorchester, has received large infusions of cash and volunteers from many major unions in the city, including the firefighters, and at least one national labor organization. In addition, Walsh’s personal story is powerful: he is a survivor of childhood cancer and alcoholism. True to its candidate’s political origins, the Walsh campaign’s philosophy is best encapsulated by his first TV ad, which centers around the catchphrase “giving working people a fair shot.” In his victory speech, Walsh emphasized his education proposals, which include establishing universal pre-kindergarten programs and reforming the structure of high schools. He also focused on his workforce development proposals, which center on a set of vocational training ideas linked to his education platform.
Councilor John Connolly, Tuesday’s runner-up, had established some distance between himself and the rest of the candidates in the UNH/Globe poll conducted prior to the preliminary election. His bid received an additional boost when he, along with Dorchester community leader John Barros, gained the Boston Globe’s endorsement on Tuesday, Sept. 17; the week before, the Boston Herald also endorsed Connolly, in an editorial which emphasized the benefits of his policies for young professionals and his perceived political courage in declaring his candidacy before Mayor Menino announced his resignation. A former public school teacher and West Roxbury resident, Connolly has focused his campaign on improving the city’s schools by reducing bureaucratic expenditures, extending the school day, and creating a corps of qualified and autonomous principals, all as part of a wider effort to make Boston more attractive for lower and middle income families and young professionals. His strong emphasis on education clearly struck a chord with voters; many whose geographic allegiances lay with candidates like Councilor Mike P. Ross ended up supporting Connolly.
As the Boston Globe’s election recap article concluded, organization was a clear winner on Tuesday, and diversity was not. Charlotte Golar-Ritchie, a political heavyweight among state Democrats who would have been Boston’s first female and first African-American mayor, ran a campaign that Globe columnist Lawrence Harmon characterized as “clumsy,” and as such finished in third. Three other candidates representing the city’s minority population—Councilors Felix Arroyo and Rob Consalvo and Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative Executive Director John Barros—all failed to garner 10 percent of the vote respectively. Suffolk County District Attorney Dan Conley, whose campaign focused on his public safety credentials and who received the Herald’s endorsement along with Connolly, only managed fourth place.
Among the winners, Walsh’s campaign clearly benefited from the organizational and financial support of labor, and Connolly’s early declaration of his candidacy and education focus proved a significant fundraising boon. Still, these early advantages may prove to be mixed blessings in the general election. Labor’s strong support of Walsh has led some to question his ability to negotiate fair contracts with the public-employee unions who have given to his campaign, and the more conservative Boston Herald even urged its readers to vote for any candidate but Walsh. On Connolly’s side, controversy centers on his acceptance of funds from Stand for Children, an education reform organization. Though he first took the group’s donation, he later requested that they not spend money in the race.
These issues have come to a head in recent days as Connolly has requested that Walsh sign “The People’s Pledge,” an agreement not to accept special-interest group donations made famous by Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren. Walsh reacted by accusing Connolly of switching positions because of his earlier relationship with Stand for Children. Currently, neither candidate has agreed to the Pledge. With two well-funded and well-organized campaigns, the focus appears to be shifting to the voters who voted for their competitors—as well as to the two-thirds of the electorate who failed to vote in the preliminary round. In a city driven by its politics, the run-up to Nov. 6 may—if it produces more attention than the days before Sept. 24—produce some fine examples of urban politicking in America.
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