Waiting for mayor's seat
Globe Staff, July 9, 2007
By Donovan Slack
Michael F. Flaherty has spent years crafting an image as Boston's next mayor. He became president of the City Council, built a citywide political organization and a record-setting fund-raising machine. He arrived at meetings and events in a black SUV, just like the mayor. With a grave manner and impeccably pressed suits, he tried to position himself as the logical choice after Mayor Thomas M. Menino inevitably steps aside.
There is just one fly in the ointment: Menino has shown no sign of leaving.
Now closing in on the 16-year record for longest-serving mayor set by Kevin H. White, Menino is signaling that he might run in 2009 for a record-setting fifth term. Flaherty -- along with a host of other long-waiting mayoral hopefuls whose ambitions have been on hold -- is considering a run anyway. And political observers are speculating about a fierce fight in two years as one or more challengers tries to unseat one of the most popular mayors in Boston history.
Flaherty declined to talk about any plans to run in 2009, saying he is focused on winning reelection to his at-large council seat this fall. But he has a formidable $445,000 in his campaign accounts, probably much more than he will need in his council campaign. He recently unveiled a new website and has increasingly and publicly opposed the mayor on everything from his search for a school superintendent to his endorsement for president.
Others are also said to be mulling mayoral bids, including several other city councilors and former Suffolk district attorney Ralph C. Martin II, though several said they would only run if Menino does not.
Menino, meanwhile, is sending strong signals. He said in a recent interview that he has a lot of work left before leaving office, including getting a handle on crime and building a new City Hall on the South Boston waterfront and an iconic skyscraper in Winthrop Square. He maintains a $10,000-per-month campaign operation in an office downtown and has more than $330,000 in his campaign accounts, records show.
"I haven't finished my job yet," Menino said, seated in the dark wood-paneled office he has occupied since July 12, 1993. The mayor, who turns 65 this year, said age is not a factor.
"How old was Reagan," he said, referring to President Ronald Reagan, who was 77 when he left the White House in 1989.
Mayor of Boston is an exalted job in New England. Many have become legends whose likenesses have been cast in bronze. Longtime residents can recite their names like letters of the alphabet: Flynn, White, Collins, Hynes, the inimitable James Michael Curley.
Menino says doing the job right requires a massive time commitment, the guts to take unpopular stands, and modesty to avoid being a headline-seeker -- qualities he says he does not see in any potential successors.
"You can't just be mayor to be mayor," Menino said.
Among those who would like to succeed him -- but only if he steps aside -- are district city councilors Rob Consalvo of Hyde Park and Michael Ross of the Back Bay, Beacon Hill, and Mission Hill, Councilor at Large Felix Arroyo, and council President Maureen Feeney of Dorchester.
"I don't think there is a person in elected office in Boston that wouldn't step back and consider it," said Feeney, who has been courting support citywide since winning the council presidency from Flaherty in January.
Martin declined to say whether he is planning a run in 2009, though two people who have spoken with him recently say he is exploring the possibility. After he left the helm at the Suffolk prosecutors' office, he said the only elected office he would run for is Boston mayor. He has more than $100,000 in his campaign account, records show.
"I don't really choose to discuss what political intentions I have," Martin said recently.
Believing a run against Menino is a "kamikaze mission," Councilor John M. Tobin Jr. is taking something of a creative approach. He plans to introduce legislation next year mandating a three-term limit for the mayor.
"It presents more of a sense of urgency to the person to get the job done," Tobin said, pointing to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who reportedly has a sign on his office counting down the days left in his tenure and marking the deadline for completion of his reforms. "Let other fresh ideas come in; let other people take the reins," Tobin said.
As Menino continues to hold on to the office, political observers say, some talent and fresh ideas might be lost as mayoral hopefuls give up waiting.
"Whenever a person has been in office that long, such as Kevin White, Mayor (Richard) Daley (of Chicago) -- father and son, or Menino, inevitably people who would have been mayor have moved on with their lives," said Lawrence S. DiCara, a former city councilor and longtime political observer who once aspired to be mayor but is now a lawyer in private practice.
"After a while, you enjoy what you're doing but you get to a certain point where you want to go on to the next step to effectuate some change," said Maura Hennigan, a former councilor who went on to become Suffolk County Clerk of Criminal Courts after losing a bid to unseat Menino in 2005.
David Luberoff, executive director of the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston at Harvard University, says mayors become entrenched in office for one of two reasons: because they are doing such a great job that they keep getting reelected, or they could have "such a hold on the levers of power" that criticism is silenced and no one can oust them.
Luberoff says Menino has not done as well as some of his predecessors in developing talent from the next generation of leaders and allowing them to share the spotlight. By the end of White's tenure in the mayor's office, he had groomed at least two strong potential successors, Luberoff said.
"If you look at the Menino administration, the people, the deal it always seemed to me is you actually got a fair amount of autonomy from the mayor but you just do it and don't draw attention to yourself," he said.
Menino says he would never retire in the traditional sense. If and when he decides to leave office, he said, he would like to work at a nonprofit serving children.
In the meantime, he says he will keep unveiling new plans, sticking to what he thinks should happen in Boston .
In the past year, Menino installed new fire and police commissioners, a new chief of staff and cabinet chiefs for administration and finance, transportation and public works, and information technology. He has commissioned a study of what city governance probably will involve in the future.
"I go home at night and I think about what's tomorrow," he said. "What's the next position, what are you going to do?"