Pols (Not) Hedging Election Bets

Oh, now it becomes clear. Nothing, other than smart politicking, prevents our office holders from running for a higher office while simultaneously running for re-election.

I have been reading in the local rags that Boston City Councilors, for one example in the news, had to resign to run for the suddenly, shockingly available mayoralty. As is my wont, I headed to the City Charter and the Council rules to find, cite and link to the specifics. I pored through each with no results.

Then I ran across a piece in the J.P. Gazette that revealed reporter Peter Shanley's query to Mayor Tom Menino's office. It seems that it's savvy convention to show confidence by stepping down, but it's not required. In this case, a Councilor could run for both the mayoralty and re-election to Council. Then, assuming victory in both races, the double winner would choose which job to take.

Of course, at that level, it screams a lack of confidence to run for two offices. The perception is that voters would assume you presume loss before the first vote registers.

Yet we don't have to go very high up to see hedging bets for other offices. U.S. Senators John McCain,  Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, as other examples, held their seats while running for President (and Sen. Joe Biden as VP candidate). Likewise, both U.S. Reps. Steve Lynch and Ed Markey are running in the special election for U.S. Senate without resigning.

In a bit of humorous math, the risk level for Mayor is vastly higher than that for U.S. Senator this time and place. The field is wide and diverse. Some candidates are already well financed (as in $250,000 to $700,000 in the checkbook). At least four of the 13 Councilors are in and one or two more may make the leap in the next few days. The DA from Boston's Suffolk County is in, as were two early announcers (sill badly underfunded, but swearing money won't win this race). A state rep joined and so it goes.

There's no party affiliation in the preliminary in September, but nearly everyone is a Democrat by the bye. So far, we have no women running. It's also coincidentally the Middle Earth of Boston politics, with few candidates of color and nearly everyone Irish American. That's our history after the brahmans and before the ascendancy of those of Irish and Italian heritage.

The Council itself is a little more diverse. It only has one woman, one Latino, and three African Americans (including the woman).  Oh, and there's one Jew, and he's the most recently announced candidate for Mayor. The body certainly does not represent Boston's makeup ethnically or racially.

Now I wonder how many of those Councilors will or are even considering running for two offices in September and should they be in the top two finishers for Mayor, in the general in November.

Candidates who step away from secure spots and announce, "There is no plan B," as they run for higher office can seem heroic and confident. Yet, voters don't automatically reject those who hedge their bets.

Here, the Council could have the largest shakeup in memory if the candidates do not run for re-election as well as the mayoralty. Right now, that could mean openings for:

• Felix G. Arroyo, at-large
• John Connolly, at-large
• Rob Consalvo, district 5
• Mike Ross, district 8

Plus, maybe Steve Murphy, at-large, and the slim possibility of Charles Yancey, district 6.

There's no certainty that any one of them would win. They'd all take a huge flyer. The district Councilors are each and all from safe seats for them. Murphy is generally a big vote getter at-large, as are Arroyo and Connolly.

Murphy has held the Council presidency the past three times. That might well be at risk if four or more new Councilors come to office after November.  He's still thinking, he says.

The Boston Herald, our winger tabloid, has been flogging Suffolk DA Dan Conley. Their highly biased staff points fairly to his large checkbook at the beginning of the campaign. However, when he was a Councilor, he was neither particularly powerful nor memorable. He's had a much greater impact as a prosecutor. He hasn't had a chance to make his platform pitch. If it's law-and-order up top, that remains to be seen whether voters will weigh that heavily.

I'll be monitoring the stump speeches, tweets, FB postings and websites as these develop. Right now, the scrum to announce following Menino's decision not to run again has the runners still metaphorically tying their laces. As soon as enough of them put their platforms out, I'll comment on site contents and presentations.

A few quick thoughts though for the announced Councilors:

• Arroyo: Bright, confident, progressive, charming, he's also a good speaker. I've also been to numerous meetings where I overheard young female voters of various ethnic backgrounds commenting that he's very handsome and saying they know he has a wife who's even prettier. While that shouldn't make any difference, people have noted they like to look at him...and Jasmine. He's the first Latino to run for the office and has a large supporter base.
• Connolly: Wonderfully Boy-Scout level sincere, he has a deep passion for improving Boston schools...right now! He's run the Council's education committee for several terms, which is a royal pain on many levels, one that others run from. He was a teacher, his wife is, and they have two kids starting public school. He'll have other planks, but he is building his campaign first on the tough goal of high-quality schools in every single neighborhood. The question here is that if he's seen as the education guy, will voters who care more about jobs, housing and safety bypass him?
• Consalvo: He is turbo-charged. He's been among the most active idea guys (like shot-spotter), proposing regulations and programs incessantly. He has the constituent services role down pat and learned from his Hyde Park friend and neighbor Menino to show up at every event and meeting, to know voters and get known. Rob seems to figure that if Tom can do this, he can. (Disclosure: He's my district guy, has done constituent services for me, and I like him.)
• Ross: He's the Council smarty, which comes with mixed value. We saw in the last mayoral election that smart was not enough, as Sam Yoon came in third and out of the runoff. People tell me they find Ross cold. I don't; he and I have talked cycling and I thought he ran a ship-shape cruise when he was Council president. He is a more visionary sort with larger goals for the city. Will those ideas intrigue voters? Is the timing right for something demanding and different?

I love this stuff. I'm also glad I'm not running for anything. I do promise to pay attention to them though.

Graceless and Spiteful

We should not be surprised that cynical liars, like Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, reacted abominably to the election. Likewise, we can expect delusional and manipulative entertainers like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter to feign all manner of cover stories.

Whether the inane, illogical and in some cases vicious response was a defense mechanism is irrelevant. We, and I hope our re-elected POTUS, have to keep in mind two points:

• Republicans lost this election at the top of the ticket and in Congress
• the winners must dictate the terms going forward

On a personal note, I was kind of hoping that FB chums, some of whom I've known for decades from high school and family, would have the civility to look for pro-America solutions that will require reason from GOP Congress members. Likewise, small statements, even muttered, of congratulations, maybe a little contrition, and acknowledgement that the majority of the voters want Obama's policies are in order.

Particularly on Facebook, the emotion and vitriol were startling before the voting. The nasties have been mute since.

I managed not to respond to even the worst of the lies in the new memes, those "photo" messages, mini-posters. They presented and restated disproven, desperate slanders on the President and other Democrats.

In fairness (the Dem and progressive weakness of showing kindness to the malicious), I admit that my side did engage in insulting Romney, Ryan, Rove and in particular the absurd GOP party platform. Honesty and reason were generally on our side in contrast.

Yet, as we heard in the post-election statements of Speaker of the House Boehner and Senate Minority Leader McConnell, they have no intention of working for the good of the nation. They would let Americans founder to prove their repudiated points and viewpoints. Both have made it plain that Obama needs to bring out the big brass ones to cow them into doing so.

He did that with equal pay for women, DADT and most notably healthcare reform. Doing so seems to be all that the current GOP leaders understand and respect. Compromise, to them, means doing only what they want.

One would think, if one thought, that they would recognize after the election that they would lose their Congressional power and likely the 2016 election if they do not help America to economic recovery. This time in attempted voter suppression and in the previous redistricting in Republican-led states after the 2010 elections to overcome demographics. That was an even bigger failure than the inability to put Romney in during a gimme year of terrible economic times.

Come 2014 when Obamacare kicks in and when the recovery continues over GOP unwillingness to help, Republicans are certain to lose control of the House. Likely too if filibuster reform does not beat them to it, Dems are almost certain to get a supermajority in the Senate.

So there we have the elephants honking away in the wild as though their side hadn't gotten skunked. Boehner and McConnell both blustered that Obama had to forget the policies that brought re-election and support theirs that voters rejected. Get real!

For their supporters, the pretense is that each party is equally as obstructionist and uncompromising. I'll join the chorus of Dems, nonpartisans, and ordinary smart people in calling BS on that. The POTUS' mistake in his first two years was to give in too much to clowns who had no intention of doing anything they were not forced to.

I'm looking forward to the too-often-timid Obama staring down the bad guys.