Word over the weekend that an outside group backing Marty Walsh was sending a mailer that disparaged John Connolly as a “son of privilege” and “privileged corporate lawyer” was the first thing resembling a real attack in the Boston mayoral race. And it was pretty weak tea at that.
But perhaps it was enough to plant at least a seed of hope for those who have been prodding , begging, and daring the candidates to give voters a race worthy of their attention — by throwing wild roundhouse punches at each other.
Things may get more heated as the race enters its final two weeks, but the only real hardball likely to be played in the coming days will probably be outside Kenmore Square. That has Boston University professor Thomas Whalen, writing on WBUR’s “Cognoscenti” blog, waxing nostalgic for the days of the great Kevin White-Joe Timilty showdowns of the 1970s. “To say White and Timilty disliked each other is a little like saying Athens and Sparta had some unpleasant encounters in ancient times,” writes Whalen.
And with that, the fur — and mud — was flying, especially in their 1975 race, the closest of the three mayoral races in which the two pols faced each other. On the day before Halloween, Whalen writes, White’s police commissioner launched a completely unsubstantiated charge that connected Timilty to some former cops who supposedly had ties to organized crime. A Timilty partisan from that time once told me of a time a city DPW crew happened to show up outside a Timilty campaign office and spent the day jackhammering a sidewalk that was in perfect repair.
“It seems unlikely that either Connolly or Walsh will be able to capture the same kind of high emotion or invective in the [two] weeks remaining of this mayoral race. And maybe that’s for the better,” writes Whalen. “But if you judge politics as being the ultimate form of public theater, you can’t help but look back nostalgically to a time when Boston mayoral contestants were not afraid to display their raw emotions toward one another on their sleeves.”
The good old days, as Whalen suggests, weren’t always that good, a view that finds a strong echo in Larry DiCara’s recent memoir from the same period in Boston politics. The excitement and drama of some earlier Boston mayoral tilts was often driven by fairly base tribal rivalries. Issue-focused debate over the future direction for the city was often not the focus of the blood sport version of politics that seems to have faded from the scene.
There is a lot of overlap in the views put forward by Connolly and Walsh, and Whalen is not wrong to lament the fact that the race seems to be “generating all the excitement of A Flock of Seagulls reunion concert.” There are differences, however, in the candidates’ past records and in their views going forward. There is nothing wrong with either side drawing sharp distinctions where they exist. There is even a way to do that without dragging the whole race down into the mud. Tonight’s second of three televised debates — this one on high-minded public television no less — seems like a great place to give it a try.
–MICHAEL JONAS
BEACON HILL
Saugus joined the Group Insurance Commission in 2007 to save money on health insurance for its employees and now it’s preparing to leave to save about $1 million, the Item reports.
The $1-per-pack increase in the cigarette tax could fuel a black market in cigarettes, the state’s Illegal Tobacco Commission is told.
MUNICIPAL MATTERS
People going to Brockton City Hall on business best not seek immediate relief, at least in the bathroom, because city officials have locked the public rest room doors and require visitors to leave some identification or collateral to get the key from the mayor’s office.
Boston Mayor Tom Menino reveals that he’s entertaining job offers from Harvard University — raising the prospect of a conflict of interest, since Menino’s redevelopment agency just greenlit a 10-year development plan for the university.
The Pittsfield School Committee ends up on the wrong side of the open meeting law.
CASINOS
The Globe reports on two names that have surfaced as Suffolks Downs scrambles to find a new casino operator.
Caesars Entertainment, last seen exiting a proposed East Boston casino after running into problems with its state background check, is now the subject of a Treasury Department money-laundering investigation. The Wall Street Journal writes that the East Boston casino chase is as much about the decline of horse racing as it is about the ascendance of slot machines. Suffolk Downs races to sign on a new casino operator ahead of its November 5 neighborhood referendum.
The state Gaming Commission hears nearly four hours of community testimony on the proposed slots parlor in Leominster, the Telegram & Gazette reports. The slots operator, PPE Casino Resorts MA LLC, agrees to pay Westminster $5,000 annually as mitigation.
Across the border in New York, voters will soon decide whether to license as many as seven casinos.
MARATHON BOMBING
Red Sox players and employees discuss how the bombing affected the team.
NATIONAL POLITICS/WASHINGTON
President Obama addresses the technical problems plaguing HealthCare.gov, as Ohio moves to expand Medicaid under Obamacare, over protests from conservative lawmakers.
California tries to bridge the partisan political divide by scrapping partisan primaries and giving the power to draw political districts to a nonpartisan commission, Governing reports.
On same-sex marriage, New Jersey says, “I do.” Meanwhile, the Southern Baptist Convention, which once warned of a “radical homosexual agenda,” considers exiting the marriage and culture wars.
Peter Schweitzer, the Stanford University fellow who shone a light on congressional insider trading, is back, and this time, he’s taking aim at congressional leadership PACs. Schweitzer argues that the special PACs, which lack some of the strictures of traditional campaign committees, have become slush funds financing lavish expenditures, and represent legalized extortion.
The GOP’s popularity plummets further, according to a new Washington Post/ABC News poll.
Chamber of Commerce president Tom Donahue — whose organization unabashedly supports conservatives, especially Republicans — says Sen. Ted Cruz needs to learn to “sit down and shut up.”
ELECTIONS
Mayor Matters: As part of a series of CommonWealth essays in the run-up to the November 5 election, Don Gillis says Boston’s next mayor needs to adopt a muscular social and economic justice agenda to address rising levels of inequality. Kevin White guided Boston through its darkest hour, writes James Aloisi in his latest CommonWealth installment on pivotal mayoral races of the past.
Mayor Tom Menino has promised to stay out of the race to succeed him, but that doesn’t stop him from taking some subtle digs at Marty Walsh.
State Sen. Dan Wolf, citing lengthy deliberations by the Ethics Commission, drops his campaign for governor, the Associated Press reports.
A candidate for city council in Methuen stirs controversy by saying neighboring Lawrence is “the drug capital of New England,” the Eagle-Tribune reports.
Voter registration is up 8 percent in Lawrence, with about 71 percent of the city’s voting-age population now registered to vote, the Eagle-Tribune reports.
BUSINESS/ECONOMY
The best way to reduce income inequality is to increase wealth not create more jobs, the former mayor of Kansas City says in Governing.
In his weekly Globe column, CommonWealth’s Paul McMorrow looks at the never-ending quest for a remake of Worcester’s downtown.
Steven Syre tries to play peacemaker in the long-running battle between Boston’s Charles Street AME Church and OneUnited Bank.
EDUCATION
Student loan debt for graduates of public colleges and universities in Massachusetts is up 27 percent over the last three years, the State House News reports.
Worcester School Superintendent Melinda Boone cites significant gains across the district and adds a dig at charter school proponents. “We don’t have to give ourselves away to be successful,” she said.
A rapper who is deaf underlines the importance of music education at the Learning Center for the Deaf in Framingham.
HEALTH CARE
A burned-out doctor says her decision to quit was based on self-preservation.
TRANSPORTATION
More Orange and Red Line trains: Gov. Deval Patrick will announce a $1.3 billion MBTA procurement program and the move toward electronic tolling.
The Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad Co. is hoping to renew its contract to operate the MBTA’s commuter rail system even though ridership is down 12.5 percent since company first landed the contract a decade ago.
ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT
UMass Dartmouth administrators have frozen an account bankrolled by an optional $15 “green fee” that students approved last year and left the school’s Sustainability Office unfunded this year without explanation.
A study by a nonprofit research group is urging Quincy officials to prepare for a rise in ocean levels that could cover parts of the city in six feet of water by the end of the century.
The so-called wind turbine syndrome may be a psychosomatic condition.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
The judge in the Aaron Hernandez murder case rejected a motion to remove herself from the trial after prosecutors sought her recusal, charging she had a history of antagonism toward the lead prosecutor in the case.
A Pittsfield city councilor is indicted for allegedly buying oxycontin and tipping off a drug dealer that the police were on his trail.
A Quincy couple has been charged with animal cruelty after police say they put a friend’s cat in a dryer, causing it to die of burns and broken bones. Investigators say that Christopher Lang, one of the people charged, could be responsible for the deaths of as many as nine other pet cats.
