AS A REBOOT, it’s not clear it did much to clear the cache or restart the operating system.
On Sunday, Josh Kraft gathered with supporters at the Ironworkers Local in South Boston to deliver what a press release billed as “an important campaign update and speech.” What followed in his remarks, however, was largely a restatement of positions he’s put forward on everything from rent control to bike lanes and the problems at Mass. and Cass.
Kraft then turned to Mayor Michelle Wu and ripped her for spreading what the text of his speech called “falsehood after falsehood” about him. Kraft, who is Wu’s main opponent in this fall’s Boston mayoral election, took on the charge that he is “new to Boston,” questions about his family’s business dealings, and the relationship of his father, billionaire New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, and Donald Trump.
Kraft, who grew up in Boston’s tony suburbs and only moved into the city two years ago, ran through his admirable bio of decades of work in the city as CEO of the Boys and Girls Club of Boston. Reminding voters at the same time of Wu’s far-away roots, the 58-year-old Kraft said he was walking truant kids to school in tough Boston neighborhoods when Wu, 40, was being walked to elementary school by her parents in the suburbs of Chicago.
He emphasized that he has no involvement in his family’s business dealings and then took on the issue of his father’s longstanding friendship with Trump. Josh Kraft, who has made clear that he has never voted for Trump and objects to his policies, doubled down on distancing himself from his dad’s connections to the president. Trump has “actively attacked democratic institutions, and stoked hatred and division throughout our country,” Kraft said.
It was stronger language than Kraft has used to date, and it left little doubt that he shares the revulsion toward Trump of many Boston voters, only 1 in 5 of whom cast a ballot for the president last November. But it didn’t seem like much of a reset or “Do-over debut,” as Politico Playbook headlined its write-up.
“If you’re explaining, you’re losing” is a well-known axiom of campaign strategy.
Whether it’s making clear that he does not share his dad’s views on Trump, or looking to undercut attacks that he only recently moved into the city by pointing out that he’s spent years working in Boston neighborhoods, Kraft still seems to be doing a lot of explaining, six months after launching his campaign.
When it comes to Trump, he also has been dragged into an issue where he’s trying to score points on Wu’s playing field.
Disdain for Trump isn’t something, on its own, that helps you stand out in a Boston election; it’s become a baseline requirement for entry in the race.
Meanwhile, it’s hard to see how Kraft can score anti-Trump points against Wu after she stood her ground against Trump’s Republican attack dogs in testimony before a congressional committee in March on sanctuary city policies.
Kraft also seems to be working overtime to emphasize his Democratic Party affiliation – something that’s usually a non-issue in Boston’s nonpartisan municipal elections. (It’s been more than 50 years since Boston last saw a serious Republican candidate for mayor, John Winthrop Sears, a Beacon Hill blueblood, who garnered 15 percent of the vote and finished third in the 1967 preliminary election.)
Kraft’s campaign placards prominently promote “Josh Kraft – Democrat for Mayor,” as do the chyrons on his TV ads.
His loud Democratic Party proclamations – which seem like a further bid to distance himself from all things Trump-related – are now drawing coverage, but not the kind Kraft is seeking.
Today’s Globe reports that Kraft’s campaign has sent at least five different fundraising emails that pair a request to support his campaign with a plea for donations to prominent Democrats, including US Sen. Adam Schiff of California and former North Carolina governor Roy Cooper, who is now running for Senate there.
The Globe says such “split list fund-raising” is not unusual in Democratic Party politics – but none of the five Democrats Kraft has linked his own pitch to has endorsed him or sanctioned the joint fundraising effort. Two of them, Schiff and US Rep. Eric Swalwell, asked Kraft to stop sending the emails. The Globe says it did not hear back from the other three Democrats on Monday.
Kraft’s campaign called the emails a mistake and said it is ending its contract with the vendor that sent them.
A Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll released last month had Kraft trailing Wu by 30 points. That’s a lot of ground to make up – and developments over the last few days don’t seem likely to move things in his direction.
