It is arguable that Boston Mayor Tom Menino hasn't had a new idea in over a decade, city services lumber along and the crime rate spikes and drops and spikes and drops...and yet for all that he has a twenty five point lead over his nearest rival in this year's mayoral election.
Meanwhile Governor Deval Patrick who bristles with good ideas from pension reform to consolidation of transportation bureaus is at best a fifty fifty shot for re-election next year.
Of course I've long maintained being Mayor of Boston even a would-be five term wonder like Tom just doesn't engender the scrutiny a that gets applied to a sitting Governor. Some of this is tribalism, some it is is just a bad local custom in action....the rest of it is plain inexplicable.
The contrast though couldn't be starker, Menino has risen from unintelligible to simply boring, Patrick is a master rhetorician, crisp and precise in all his public pronouncements.
Yet Tom is coasting to victory while Deval must look over his shoulder and apply the whip.
The crowning irony is that Menino's current rivals Sam Yoon and Michael Flaherty do seem to have some interesting ideas or at least contrasting notions as to how Boston functions as a community...whereas Governor Patrick's potential opponents (Harvard Pilgrim CEO Charlie Baker and State Treasurer Tim Cahill) will be hard pressed when the time comes to explain to the public just what the hell they can do differently.
No comments :
Post a Comment