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Unpredictable nature of at-large council race has candidates losing sleep by Brandon Simes
Managing EditorWednesday Oct 14, 2009 South End campaign stops highlight challenges facing the remaining eight candidates
As the Nov. 3 municipal election nears, the frantic pace of the at-large City Council race continues to pick up. Each of the eight remaining candidates is giving up sleep and any notion of free time in order to win one of the four at-large seats. Case in point: incumbent John Connolly, who finished first on Sept. 22, almost 5,000 votes ahead of his colleague, second-place finisher Stephen Murphy, and 22,529 votes ahead of Andrew Kenneally, who took fifth. The frontrunner, like his opponents, is taking nothing for granted and putting down any rumors about a 2013 mayoral bid.
"No," replied Connolly with laughs when South End News asked if he had given any thought to running for top office in 2013. "No, I learned a long time ago that at-large races are about Nov., not Sept., and the only thing I think about and focus on politically is running hard to Nov. and hopefully getting reelected. That’s all I think about."
Connolly knows, because in 2005 he finished third in the preliminary election before falling to fifth in the finals. With eight candidates vying for four open seats-and only two incumbents in the mix after all four competed in the 2007 race-reading voters’ minds after the preliminary isn’t easy. Some voters simply voted for their top four, others voted strategically, choosing different candidates than they will in the final, some didn’t vote, some did and won’t in Nov., and others may be swayed from one camp to another. Voters left 132,514 blanks in the at-large race, versus a total of 194,550 votes tallied.
The first-term councilor, who called the South End "a bellwether for the whole city" and "a point of emphasis" for his campaign, took the chance to connect face-to-face with about a dozen prospective voters at a meet-and-greet hosted by Blackstone/Franklin Square Neighborhood Association president Andrew Parthum at his Washington Street home on Thursday night, Sept. 24.
"Things change very quickly in at-large races, particularly with the multiple votes. I don’t take anything for granted. I need your vote, one of your four votes. I don’t have to be your first choice, I will gladly be your second choice; I don’t have to be your second, I’ll gladly be your third choice; and I don’t have to be your third either, but I have to be your fourth. If I’m not in the top four, I hope that you will stay home on Election Day," Connolly told the group to laughs.
Fellow finalist Doug Bennett is nearing his goal of knocking on 100,000 doors in the city, which helped earn him a spot in the second round by boosting his previously low name recognition in a very competitive initial field of 15. Bennett, who finished seventh in the preliminary, started first out of the box, visibly campaigning even as far back as January outside Mayor Thomas Menino’s state of the city address. Bennett will also attempt to make inroads locally with a house party at the Shawmut Avenue home of Dorothy and Jim Keeney on Oct. 20.
Tito Jackson named Rose Arruda, a member of Governor Deval Patrick’s administration and longtime South Ender, his new campaign coordinator after finishing sixth in the preliminary. In a meeting with South End News on Oct. 9, Jackson admitted that he wanted to up his presence in the South End with less than a month to go. He finished seventh in Ward 3 and fifth in Wards 4 and 5, but second in Wards 8 and 9, all of which cover a portion of the South End, suggesting sustained efforts locally could make a big difference in the final. Meanwhile, Tomas Gonzalez, who has the most ground to gain after finishing eighth in the preliminary, will focus on the areas where he didn’t do as well on Sept. 22. He finished fifth among finalists in Wards 8 and 9, but eighth in Ward 3, and seventh in Wards 4 and 5.
"I did very well in the neighborhoods where I spent the bulk of my time: Mission Hill, parts of the South End, Lower Roxbury, [Jamaica Plain], Roslindale, Hyde Park," he said. "So, realizing the limited time that we have available to us, and what we assume would be a big turnout moving forward, I’m going to focus a lot of my energy in the North End, Chinatown, the South End, West Roxbury, Roxbury, and in parts of Dorchester. At this point, I can’t focus throughout the entire city, so I just have to raise my numbers where I was sixth or seventh-it can probably be four to three, or four and five."
Gonzalez says he’ll focus on door knocking, visiting train stations during the week, literature drops, standouts, and phone calls.
"It’s the same sort of mechanisms and tools. We’re trying to get obviously some articles about who we are or why we think we’re good in the media, but beyond that it’s really the friend-to-friend network, the family-to-family network. ... There’s really no substitute at this point for the door-to-door, face-to-face contact. Restraining as it is, I’ve found it to be the most rewarding and definitely the most fruitful."
Former independent 3rd Suffolk state rep. candidate and South Ender John Keith attended Connolly’s house party at Parthum’s on Sept. 24. Keith, who is campaigning for Kenneally, has seen firsthand the challenge of earning South End voters’ support. He believes candidates need to not only be smart enough for the job and committed to a marathon campaign, but also personable enough to connect.
"You want somebody that obviously knows what they’re talking about, but you want somebody also that you can feel a connection to," he said.
Half the at-large field-Connolly, Kenneally, Gonzalez, and Felix G. Arroyo, the son of former at-large councilor Felix D. Arroyo and a strong third-place finisher in the preliminary-attempted to make that connection at South End Baseball’s casino night fundraiser on Friday, Oct. 2, at the Red Fez on Washington Street.
Kenneally said at the event he feels humbled to be on the verge of the top four, and will continue his strategy of meeting voters face-to-face on their terms, across the city. The South End should be an area of focus for Kenneally, as he finished last among the finalists in Wards 4, 5, and 9, sixth in Ward 3, as well as seventh in Ward 8. In Ward 1, however, which encompasses his home turf of East Boston, Kenneally finished third overall, with over 16 percent of the vote. Ayanna Pressley, who took home the fourth slot in the preliminary, making her Kenneally’s closest target in the top four, finished fifth in Ward 3, third in Wards 4 and 5, fourth in Ward 8, and third in Ward 9.
"Once you see the results, you see where you’ve done well and you see where you need to do work, and so obviously we’re going to be focusing on those areas to get out the vote more," said Kenneally. "I’m working non-stop, early morning. I get up at 5:00 now, I don’t get to bed till usually midnight. I’m out shaking hands all throughout our city, working all through the day with various meetings and fundraising and doing questionnaires and all the minutia that has to be done for a campaign and then I’m out at night hitting events all over the city again."
Ayanna Pressley, who took home the fourth slot in the preliminary, making her Kenneally’s closest target in the top four, finished fifth in Ward 3, third in Wards 4 and 5, fourth in Ward 8, and third in Ward 9. She also elicited the most obvious positive response from South Enders at a Sept. 15 forum at the Harriet Tubman House, 566 Columbus Avenue, receiving several large ovations. Murphy spoke of his attempts at CORI (Criminal Offender Record Information) reform at the same forum, an issue he has frequently brought up in his campaign efforts, and joked with South Enders about his maturation as a politician from one who said "Give the young man a chance" to one who says, "There’s no substitute for experience." His efforts and high name-recognition paid off reasonably well locally in the preliminary; Murphy finished second in Wards 3 and 5, and fourth in Ward 4. He took fifth in Wards 8 and 9, however, despite his overall second-place tally on Sept. 22.
Third Suffolk State Rep. Aaron Michlewitz, who also attended the South End Baseball fundraiser and donated a pair of tickets to see Boston College take on Florida State the following day, suggests the candidates get creative in their South End campaign efforts as he did with two "Aaron/Aart" events that resulted in local artists donating a portion of their proceeds to United South End Settlements.
"On top of the regular door knocking and being visible at coffee shops like The Buttery and Berkeley Perk, what I found was successful was to sometimes think outside the box on campaigning in the South End, and that’s why we did the art event, the Aaron/Aart event," he said. "I think that that was a huge success, and opened up to a different constituency than would normally be looked upon for being asked for votes."
For Kenneally, campaigning is all about putting in the necessary time.
"You have multiple, multiple events in a given night and you have to make an appearance at all of them as much as you can," he explained. "So it’s going to take a lot of juggling [until Nov. 3]. It’s coming back to hard work. There is no magic secret, there is no magic strategy. You’ve got to get out there, you’ve got to knock on doors, you’ve got to be visible, you’ve got to meet as many people as you can before Election Day."
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