Elections

Peggy Davis-Mullen for secretary of state?

by Ben Geman

DAVIS_MULLEN: eyeing higher office

City Councilor Peggy Davis-Mullen may launch a long-shot bid against Mayor Tom Menino next year. But it's not the only higher office she's eyeing.

The at-large councilor is considering a run for secretary of state should incumbent William Galvin, one of several potential gubernatorial hopefuls, run for governor in 2002. "I have always thought the secretary of state's job is an interesting one," says Davis-Mullen, who notes that mayor and secretary of state are the only seats she'd consider. "There are a lot of parallels there to things I am interested in, like educating voters," she adds. Still, the councilor says it's early to forecast the 2002 political landscape, and she says she wouldn't challenge Galvin if he were to run for re-election.

On the mayoral front, Davis-Mullen figures she has until late fall to decide whether she wants to challenge Menino; she'll wait and see how he weathers issues such as the controversy over waterfront-development benefits. "There are a lot of potential bombs out there," she says. "There's [the waterfront], the Red Sox, City Hall Plaza. Potential problems. Potential missteps."

And in what sounds like an early campaign hook, Davis-Mullen says money won't matter if Menino has worn out his welcome. She'd better hope so, considering she'll have a lot less of it. "It's a race that won't be run with money," she claims. "It would be a race that, hopefully, you would get a feeling from the city and from people -- and if you don't get that feeling . . . I obviously won't do it." (Her at-large colleague, Councilor Francis "Mickey" Roache, is making more or less the same calculations on a possible challenge to Menino.)

Will a Davis-Mullen challenge to Menino materialize? Probably not. But as her early speculation about the secretary of state's office implies, Davis-Mullen, like almost every city councilor, doesn't want to be in a mayor's shadow forever.