The un-campaign

Part 2

by Yvonne Abraham

It is 9:30 a.m. on a Saturday, and by the time Menino arrives, the Curtis Guild Elementary School, in East Boston, is jammed. Kids, parents, and TV crews are gathered just inside the school's entrance for Boston's third annual Net Day: today, 29 more schools will be hooked up with computers and Internet access. But that's not the best part: more than computers arrive in East Boston. Bill Cosby is here, too, accompanied by Senator Ted Kennedy.

After a tour, Cosby goes off to film a public service announcement. In a narrow hallway, a circle of TV cameras closes around Kennedy, and the reporters seem to be hanging on the senator's every word.

Menino, who became the Education Mayor by publicly staking his reputation on the schools (and promising one computer for every four children by 2001), stands just outside the circle, looking a little bored and neglected, but waiting nonetheless.

"You want me?" he finally asks a Channel 56 cameraman who'd asked him to stick around and seems to have forgotten him.

"Of course I do," says the cameraman, and the lights go on and the mayor goes on and it's over in a minute. Then there's a crush, as Kennedy and Cosby head down the hallway. "Quite a circus," says a reporter.

"Yeah," says the mayor, and rolls his eyes. "And here comes the parade."

Then everybody crowds into the auditorium. Menino is introduced by a precocious little kid called Sahar Hakim. "When you were this age," the mayor asks the audience, "could you get up and talk in front of all of these folks? I know I couldn't." That gets laughs from those who know Menino's reputation for malapropisms, and he rides it all the way. "Sometimes I still have a problem," he ad libs, which provokes loud applause, even from the press box.

Hakim stands beside the mayor as he speaks, waving at her mother, making the audience laugh. Menino stops and stares at her a long time, till she notices him and looks sheepish. More laughs.

"Are you trying to upstage me?" Menino asks her. "Hey, Cosby! Here's another one."

Menino has been pretty laid-back this election season. Not having an opponent will do that to a candidate. There is a campaign strategy, however: link the city's successes -- improvements in education, lower crime rates, a good economy -- with the mayor's administration, and milk it. Though there have been a few mailings and a TV spot, the mayor has been campaigning by sticking to his usual schedule of appearances, acting like his own best advertisement.

Indeed, publicly, the mayor seems to be taking only slight notice of the election. Behind the scenes, it's a little busier. The campaign against no one still shows expenditures of $524,909 since June 1. And for all the money going out, even more has been coming in.

The un-campaign was not official until July 29, when the deadline for opponents to file signatures passed and no one appeared. Unofficially, however, it began much earlier.

One of Menino's close advisers says he'd known since the end of last year that there would be no threat to the incumbent. Both major newspapers had been assuming a second term since the beginning of this year. A February Herald poll gave Menino a 74 percent favorability rating. His political consultants did their own poll in the spring and put his approval level at 82 percent. Beth Sickler, who became the mayor's campaign manager this past May, says that back then, the possibility of an opponent surfacing had been slim. For more than a year, almost every article about Menino had made a fuss over his electoral invincibility and his huge, unmatchable war chest -- which, in turn, drove potential opponents further away.

Menino's money begat money, as donors continued to give even after he seemed invincible. Of the $765,000 the Menino Committee raised this year, $5400 -- 71 percent -- was collected between June 1 and September 30, when it was clear that the election was a lock.

And most of that -- $455,000 -- was raised in June, when Menino held one of his big annual downtown fundraisers, a cocktail party at the World Trade Center. Some 400 people each paid $125 to attend. They were welcome to donate more, of course, and many of them did. Although campaign finance chairman Joe Maher says he and Menino were still worried in June that a rival might come forward, many of the people who gave to the mayor at that function must have known the chances of him being opposed -- let alone threatened -- were minuscule.

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Yvonne Abraham can be reached at yabraham[a]phx.com.

Kate Cunningham provided research assistance on this article.