The un-campaign

Part 5

by Yvonne Abraham

The mayor seems to be having a good day.

On the trip from East Boston to Fields Corner, he is whistling. It's not a tune at all: every 15 minutes or so, he just holds a single warbly note for couple of seconds and then stops. He points out a big, handsome yellow house on a Dorchester street. "That's my daughter's house," he says proudly. A few minutes later, he sings "happy days." Not "Happy Days Are Here Again." Just "happy" and "days," and that's all.

Happy, indeed.

And yet, running against nobody isn't all good. Sure, having no opponent cuts down on the negative campaigning. But without someone to define himself against, Menino has no excuse to trumpet his own achievements. In such a context, striking a balance between boasting and looking complacent can be tricky.

"I have mixed feelings about having no opposition," Menino says. "If you have an opponent, you have an opportunity to talk about the issues and what you've accomplished. But it's not my style to boast."

"You can't take the voters for granted," says Beth Sickler, Menino's campaign manager. She was hired in mid-May, at $3500 a month, and has worked a lot of campaigns before. None of them have been quite as low-key this. "You can't treat the election with arrogance," she says. "People appreciate being asked for their vote."

To ask people for their vote in the right way, the Menino Committee paid polling firm Harrison & Goldberg $51,000 to conduct surveys and convene focus groups to discover just how popular the mayor is, and which issues his campaign should highlight.

They found that he was very, very popular. They also found that citizens were most impressed by Menino's record on education, crime reduction, and the economy.

In July, Morris & Carrick, a New York media firm (with Boston connections), produced a $357,575 TV spot called "Great City." In it, a shirtsleeved Menino walks with a friendly couple in a neighborhood, bonds with a multi-hued group of kids on a stoop, and looks statesmanlike in suit and tie in an office.

"A great city is judged by the safety of its neighborhoods, the quality of its schools, the jobs it creates," his voice-over goes. He tells us crime is down, middle school test scores are up, and the economy is good. "Boston is a great city," he says at the end, as the camera fixes him with a close-up.

"Together we can make it even better."

Campaigns are not just about winning the next election. They're about building political capital for the future, too. At the most basic level, it's important for Menino to stage at least a perfunctory campaign to keep his extensive electoral machinery running smoothly: he might need it later, and it wouldn't do for all those fundraisers and footsoldiers to get rusty.

Getting voters to the polls in large numbers would also provide the mayor with a mandate for his second term, although Menino himself doesn't see it that way. "What's a mandate?" asks the mayor. "In the next day's newspaper, they say you got 65 percent or 75 percent, then you gotta go and do your job."

There's always higher office. Menino's name has been bandied about for Joe Moakley's congressional seat, if that ever should become vacant in time for him to take advantage of it. The mayor says no: "I'm not gonna discount anything, but I doubt it very much," he says. "As mayor, you can affect people's lives every day."

He was even mentioned as a contender for governor in those heady, confused days after Joe Kennedy's abrupt departure. He says he's not crazy about that job either. "I was out of town when somebody put my name in the paper. This might sound a little hokey, but I'm not leaving till I have the schools where they need to be."

So does that mean Menino will go back on his pledge to serve only two terms? You betcha.

"I always said `Two terms per century,' " he says, with a laugh.

Back to part 4 - On to part 6

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

Kate Cunningham provided research assistance on this article.