Suddenly Susan

Can Susan Tracy overcome big names and big money -- and make history -- in her run for Congress?

Talking Politics by Michael Crowley

"Hold on a sec," says Susan Tracy. She has just arrived in the Back Bay for a lunchtime interview, but before escaping the sweltering heat in an air-conditioned restaurant, she makes a beeline for a UPS truck double-parked at the corner of Dartmouth and Newbury Streets. "The driver is my niece's fiancé!"

But the driver is nowhere to be found. So how does she know who he is? "Oh, it's Anthony," Tracy says, flashing her easygoing, slightly mischievous smile. "I know this is his route."

The moment is a useful introduction to Tracy, a fresh-faced former state representative born and raised in blue-collar Brighton. She prides herself on knowing and understanding the ordinary people of the Eighth Congressional District, which she hopes to represent in the US Congress once Representative Joe Kennedy (D-Brighton) has retired. You get the feeling she could go to any part of town and know the UPS guy. And that's just what she wants. After all, the slogan on her campaign fliers reads: "She's one of us. And always will be."

"There is a quality that really good pols have which shows up in surveys," says Howard Leibowitz, a top aide to Boston mayor Tom Menino and a longtime friend of Tracy's. "It's 'That person cares about people like me.' And that's something Susan will always rank highly on because people think she really does care about their problems and needs."

This is the foundation of Tracy's candidacy: neighborhood, bread and butter, the common touch. But beneath her fairly quotidian exterior, Tracy is an unexpectedly complex figure. She is a die-hard liberal who helped engineer the election of a socially conservative Speaker in the state House of Representatives. She is a woman in a male-dominated political culture who has mastered the knowing wink and the quick backslap. She is the favorite daughter of a traditional working-class neighborhood who recently acknowledged that she is a lesbian. What's more, hers is something of a historic candidacy. If elected, she would not only be just the fourth woman Massachusetts has ever sent to Washington -- she would also be the first openly gay person ever to win an open congressional seat.

In a jumbled 13-candidate race for the Eighth District -- which represents most of Boston as well as Cambridge, Somer-ville, Watertown, Belmont, Charlestown, and Chelsea -- it's not easy for a no-frills, low-budget candidate like Tracy to distinguish herself. Though once considered a potential front-runner, she has struggled to emerge from the shadows of such celebrity rivals as former Boston mayor Ray Flynn and former state representative and talk-radio host Marjorie Clapprood, and to compete with the cash of millionaire businessmen Chris Gabrieli and John O'Connor.

As a result, Tracy is generally considered a long shot to win the September 15 Democratic primary that will effectively decide the seat's winner. But after getting lost in the race's initial shuffle, she's begun to hit her stride. Last week brought Tracy the endorsements of the National Women's Political Caucus, the Washington-based Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, the politically powerful Local 26 of the Hotel and Restaurant Workers, and a fawning assessment from Boston Globe columnist Thomas Oliphant. And either this week or early next month, Tracy is expected to win the backing of the Massachusetts state police.

"Clearly she is beginning to demonstrate that she is the credible and substantive woman in the race," says House Speaker Thomas Finneran (D-Mattapan), another Tracy friend and supporter. "There is obviously less snap, crackle, and pop and less sizzle in her approach, but in my opinion there's a lot more substance."

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The daughter of a railroad-worker father and a mother who was a Sears clerk, Susan Tracy waitressed her way through Boston College and worked in a nursing home before starting her political career in 1984 at Boston City Hall, where she was given the job of coordinating the city's services for the homeless at the tender age of 25. (The mayor at the time was one Raymond Flynn -- then a mentor, now a rival.)

Tracy, now 37, quickly bounced through several political arenas -- earning a degree from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, running the Dukakis presidential campaign in Washington state, and serving another stint under Flynn in his budget office. In 1990 she ran successfully for the state House of Representatives, where she quickly became a rising star but left after just two terms. She's since been running a political consulting outfit, where she's done grunt work for such heavies as Tom Finneran and Tom Menino.

Throughout her career, Tracy has always been more of a negotioator than a firebrand. "I don't engage in a lot of hyperbole," she says. I'm not someone who rails against everything and everyone."

That attitude shows in her decidedly unflashy campaign platform. She'd like to make pensions "portable" from job to job, so the transient worker of the next century can have something to retire on. She wants a new focus on housing -- an issue that she says "no one talks about anymore" -- and calls for more funding for affordable housing construction, tax deductions for renters, and a special tax break for people who spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent.

A staunch supporter of abortion rights, gay rights, and tougher gun-control laws, Tracy also argues that the Pentagon budget is too large and that America's health care system is focused "too much on profit and not enough on people." And at a time when even many liberals avoid criticizing popular welfare-reform programs, Tracy is willing to be uncommonly frank. "There will always be some group of people who probably are never going to be able to work," she says. "And that's just life. There's not enough compassion on that front."

Tracy likes to boast that she brings a fresh voice to a race filled with candidates "who were at their peak 10 years ago" -- notably Clapprood, who lost a 1990 bid for lieutenant governor, and Flynn, who ran his first campaign more than two decades ago.

But some critics charge that there's nothing at all new about her meat-and-potatoes liberalism. Indeed, at a candidates' forum at the Cambridge YWCA last week, Tracy sounded like a target when Chris Gabrieli, a New Democrat running on a platform of innovative ideas, denounced his opponents' "empty, banal, politics-as-usual, politics-of-the-past platitudes."

Such criticism doesn't seem to bother Tracy, however. She says she would emulate Representative Joe Moakley (D-South Boston), the king of constituent service and pork-barrel politics. Tracy could never match the fiery grandstanding of Joe Kennedy, but it's not hard to imagine her assuming a Moakley-like role: content to play a minor part in the sweeping national political debate, but never forgetting the widow's Social Security check or the new housing development back home.

"It's less about how new the idea is," Tracy says, "and more about what you accomplish that actually makes someone's life better."

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For all her liberal credentials, however, Susan Tracy has been dogged by her relationship with a social conservative often reviled by her fellow progressives: House Speaker Tom Finneran.

A friend and supporter of Tracy, Finneran has kind words for his former colleague. "Susan was, in my opinion, one of the larger talents in the building," he says. "She has a great gift -- it's a unique ability, and one that should be cherished in a legislative arena, of listening closely to people who are miles apart on an issue and finding a principled way to try to bring them together."

Finneran is not one to offer praise lightly. Although some critics say Tracy accomplished little on Beacon Hill, in her four years at the State House she did win passage of a major state sexual-harassment law, a new program providing health insurance to the homeless, and a plan to remove abandoned trolley tracks in Brighton.

In some respects, Tracy's close friendship with Finneran has clearly been a boon to her campaign. It brings her not only credibility but cash, thanks to events such as the $500-a-head April fundraiser thrown for her by Finneran, who reportedly put the squeeze on State House lobbyists to pony up contributions.

But at the same time, their relationship has brought Tracy some sharp criticism. In April 1996 Tracy, then a political consultant, helped round up support for Finneran in his bitterly contested fight for the Speakership against then-Democratic Majority Leader Richard Voke, who was far more liberal on social issues than the Catholic Finneran.

Ideologically, Tracy had more in common with Voke. But she was closer to Finneran personally. And so she urged her former colleagues, by phone or over lunch, to back Finneran. State House observers particularly credit Tracy with helping to win several progressive female legislators over to his side.

Tracy's efforts probably didn't make a pivotal difference in Finneran's 24-vote triumph. But to a degree, her actions are now coming back to haunt her. In his two years as Speaker, Finneran has often dismayed progressives by blocking their legislative priorities, holding up everything from attempts to soften welfare reform to abortion-rights and gay-rights measures. Most recently, he became the lone Beacon Hill leader to voice opposition to a boost in the state minimum wage.

"People are wondering how far her commitment to our issues goes if she's willing to support someone like Finneran," says Sean Cahill, chair of the Lesbian and Gay Political Alliance and director of the Massachusetts Human Services Coalition. "What types of deals is she going to broker with Newt Gingrich? That's a legitimate concern."

And it's a concern that Tracy hears often. At a candidates' forum last week sponsored by the Alliance, one questioner asked Tracy how someone who is gay herself could have supported a "homophobe" like Finneran for Speaker.

Asked about Tracy at a May fundraiser attended by gay South End professionals, Clapprood reminded her audience that Tracy has "invested her political capital in a Speaker who's holding up a woman's right to choose and some gay-rights issues we really care about."

In response, Tracy argues that she has several important areas of agreement with Finneran, such as their shared opposition to the death penalty, and that her relationship with him shows an ability to compromise.

"If I go to Washington, I'm going to have to work with people, the majority of whom will not agree with me," she says. "I wouldn't want them to think, 'I couldn't work with her.' "

Finneran, for his part, says his critics exaggerate. "There is not one vote that [Voke] and I ever differed on, except for abortion," he says. And as for the way Clapprood has used him as a villain, he notes that he's gotten three messages from her seeking his support.

"All of a sudden, because I'm with Susan, I guess I've become Attila the Hun," Finneran says. "But there are three calls asking for Attila's active support and commitment. So there's a huge hypocrisy at work here."

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One can only imagine how much Clapprood's sniping must irk Tracy. After all, Tracy has toiled in local politics for 15 years, paying her dues, forging relationships in the neighborhoods. Then suddenly a talk-radio host carpetbags into the district from the suburb of Sharon and quickly establishes herself as the race's leading lady.

Underscoring the point, one member of the Clapprood team dismisses Tracy as "a blip on Margie's screen."

But the indignity gets even worse. Ray Flynn, the man who gave Tracy her start in politics, couldn't resist the prospect of taking Joe Kennedy's place in Congress, even if it meant delivering a serious blow to his former aide's promising political

career. Even if it meant dominating the political news on the day of Tracy's official campaign kickoff.

Tracy professes to have no bitterness about such political subplots. But there's an edge to her campaign literature that betrays a touch of frustration. "She's not wealthy or flashy," her fliers explain. "She's not a political rerun or a celebrity."

Forced to define herself in part by what she isn't, some observers say, Tracy may also risk muddying what she is.

"I think Sue Tracy redefined herself when she didn't need any redefinition," says Republican political consultant Kevin Sowyrda. Before coming out, "she was known as a former state legislator who paid attention to the district, who was progressive on the issues, and who was a good listener. [Now] she is known as 'the openly gay candidate for Congress,' 'the openly gay candidate for Congress,' and 'the openly gay candidate for Congress.' " (Not that Tracy had much choice in the matter; by the time she sat down with the Boston Herald's Peter Gelzinis for a column disclosing her sexuality, the paper's Howie Carr had all but outed her.)

Tracy, who still doesn't seem entirely comfortable discussing what she says one senior in her district recently called "the G-A-Y thing," says she's "well aware of the history." By that she means the fact that no openly gay person not already in office has ever won a congressional election. (Representative Barney Frank and former representative Gerry Studds both came out only after several years in the House.)

But Tracy's allies argue that a woman who can kick off her campaign at a Brighton senior center one week and hold a fundraising brunch at Café Heaven in Provincetown the next makes for a strong candidate. Her backing from groups representing women, bricklayers, gays, and cops, they say, shows a diversity of support so far unmatched by her opponents.

"Susan is starting to demonstrate that different people, almost like the district itself, can come together in her campaign," says campaign manager Dave Newman. "She's putting together a team that looks like the Eighth District."

Despite such rosy imagery, though, even some Tracy admirers give her little chance of winning. Although her campaign expects to report a healthy $185,000 to $200,000 raised by month's end, she'll never be a fundraising leader, which will make it hard for her to close the name-recognition gap she now faces. And several campaign veterans say low-turnout Allston-Brighton is a weak base from which to mount a wider campaign.

But insert your favorite cliché about the unpredictability of Massachusetts politics here, and don't write Tracy off just yet. A controversial tape from Clapprood's radio past may yet surface. Ray Flynn's considerable baggage may yet catch up with him. And Tracy may yet win important endorsements from the national pro-choice women's fundraising group EMILY's List, where Tracy has personal ties -- and, if she's a viable candidate down the stretch, from her friend Tom Menino.

"Half the battle's just getting on the radar screen," says Democratic consultant Mary Anne Marsh. "In this past week more people have had the opportunity to see who Susan is. If she can get one or two breaks, she can end up surprising people."

Surprising people and winning aren't the same thing. But Susan Tracy paid her dues to get where she is. And she's not going down without a fight.

Michael Crowley can be reached at mcrowley[a]phx.com.