Ray Flynn, congressman

Are you ready for this?

by Michael Crowley

As Boston-area residents slowly waken from their summer reveries and tune in to the political campaigns overtaking the TV airwaves, they will have a surprise waiting for them: chances are, on September 15, Raymond Flynn will lock up a spot in the US House of Representatives to become the next face of Boston in Congress.

It may perplex those people who'd concluded that Flynn's political career had become little more than a joke, but for months every campaign poll has shown the former mayor with a clear lead in the race to succeed the retiring Representative Joe Kennedy (D-Brighton).

Granted, those polls show Flynn garnering only about 20 percent of the vote. But with nine candidates splintering what remains, 20 percent is likely to be enough to win the primary. And in such a heavily Democratic district, the primary is all that counts.

But the political resurrection of Ray Flynn has been happening quietly, during a summer of distractions, and many people may not even be aware of it.

"The news is not about that race," says CNN political analyst and former district resident William Schneider. "It's about the Middle East, it's about Monica. People just aren't paying attention."

They should be. Because before they know it, voters in this district are going to have a congressman who opposes abortion and has lost the goodwill of the local gay community, whose top City Hall aides were sent to jail for corruption, and who made headlines after allegations that he has a serious drinking problem.

They are about to get as a congressman one of the all-time great masters of retail politics -- but also a man whose always unpredictable style has grown even more erratic in recent years. They are about to get a congressman who just last year seemed so unemployable that he was rejected for the job of Northeastern University athletic director.

In short, in Ray Flynn, voters of the Massachusetts Eighth Congressional District are about to get the wrong man. Someone who would cast votes that would anger his constituents almost from day one. Someone likely to be a tragicomic spectacle, the butt of Capitol Hill jokes, a man welcome only in small, fervently supportive pockets of the district.

Most of the voters don't even know this -- something Flynn himself has helped to ensure. Sitting on a safe lead, he has been running a stealth campaign -- avoiding the media, dodging hard questions, trying not to make news.

It is a remarkable strategy, tactically shrewd but morally suspect: Ray Flynn is trying to win without campaigning.

Why does he get away with it? Because Flynn's base of support -- blue-collar Irish Catholics, pro-lifers, and a few Mayor Flynn sentimentalists -- will be with him no matter what he does. And nobody else will. By showing his face, Flynn would only allow his opponents to attack him, and the media to scrutinize him. So he lies low.

Exhibit A: contacted repeatedly by the Phoenix, Flynn's campaign failed to make him available for an interview at any time in a six-day period.

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Not so long ago, Ray Flynn was a towering figure on the Boston political landscape, a parochial-school basketball star from Southie who was an early defender of anti-busing bigotry, but who grew into a racial healer and one of the most popular mayors in the city's history. As mayor from 1983 to 1993, Flynn was a beloved Everyman who raced to crime scenes and fires and perfected an image as a humanitarian crusader for the poor and the homeless.

In 1993 Flynn, 59, left City Hall for a job he coveted, as US ambassador to the Vatican, where he could bond with Pope John Paul II (whom he has called "the greatest man I have ever met, next to my father"), promote international human rights -- and polish his image in preparation for future campaigns.

Three years later, Flynn limped back to the US a tragic figure. Since he'd left for Rome, he'd been the subject of a major ethics probe, been sanctioned twice by the State Department, and seen his first efforts to find a new job fail embarrassingly in the public eye.

As Flynn was mulling a run for governor last fall, things got even worse. A devastating October 3 Boston Globe story portrayed his tenure as ambassador as a disaster, saying he "gave short shrift to the actual work of his embassy, shunning much paperwork, ignoring some important invitations from his diplomatic peers, and rarely showing his face at the office for months at a stretch."

Worse, the article finally addressed an issue political insiders had discussed for years: Flynn's drinking habits. The Globe wrote that Flynn had been known in Boston and Rome for late-night pub crawls that sometimes ended with his aides helping him home. The story even included an editor's account of seeing Flynn at around 6 p.m. on a busy North End street that August -- a time when he was an unofficial candidate for governor -- "[apparently] intoxicated . . . walking unsteadily and slurring his speech."

This was the low point of a sad burlesque that had begun almost the day Flynn left Boston for Rome, a saga that makes it next to impossible to believe that Flynn could function effectively and honorably in the corridors of the Capitol.

In early 1994 he became the target of a three-year investigation of his personal and campaign finances that put two of his top aides in jail. Though accused of complicity in an embezzlement scheme, Flynn himself was cleared, but he admitted he'd been careless about his finances. It was revealed, among other things, that Flynn kept an envelope in his office containing unreported campaign cash.

In Rome, Flynn was everything an ambassador -- especially an ambassador to the pope -- is not supposed to be: a controversial political sideshow. Flynn pulled off the extraordinary feat of drawing two reprimands from the State Department, one for criticizing congressional Republicans and another for shoddy ethics: Flynn used City Hall campaign funds to pay expenses he'd incurred as ambassador, and he had an embassy aide handle his family finances. By January 1997 the Boston Globe was editorializing that Flynn had "become an embarrassment to himself and his country" -- words that have an ominous ring today.

Upon returning to Boston, Flynn began a hopeless, low-budget campaign for governor -- until he spotted something better. When no heavyweights entered the race to succeed Kennedy, Flynn finally saw a job he could land. Although he had lived in South Boston all his life, he rented a house in East Boston and joined the race.

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Perhaps one of the most unsettling things about the thought of Ray Flynn in Congress is how odd his campaign has been. At any given time, Flynn himself is impossible to locate. Messages go unreturned. While some campaigns beg reporters to quote their candidates, Flynn often speaks only through surrogates.

Chalk some of that up to the low-budget, street-level operation Flynn has always been proud to run. But some of it is just plain weirdness.

Consider the experience of In Newsweekly news editor Fred Kuhr, who recently interviewed -- or, rather, tried to interview -- Flynn as part of his paper's series of conversations with the Eighth District candidates. According to an account written by Kuhr, Flynn first refused to be interviewed at the offices of the gay paper, despite the fact that eight of his opponents had already done so.

Kuhr eventually did land an interview with Flynn, who called from a car phone. But Kuhr says that as the conversation turned to controversial issues such as same-sex marriage, the line mysteriously went dead.

Kuhr had to prod Flynn's campaign headquarters to get a callback -- only to have the line go dead again. By now Kuhr had the car phone number. But when he called, an aide told him Flynn had gone into a meeting and would call back. He never did. After several complaints to Flynn headquarters, Kuhr finally did get a call -- from Flynn's lawyer, Harry Grill. (A published transcript of the interview shows no sign that Kuhr did anything confrontational to anger Flynn.)

The story is good for some comic relief. But it also underscores some real concerns about Flynn's beliefs on some basic social issues.

That a gay publication like In Newsweekly was able to get an interview with Flynn in the first place is a surprise. In this campaign, Flynn has alienated large portions of a gay and lesbian community that once considered him an ally. Not only has he expressed no support for key gay rights issues, but he appears to be intentionally ignoring the community. At last month's Boston Pride parade, every single candidate joined the marchers -- except Flynn. Flynn was also the only one not to respond to a recent questionnaire from the Lesbian and Gay Political Alliance of Massachusetts, or to attend that group's candidates' forum.

"He has been totally unavailable to answer questions about his positions on gay and lesbian issues," says Mark Merante, cochair of the Bay State Gay and Lesbian Democrats.

Flynn's dodge tactics make a little more sense in light of what can be gleaned about his positions on gay rights issues these days. Flynn has refused to embrace a bill extending health care benefits to same-sex "domestic partners" of Boston city employees, which is supported by the city council, Boston mayor Tom Menino, and the state legislature. (Flynn doesn't actually come out against the bill -- he simply cops out by saying over and over that he supports "health care for all.") And although he styles himself a crusader for civil rights, Flynn doesn't see anything wrong with a law that prohibits recognition of gay and lesbian marriage.

His strained relations with the gay community are somewhat puzzling given his strong record on gay rights as mayor, which included his support for a statewide gay civil rights bill and his opposition to a state law barring gays from becoming foster parents.

But times have changed, argues Kuhr. "Flynn was good on gay issues in the '80s," he says. "What has happened is that his stance on gay issues has stayed where it was, while the rest of the community has advanced."

Gay activists note that, far from being a fringe interest group, their community accounts for perhaps 10 percent or more of Eighth District voters. And especially at a time when GOP leaders liken homosexuality to kleptomania, those activists say, it's more important than ever to have strong allies in Congress. Hence the title of Kuhr's article: AN ANTI-ENDORSEMENT OF RAY FLYNN.

If Flynn's position on gay rights remains somewhat muddy, there is no question about where he stands on another defining social issue: abortion.

Guided by his devout Catholicism, Flynn is an unflinching pro-lifer, something he tries to avoid mentioning in a district where polls shows some 60 percent of voters don't agree with him. Even Flynn's campaign Web site, which features an entire page devoted to "issues," has -- you guessed it -- no mention of the A-word.

His allies note that as mayor, Flynn never banned abortions at Boston City Hospital -- the implication being that he's no radical on the issue. But could Flynn really have pulled that off even if he'd tried?

And it's not true that Flynn didn't take a conservative line on reproductive health issues as mayor. In fact, he routinely opposed efforts to introduce condom distribution in schools. In 1992 he vetoed a city council ordinance requiring the installation of condom machines in bars. Flynn's proposed alternative to such measures? Teaching abstinence.

Even more relevant is how Flynn treated abortion the last time he was a legislator. As a state representative in the 1970s, Flynn's signature achievement was his cosponsorship of a law barring state health care plans from paying for abortions.

Asked at a televised candidates' forum this month how hard he would push for anti-abortion legislation, Flynn was characteristically vague. But there was no mistaking how he feels.

"I feel very strongly about the issue of pro-life," Flynn said, calling his stance "consistent with my philosophy of being a fighter and a defender for the underdog and for the person without power, without a voice. [I'm a] person who's going to stand up for injustice, and that's what I've done my entire political life, and I will do that if given the opportunity to serve in the United States Congress."

Certainly, Flynn would have plenty of opportunities to vote on abortion issues. The National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL) says Congress has voted on abortion 96 times in the past two years. Indeed, attaching pro-life amendments to unrelated bills has become a favorite tactic of the House's fervent pro-life bloc. With Asian economies in crisis last March, for instance, House Republicans delayed an emergency $18 billion loan to the International Monetary Fund by trying to attach a ban on US funding for international family-planning groups.

"Often these things win or lose by a very small margin," says NARAL political director Gloria Totten.

To be sure, on most economic and policy issues Flynn is as liberal as can be: universal health care, no private investment of Social Security, soak the rich, feed the poor.

But some other issues that are important to liberals remain a question mark. What does Flynn mean, for instance, when he talks about the need for "a strong, secure America" -- does he back any Pentagon budget cuts? And how about that new favorite of religious conservatives in Congress, a "Religious Freedom Amendment" that would allow public funds for religious schools and permit voluntary prayer in the classroom-- would Flynn support it? We don't know.

Oh well, guess we'll find out when he starts voting.

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Once occupied by the legendary likes of John F. Kennedy and former US House Speaker Tip O'Neill, the Massachusetts Eighth Congressional District seat is a hallowed office. Its next occupant will be watched with keen interest by other members of Congress and the national media.

Now take Ray Flynn, who has left nothing but farce and pathos in his wake since 1993, and put him in that kind of spotlight. Could there be a better prescription for disaster?

Life in Congress is intense and demanding, yet in Rome Flynn appears to have had no capacity for hard work. Legislative success requires quiet cooperation with allies; Flynn's political career has always been a one-man show. And navigating the hundreds of issues swirling through Congress requires an appreciation for policy detail. As mayor, Flynn preferred symbolism and the common touch to the intestines of bureaucracy.

Flynn might argue that he needn't pass dozens of laws, that he could simply serve as a defender of the disenfranchised, as a voice for economic populism. But getting people to listen requires credibility, and Flynn has little of that left. The podium-pounding of Joe Kennedy, though he sometimes drew chuckles, could obviously stir his colleagues and the public. One fears Flynn could be considered a ranting loon.

Is a Flynn victory inevitable? Barring a change in the campaign dynamic, it is. One aide to a local officeholder likens Flynn's brawling opponents to crabs in a bucket: when one of them starts crawling out, the others clutch its legs and drag it back down.

But it's still quite possible that Flynn will be beaten. Stopping him, in fact, has become the organizing principle of this campaign's final days.

Several interest groups wary of Flynn may yet line up behind a single candidate, hoping to create a clear Flynn alternative and thereby blunt the splinter-vote effect.

Gay activists have already begun to do this, throwing a string of key endorsements to former talk-radio host Marjorie Clapprood, who has been backed by Bay Windows, In Newsweekly, and the Lesbian and Gay Political Alliance of Massachusetts.

Increasingly panicky abortion-rights groups also appear ready to join the battle. NARAL's Totten reports that her group will decide "by the end of this week" whether to endorse a candidate. Even if that doesn't happen, NARAL will try to inflate the anti-Flynn vote with a strong pro-choice turnout.

"At a minimum," Totten says, "we will be active in educating voters on Flynn's position on reproductive-choice issues."

Meanwhile, Flynn is already under mounting attack from his rivals. Somerville mayor Michael Capuano is saying that Flynn left the Boston school system "in a shambles." Clapprood and former state senator George Bachrach have stepped up their pro-choice rhetoric.

The best news of all for these candidates is that nobody has really started paying attention to the race yet. Mike Capuano simply can't compete with Cape Cod and Saving Private Ryan. But prime-time television is already filling up with the candidates' ads. Direct mail is flooding the district. As soon as Labor Day has passed, voters will finally pause to take in this campaign.

With luck, they will respond by electing someone in whom the district can feel confident. Otherwise, on September 16 they'll be thinking about who can replace Ray Flynn in the year 2000.

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