E-Mail This Article to a Friend Running start Political newcomers Patricia White and Matt O’Malley face four incumbents and a bevy of challengers in the at-large Boston City Council race. Are they ready for prime time? BY ADAM REILLY
	In the bank AS AUGUST EASED into September, council president Michael Flaherty’s campaign had more cash on hand than the other at-large candidates’ campaigns put together. Challenger Matt O’Malley hopes to prove that money isn’t everything. Here’s what the major candidates have to spend heading into the fall. Michael Flaherty $289,959.41 Patricia White $ 60,646.23 Stephen Murphy $ 50,073.24 Felix Arroyo $ 26,611.76 Maura Hennigan $ 11,694.73 Matt O’Malley $ 3305.08 Source: Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance — David S. Bernstein

THE AT-LARGE RACE for Boston City Council has been low on drama in recent years. After cresting in the early 1990s, the number of candidates dropped sharply as the decade ended: nine ran in 1997, 10 in 1999, and a mere seven in 2001. This year, though, things are different. In addition to the four incumbents hoping to retain their posts, 10 challengers are seeking at-large seats — due, perhaps, to the fact that incumbent Felix Arroyo is widely regarded as vulnerable despite being the council’s only Latino (see "Too Little, Too Late," News and Features, September 12).

The bevy of candidates makes a welcome change for Boston voters. That said, the numbers are somewhat deceiving: with the preliminary election less than two weeks away, only two challengers — Patricia White and Matt O’Malley — have distinguished themselves from the rest of the field with their political savvy and campaigning skills. The odds of both White and O’Malley landing council seats come November are slim, and while it’s more likely one of the two will triumph, Arroyo could still pull out a victory. But even if White and O’Malley falter in the preliminary or final election, the two — despite their radically different backgrounds — will have made their mark on Boston politics and paved the way for future runs.

IF GOOD GENES make good politicians, Patricia White is bound for greatness. The 33-year-old Beacon Hill resident is the daughter of Kevin White, an iconic figure who spent four terms as Boston’s mayor and was seriously considered for the Democratic Party’s vice-presidential nomination in 1972. Her maternal grandfather, William "Mother" Galvin, was a Boston City Council president; so was Joe White, her father’s father. Her great-grandfather Henry Hagan — father of Joe White’s wife, Patricia — was a city-council president as well. With that lineage, it’s natural to wonder where Patricia White’s political career will take her.

For now, though, such conjecture is premature. White, who’s currently campaigning for an at-large seat on the Boston City Council, has never held elected office. In her only try to date, a 1998 bid for Governor’s Council, she finished a disappointing fourth out of 10 candidates. This could change soon: on September 23, Boston voters will winnow the field of at-large candidates from 14 to eight — and if White’s among the top vote-getters, she’ll have undeniable momentum heading into the November 4 final election.

There are a few obvious obstacles in her path, however. All four incumbents — council president Flaherty, Stephen Murphy, Arroyo, and Maura Hennigan — are seeking to keep their at-large seats. No one expects Flaherty, Murphy, or Hennigan to falter, and while council observers regard Arroyo as vulnerable, he’s fighting hard to retain his post. White must also contend with the buzz around O’Malley, a 23-year-old who worked as an aide to former councilor Peggy Davis-Mullen.

Furthermore, White has to manage the potentially volatile combination of family connections and electoral politics. Her biggest dilemma: should she emphasize her ancestry or focus on her own identity? Unfold a Patricia White campaign brochure, and it seems she’s made up her mind. A black-and-white shot shows White handing leaflets to two old men sitting on a bench as Kevin White looks on, smiling approvingly, one hand resting lightly on his daughter’s back. In case Boston newcomers mistake Kevin White for an overly supportive bystander, the photo comes with a sentence referring to her grandfathers’ and great-grandfather’s accomplishments and Kevin White’s 16 years as mayor.

White’s willingness to play up her family roots was also evident at last week’s photo op at a construction site on the Boston waterfront, which was covered by the Boston Herald and the Boston Globe — the kind of attention that can make a fledgling campaign, but that lesser-known candidates are unlikely to garner. Flanked by an entourage including her parents, a friend, and a consultant from Regan Communications Group — the PR agency founded by Kevin White’s former press secretary, George Regan — White walked into a makeshift elevator and headed for a floor with an appropriately scenic view. When the elevator stopped, she exited and made a beeline for Rigal St. Felix, a construction worker and Haitian native; photographers then proceeded to snap shots of White standing next to her father standing next to St. Felix. After the clicking subsided, St. Felix — who appeared somewhat baffled — tried to straighten things out. "Your daddy?" he asked White. "This is my father," she responded patiently. "He was mayor of Boston for many, many years." After the group returned to ground level, White — who worked on John Silber’s gubernatorial campaign as a Boston University undergrad in 1990, did press work for the Clinton-Gore campaigns in 1992 and 1996, and served as deputy field director for Steve Grossman’s abortive gubernatorial campaign in 2002 — sounded smooth as she chatted up the small crowd. "Thank you, thank you very much for having us," she told a group of laborers. (After the event, White revealed that her father is suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.)

Despite White’s polish, the event felt as much like a complicated family vacation as a high-powered political outing, with White fretting about her father’s proximity to the building’s edge and Kathryn White, the candidate’s mother, reminding her daughter and husband to return the hardhats they’d donned. But while stumping with her parents may pose certain challenges, White’s background has already provided her with some enviable advantages. Since declaring her candidacy in May at an event hosted and organized by George Regan, White has raised over $80,000. In August alone, she raised $54,013, more than Flaherty, Murphy, Arroyo, or Hennigan. (White ended August with $46,481 in her campaign account — almost as much as Murphy, and about $20,000 more than Arroyo. Hennigan’s final August numbers haven’t yet been reported; O’Malley, meanwhile, had raised just under $14,000 and had only $3300 in his account at the end of last month. See "In the Bank," page 20.)

White’s amassed this war chest, in part, through support from pols like John Nucci, clerk magistrate of the Suffolk County Superior Court and a former at-large councilor. Nucci’s become a big Patricia White fan over the past few months, but admits he might never have gotten to know her if she had a different father. "I have not been close to Patricia, but I do respect and admire her dad, and since I’ve met Patricia I’ve been very impressed with her," Nucci says. "I think I’m like a lot of people that offered assistance, however small, because of my relationship with her dad and his supporters. I think that’s real — it would be silly to deny that her surname and the respect her father brings has given her a jump-start."

Assistance for White has even come from descendants of her father’s old foes. In 1975, former state senator Joe Timilty challenged Kevin White in a bitter mayoral campaign. (Timilty lost.) By 1999, when Patricia White backed an unsuccessful council run by Timilty’s son Greg, the acrimony between their fathers had been forgotten; this year, Greg Timilty is returning the favor. "It may seem kind of strange on the face of it — at that time we were like the Hatfields and McCoys," Greg Timilty concedes. "But it’s a different generation.... It’s water under the bridge at this point."

How significant these assets will be on September 23 — and on November 4, if White survives that long — depends on whom you ask. "I do think it would be a completely different race if her name was Patricia Smith," says former councilor and mayoral candidate Davis-Mullen, adding, "We know that there are many individuals [who] owe their jobs and their careers to Kevin White. People don’t forget that, and they’re going to help her money-wise."

Others say it’s a mistake to fixate on White’s name. "The reason Patricia was so successful organizing on my behalf, and one of the main reasons I was able to attract so many delegates cutting across racial, ethnic, religious, cultural, and geographic lines in Boston, had an awful lot to do with her ability to help me develop relationships," says Grossman, a former Massachusetts Democratic Party and Democratic National Committee chair who’s currently helping White fundraise, and who emphasizes that he’s backing White on her own merits and doesn’t know Kevin White well at all. "Patricia is exactly the kind of person people want to be associated with — she’s extraordinarily detail-oriented, and when she promises she’ll do something, she gets it done.... She’s always in motion, doing something and engaged with people, and she’s got that engaging manner and sense of humor. She’s also a very good listener, a quality not plentiful in political life."

As she discusses her political inclinations, White stakes out a position likely to appeal to the city’s independent voters and conservative Democrats. "I would say I was a moderate," she says. "But it’s not just about where I am on a sliding scale; it’s about where I am as compared to my opponents. I am more moderate than someone like Felix Arroyo, and I am more liberal than Steve Murphy. That’s why I put myself in the middle ground.... I think that’s where Councilor Flaherty would see himself, although I don’t want to put words in his mouth."

The agenda White describes certainly sounds moderate. For example, she cites Boston’s inflated rental and real-estate prices as a major concern, and argues that an ever-increasing number of families are finding the city unaffordable. But while her critique has populist implications, her proposed solutions — which include loosening restrictions on developers so they can more readily expand the city’s housing stock — are business-friendly. White’s take on job creation is similarly middle-of-the-road: she says she’ll work to bring new businesses into the city, but immediately follows with a disclaimer about maintaining the integrity of Boston’s neighborhoods.

Asked about her impressive political pedigree, White strikes a note that’s surprising given her apparent willingness to mention Kevin White (and Joe White and William Galvin and Henry Hagan) in brochures and on the campaign trail. "I am very proud of the years of public service my family has given to the city of Boston," she says. "But I am not running because of my last name or running on my last name. I’m not running as Kevin White’s daughter. If I was running on my last name, I would have run for office when I was 23 years old, when my father had been out of office 10 years.... There are many, many people in this city who don’t even know who Kevin White is. There are many, many people in this campaign — the majority of people — who are supporting me because they know Patricia White, they’ve worked with Patricia White, and they feel very enthusiastic about having a fresh face on the city council."

MATT O’MALLEY doesn’t have this problem. O’Malley’s father is a carpenter and his mother’s an elementary-school teacher; the dining room of his parents’ modest Roslindale home (where O’Malley still lives) doubles as his campaign headquarters.

It’s an understatement to say that O’Malley lacks Patricia White’s name recognition and ready-made fundraising base. But while most of the 10 at-large challengers have been dismissed by observers of city politics as improbable fringe candidates, O’Malley — who attended Boston Latin and George Washington University — has shown enough political aptitude to be taken seriously. The Boston Building Trade Unions, an umbrella organization of local trade groups, is formally backing him; so is Local 718, the Boston firefighters’ union. Veteran political observers are impressed, but they also hint that O’Malley might not be ready for prime time.

"He’s probably a fellow with a good future in Boston politics," Nucci says. "This might be a dry run for him and will give him good experience. He’ll get some votes, because he’s going to appeal to some voter-rich neighborhoods like South Boston."

Nucci adds that he doesn't rule out an O'Malley victory, and Davis-Mullen insists he has a shot: "He’s very smart, very hard-working," she says. "I keep telling him, the fact that the new archbishop is O’Malley, people have got that name on their brain." But O’Malley says he’s heard numerous comments raising doubt about his chances. Not surprisingly, he doesn’t agree.

"The Friday before Labor Day, I spent the whole day campaigning," O’Malley says. "At about seven at night, I got a call from someone I know in political circles — I won’t say who it was. And they said, ‘You’re doing a great job, you’re making a lot of friends, everyone likes you — and if not this time, definitely next time you’re gonna get it.’ I said, ‘Thank you, I think, but I’m not running to be the runner-up. I’m running to come in fourth place or better.’ I was pulling into my driveway, and I said to myself, ‘You know what? I’m gonna prove them wrong.’ I pulled out of the driveway and went to the CVS on Centre Street in West Roxbury, and just stood out an additional two hours. Maybe I met a total of 20 voters over those two hours, but of those 20, I had good conversations with 12 of them. And I think I’m gonna get those 12 votes on Election Day."

While O’Malley calls himself a "left-of-center Democrat" — he supports gay marriage and abortion rights, but opposes the MCAS and capital punishment — he’s also a vocal critic of the council’s occasional forays into national and international politics. Exhibit A, for O’Malley and his like-minded critics, is the recent dispute over a proposed resolution that would have honored the Dixie Chicks for their criticism of President Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq; the primary object of O’Malley’s complaint — though he doesn’t identify him by name — is his at-large opponent Felix Arroyo. "While these are important issues that certainly have their place, I don’t know that the city council is the best way to address them," O’Malley says. "The Boston City Council can’t dictate foreign policy."

On another one of O’Malley’s favorite topics — his contention that high housing costs and middle-class flight are turning Boston into "another Manhattan" — the similarity between his views and White’s is difficult to miss. Like White, O’Malley argues that he’d work to facilitate new residential construction in the city to drive down housing costs. And, like White, he couches this vow with an assurance that he’ll also "preserve the character of the neighborhoods and make sure there’s enough green space."

O’Malley’s boldest promise — that he’d free up millions of dollars for schools and public safety by, among other things, cutting nonessential jobs in City Hall — could also be his undoing. Conventional wisdom holds that turnout in off-year elections is exceedingly low; the only people who vote, it’s said, are the elderly and municipal workers. If that’s the case this year, O’Malley’s slash-and-burn strategy, whatever its merits, could hurt him with municipal workers eager to avoid a City Hall shake-up.

Then again, O’Malley seems capable of pitching himself effectively with older voters — particularly older women. As he stumped at the Village Market in Roslindale Square last week, he generated an inordinate amount of delight among gray-haired ladies, who giggled like schoolgirls and let the candidate kiss them on the head. These responses came, it seemed, from a soft-sell presentation style that made O’Malley seem even younger than his 23 years: he greeted them in a non-threatening, almost apologetic way, his voice just a bit higher than usual, and occasionally eased into a faux-flirtatious manner when the moment seemed right. "Matt O’Malley? Who’s that?" one stooped, hard-of-hearing matron asked. "That handsome redhead right here," O’Malley replied, pointing to the photo in his campaign brochure without missing a beat. By the time the conversation was over, O’Malley seemed to have closed the deal. "Will you save a vote for me?" he asked. "I will, sonny," she replied, patting his cheek and looking like a proud grandmother.

Whether Patricia White and Matt O’Malley will succeed this year or be forced to put their ambitions on ice remains to be seen. White’s crisp, competent campaign style and centrist posture — coupled with her family ties and strong financial base — may be enough to launch her political career. The same goes for O’Malley’s regular-guy persona and understated approach. But even if both fall short this time around, the good news is that city voters have some intriguing alternatives to weigh as they cast their at-large votes.

Adam Reilly can be reached at areilly[a]phx.com