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MIHOS TAKES HIS TOLL

It probably wasn’t the reaction Christy Mihos was hoping for. In a September 2 column by Globe columnist Brian McGrory, Mihos — the former Mass Turnpike Authority board member known for opposing toll increases on the Pike, blowing the whistle on dysfunction inside the Big Dig, and bringing a federal civil-rights lawsuit against former governor Jane Swift — vowed to seek the Republican gubernatorial nomination if Mitt Romney leaves office next year. And then ... nothing, really, except a backhanded swipe in the Globe’s piece on Kerry Healey and civil unions, which said Healey had "cleared the field of potentially tough opposition for the GOP gubernatorial nomination." Ouch!

Why the muted response? Maybe it was the news cycle, which was dominated by Hurricane Katrina and Tom Reilly’s gay-marriage ruling. Then again, Mihos may have himself to blame. After all, in a Boston Magazine article last year, Mihos was quoted as promising to run for John Kerry’s US Senate seat in 2008, whether Kerry ran again or not. Put these two declarations together, and something doesn’t add up.

The thing is, Mihos — who claims his words were taken out of context in the Boston Magazine piece — would be a fascinating candidate. Like Healey, he has enough family wealth to finance his own campaign. (Mihos won’t say how much he made when he sold the majority of Christy’s, the convenience-store empire founded by his Greek-immigrant grandfather, to 7-Eleven, but tens of millions of dollars is a good guess.) Unlike Healey, though, his wealth wouldn’t represent a cultural liability. Healey may have grown up in a middle-class Florida family, but her Harvard education and residence in Beverly Farms have given her something of an upper-crusty air. Mihos has a more common touch. Born in Brockton and educated at Brockton High and Stonehill College, Mihos has an eager, affable, slightly hyper demeanor: his conversation is peppered with dropped g’s ("This is my home — I’m not goin’ anywhere!") and, unlike most politicians, he’s candid rather than cagey.

Take Mihos’s opinion of Mitt Romney. While he says he hopes Romney runs again, and praises him as "incorruptible," he also criticizes the governor’s inability to wrest control of the Big Dig from Matt Amorello, the chairman of the Turnpike Authority — and pokes fun at Romney’s presidential hopes in the process. ("At the end of the day," he jibes, "if you can’t deal with Matt Amorello, it’s difficult to deal with Jacques Chirac and Kim Jong [Il] and Putin.") Then there’s his position on social issues. Like Healey, Mihos says Massachusetts voters should decide the issue of gay marriage — but he also says he would vote to keep full marriage rights. And, unlike our current governor, he knows where he stands on abortion ("I’m pro-choice — always have been, always will be.")

What would a Mihos administration look like? Here’s the prospective candidate’s early vision: drive himself to work. Suspend the senior officers at the Turnpike Authority, investigate their activity, and fire them as necessary. Implement the plan, first proposed by Mihos in 2003, to sell off the state’s Turnpike plazas to the highest bidder, pay off the remaining bonds on the western stretch of the Pike, and (drum roll, please) eliminate all tolls west of Route 128. And, later, cut the income tax to five percent. With its synthesis of cultural and economic populism and its promise of Big Dig accountability — something that’s been all too absent in the last decade — it’s an agenda that could have widespread appeal.

The knock against Mihos is obvious: yes, he got some things right when he was on the Mass Pike board — but does that qualify him to be governor? "His best asset, far and away, is money," says one skeptical Republican strategist. "It starts to get fairly thin after that." Maybe so, but before Mitt Romney plucked Kerry Healey from obscurity in 2002, what had she actually done, other than losing two races for state representative (by ugly margins, mind you) and having a cup of coffee as chair of the Massachusetts Republican Party?

Among Democrats, meanwhile, the possibility of a Healey-Mihos primary contest has generated some enthusiastic off-the-record responses. This is partly due to the prospect of seeing two Republicans beat the shit out of each other, a pastime that’s usually reserved for Democrats in this state. But genuine interest in Mihos’s ability to mount a freewheeling, outsider candidacy — à la John Silber or John McCain — also seems to be a factor. "He’s very candid, very honest, very forthcoming," gushed one Democratic insider. "He’s not your typical timid politician, and people like that quality about him.... The fact is, he is an attractive, valid candidate." With enemies like this, who needs friends?

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