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White knocks out Arroyo
by Adam Reilly, with additional reporting by Deirdre Fulton
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It’s not going too far to call Patricia White’s finish stunning: she edged out two incumbents — Felix Arroyo and Maura Hennigan — and managed a third-place finish, trailing only two other incumbents, Michael Flaherty and Stephen Murphy. Indeed. She finished with 16,439 votes, just 1158 behind second-place finisher Murphy. Not bad for someone who’s never held elected office. But White, of course, has a not-so-secret weapon in her campaign arsenal: her father, former mayor Kevin White, who was prominently featured in Patricia White’s preliminary-campaign literature. This father-daughter connection has already brought Patricia White enviable name recognition and given her fundraising opportunities most candidates would kill for. White and her crew celebrated their surprisingly strong finish at Buck Mulligan’s, an Irish bar next to White’s West Roxbury headquarters. (Make that "Irish bar," actually: the Cornerstone, the Southie watering hole tapped by Flaherty for his post-election shindig, is the real deal. Buck Mulligan’s is tonier and sleeker, a simulacrum for New Boston Nation.) Standing near the bar, Dick Dray identifies himself as a close friend of Kevin White's and says he’s pleased as punch with the evening’s good news. "I worked for her, and I’m going to continue to work for her," says Dray, who notes that Patricia White is his goddaughter. "If she’s anything like her father — which we know she is — she’s gonna be a great candidate. I had thought that if she came in in the top five I’d be delighted. I think she finished in third place; if that’s what it turns out to be, it’s spectacular. She’s a very bright young woman. She’s also my godchild, and I love her." Sitting on a bench outside Buck Mulligan’s, White appears tired and pleased but not ecstatic. One gets the impression she’s not interested in moral victories. "My feet are killing me; I’ve been up since 5:30 and at the polls since seven, and I’ve been knocking on doors 10 hours a day for the past couple of weeks," a bleary-eyed White says. "There’s a lot more work to do, a lot more work to do. There are more doors to hit, more visibilities to conduct, more people to reach out to." (It’s quite a change from just a few hours earlier at the Holy Name School in West Roxbury, where she campaigned briefly with District Six councilor John Tobin and exclaimed, "I love Election Day! I was born into this business, this is second nature for me!") White bucks up when Councilor Jerry McDermott materializes with four friends in tow. "I smell a winner!" McDermott exclaims. Hugs and kisses all around. Into the "Irish bar" for a drink. The scene is more subdued at Merengue, a Dominican restaurant on Blue Hill Avenue in Roxbury and the site of Felix Arroyo’s post-election gathering. By 11 p.m., most of Arroyo’s supporters have gone home; the candidate, his family, and a few alternative-looking twentysomethings are closing the place down. Like White, Arroyo looks beat. But despite Tuesday’s results — which seem to confirm the widespread notion that he could lose his seat to White come November — Arroyo strikes an upbeat note. "The preliminary is always the most conservative vote," he says matter-of-factly. "The real liberal voters come out for the final election. I’ve seen the same thing happen many times." But Arroyo, while optimistic, is not overly sanguine. "It was also a wake-up call to everybody who didn’t vote in the preliminary, but could make a difference in the outcome that would be good for us," he adds. "It doesn’t mean we’re going to let our guard down. We’re going to work as hard as anybody else. We want to give a new direction to Boston — to be inclusive, to be a healer. This town needs a bridge, a healer, and we’re in a position to provide that. I feel this is a winning campaign."
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