Ray Flynn and Mel King just endorsed Floon, to the sounds of chirping crickets. What we have here is a serious case of cognitive dissonance on the part of two figures from the political past, who (however well-intended) totally misread the present. Given all the fatuous rhetoric and media masterbation, presuming a "New Boston" alliance against the Mayor this presents a level of political humor that I haven't experienced in years.
Of course, as a totally uncivilized human being, The Dog loves watching the political masochism involved in folks who totally misunderstand the obvious.
What seems probable at this point are two things: that the various black, Latino, white, and Asian communities in the City will be Mayor Menino's insurance in getting an unprecedented fifth term; and that the Yoon-Flaherty partnership augments the Mayor's outreach mechanism.
Enclosed are links to spreadsheets cross-referencing the Preliminary results with the VTD Census Information, listing every precinct by black, white, Latino, and Asian residents. The sort is in decreasing order, with the highest percentages at the top.
What becomes evident is that, from a field perspective, the Yoon campaign was a vanity candidacy that, repelled the very people it presumed to attract. In the context of the final election, it tightens the noose around Flaherty.
Barring an indictment of the Mayor or a high-level staffer it's pretty much over.
Hence, given all the other activity around the Special Senate Primary, and the early prep work around the 2010 Governor's race, this is a perfect case study on how the operating premises of Democratic activists often croak their candidates. It is also a good example of how two well-funded Astroturf campaigns seal themselves into limited bases, and combine to isolate themselves through sheer ineptitude. The biggest irony is that the Floon effort could have won.
From a field perspective, the Menino operation reached its high-water mark in 1996 during the Boston School Committee Referendum, since then any credible opponent could have put an effective political opposition together, given the resources and one-to-two year time frame.
The simple fact is that Boston is collapsing, has been for years, and hasn't touched botton yet. Case in point: the collapse of Downtown Crossing and the empty storeforonts in Back Bay.
Anti-Menino message could have been summed up under the working - and accurate - premise that Menino's operation was so self-absorbed, ruthless, petty, and authoritarian that the Mayor turned a first-class small city into a fifth-rate suburb. Field organizing could have been based upon the tangible interests of those communities disrupted and displaced by the corporate triumphalism of the past sixteen years.
Unfortunately, what the electorate got as an alternative was two vanity candidates with delusions of adequacy.
What happened instead was a replay of the 1983 Mayors race with Flaherty and Yoon playing the roles of Ray Flynn and Mel King respectively. It's true that neither of the Floon components has a work ethic, but that's not germaine to the analysis. The flaws in the Floon premise are:
The activist community is totally separate from and unaccountable to, the grassroots in black and Latino communities.
White working-class neighborhoods in Boston no longer exist as cohesive political forces. West Roxbury is an exception as a culturally blue-collar neighborhood*, but being politically astute, Ward 20 makes its own analyses and backs winners.
The organized Left is in the Mayor's pocket, either through its organizations (e.g. SEIU, UNITE-HERE), or its corporate funders (e.g. The Boston Foundation). The organized left in Boston is actually a subset of the corporate Right, but that's grist for another post.
Furthermore, the O'Neill Rule remains in effect: all politics are still local. Flaherty, as the original heir apparent to the Mayor spent most of his pre-insurgency career residing in Menino's colon; and Yoon would never be caught dead doing constituent service.
So, a demographic analysis shows a Flaherty base limited to Charlestown and Greater Southie (Wards 6,7, and the Neponset section of Ward 16), and he lost one of the three Neponset precincts. (Neponset consists of Ward 16, precincts 5, 7, and 10. Flaherty took precincts 7 and 10; Menino took precinct 5.)
In the same sense, the Yoon base was limited to the twinkie sections of Jamaica Plain, and three black-majority within Ward 11. He took no majority-Latino precincts, and no precinct with any discernible Asian population. Jamaica Plain really deserves a case study of its own, give the histories of the Dominican community's successful (and ongoing) battles against the various white-run community development organizations that infest the neighborhood.
Finally the "New Boston" premise simply doesn't hold together. There is little enough shared political interest between and among the various black, Latino, and Asian communities; to presume a working alliance with out-of-town Yuppies and students is pure fantasy, with no demographic, political, or historic basis in fact (to put it less obscenely than I'd normally prefer).
Floon's death predates the Preliminary, but the corpse has finally stopped quivering. To the sound of chirping crickets.
* Yes, I know West Roxbury (Ward 20 to all you players out there) is affluent, with a large professional population. I'm defining class by civic culture and civic values. If you don't get my point, Google Max Weber.
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12 years ago
