Politics and Baseball

Why is it that the one contest that Bostonist really wants to be a blow-out is heart-wrenchingly close, while the contest where real competition would be truly useful is unrelentingly lop-sided? So it goes in our fair city these days as the mayoral and pennant races wind down. The campaign of City Hall challenger Maura Hennigan is so lackluster that she hasn't even been able to make hay out of Mayor Menino's refusal to engage in head-to-head debates. Instead, we learn from today's Herald, she must grudgingly participate in the town-meeting style debates the Mayor prefers. Worse still (for Hennigan), the first of these (and the only television event that even approximates a real debate) will compete for voter attention with (surprise!) a Sox game (on September 28). We feel bad for Hennigan, because a debate seems like her only chance to get past the meta-campaigning ("the mayor's scaring away my donors;" "I'm mortgaging my house to fund the campaign;" "the mayor refuses to debate me;" etc.) and get to some real issues that distinguish her from Mumbles. But no one will be watching. The worst part is, for all Hennigan's tenacity and stick-to-it-iveness, we can still think of at least one person who could jump into the race tomorrow and get more votes.