Tonight, Mayor Thomas Menino was reelected to a historic fifth term, which, if served, will make him the longest serving mayor in Boston history. He beat Michael Flaherty by a wide margin of 57 percent of the vote to 42 percent, according to unofficial results. Incumbent City Councilors at large John Connolly and Stephen Murphy also retained their seats by hefty margins. Felix Arroyo and Ayanna Pressley will join city council with 16 and 15 percent of the vote, respectively. Pressley will be the first African American woman to serve on city council in Boston's history. In District 7, Chuck Turner blew away his competition despite a cloud of legal troubles, and Sal Lamattina, Michael Ross, and Mark Ciommo each held off challenges in their respective districts. [City of Boston]
Results tagged “election2009”
Michael Flaherty and Tom Menino have both tried everything in the past few months to knock people's socks off. Unfortunately for them, many Bostonians remained thoroughly socked, and some have not even made up their mind yet whom to vote for. Over at the Globe, Alex Beam runs through 10 reasons to vote for either guy. Our favorite? Regarding Menino: "2. Flaherty likens Menino to jailed former mayor James Michael Curley, “The Rascal King,’’ of Jack Beatty’s memorable book title. But aren’t there two statues of Curley in downtown Boston? Isn’t his home a local landmark? Throw me in that briar patch!" [Globe]
Matt O'Malley, who ran through the Ward-by-Ward voting data in Boston's mayoral primary yesterday does the same for the city council primary today. Connolly's big win is the biggest surprise in the numbers, unless you thought Ayanna Pressley was going to beat Tito Jackson in JP Ward 11. (We did the numbers, and if you combine Wards 11 and 19, Pressley actually did beat Jackson in JP, 2199 to 1697.)
Like Paul on the road to Damascus, the scales just fell from our eyes, but it wasn't the Holy Spirit that we saw. It was the Boston political machine. Earlier today, we wondered why only 60 percent of possible votes in the at-large city council races were cast. The answer: "bullet voting"!
During yesterday's municipal primary, 81,641 Bostonians, an impressive 24 percent of eligible voters, cast ballots, according to the City of Boston. Most of them voted for mayor—only 439 voters didn't—but a lot of people didn't use all of their votes for city councilor at-large. Each voter could choose 4 candidates for the at-large seats, but most probably didn't. In fact, of a possible 326,564 votes for city councilor at-large, only 194,247 were cast. That's only 60 percent! What gives, Boston?
Update: It pains us to write this, because the whole event seemed so hilarious—another reason to love our Jakes—but, apparently, the fire drill was not the doing of the Boston Fire Department. Our usually more level-headed friends at Universal Hub, where we got the story in the first place, have issued a retraction, and we'll do the same. Apparently, the fire drill was scheduled by the building management, not the BFD. So, sorry, Jakes!
The Globe reports that fewer than 8 percent of registered voters made it to the polls by noon today. Joyce Linehan tweets, "In Boston 17, 11 (Codman Hill area) only 34 people have voted as of now." So, where are you, Boston?
On our way from our polling place to the T this morning, we passed a school bus full of kids who were screaming, "Vote for Menino! Vote for Menino today at the Curley School." Look out for the big yellow machine.
Let's get a completely unscientific idea of who will win Boston's mayoral primary with an internet poll. As you know by now, four candidates are in the running, and only two will survive tomorrow's primary. We've fashioned two questions for you, which you can answer after the jump.
The Globe tries to make up for systematically ignoring his campaign by running a lengthy profile of novelty candidate for mayor Kevin McCrea that describes how McCrea went from being "the Motorcycle Guy" who lost a city council race in 2005 to the suit-wearing crusader-gadfly who, he says, has a serious chance at winning the mayor's seat. It's a pretty puffy article that teaches you, among other things, that McCrea claims to have been a competitive ice sculptor (?) and a chess prodigy. [Globe]