It is possible for a big-city incumbent mayor to lose

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels proved last week that a big-city mayor can not only lose an election, but can come in third in a primary. That may come as some comfort to this year's challengers to Boston Mayor Tom Menino, but the Ballot Box's Josh Goodman offers some explanations for the Nickels defeat, and none of them have obvious parallels to the Boston race.

According to Goodman, the Nickels administration badly handled a major snowstorm last winter, and it angered residents by trying to impose a 20 cent fee (or fine) on plastic and paper grocery bags. Then there was Seattle's mini version of the Big Dig:

Perhaps Nickels' biggest controversy, however, was over the Alaskan Way Viaduct, an elevated roadway that was damaged in a 2001 earthquake. After years of debate, in January Nickels and other local and officials agreed to replace the viaduct with a tunnel, even though Seattle voters had rejected that option two years earlier.

He may have been politically clumsy, but Nickels seems to have a sense of humor, as evidenced by the beginning of his concession speech:

When I became mayor in 2002, I decided I would conduct myself in office a certain way. I determined that I would rather be an effective mayor and get things done rather than a popular politician who left nothing more significant than footprints in the sand; that I would make right decisions for the future of the City rather than ones that would preserve my personal popularity.

Based on Tuesday's Primary Election results I have succeeded beyond my wildest dreams!

I can't imagine Menino making a speech like that, but I can't think of him going against voter opinion the way the Nickels seemed to do. (See CW's recent cover story on Menino here.)

This may not be Menino's best week of the year, given tomorrow night's debate on WBZ-TV and Sunday's Boston Globe story on his micro-management of Boston real estate development, but he still has to be considered a heavy favorite for re-election. Unless, of course, there's a Parks and Recreation-type epidemic of people falling into our own pit at Downtown Crossing.

 

Comments

[John A Keith]

Boston's residents don't seem to care about the sames things as Seattle's do. How else do you explain their indifference to the Mayor's misguided role in bringing the Democratic Party's convention to Boston in 2004, which ended up paralyzing the city (and much of Eastern Massachusetts) for almost a week?

And, bungling snowstorms? We've had how many, 20, 30 major storms during the Mayor's reign? And, he still can't get the DPW to work right. Yet, no one complains, or they do, but don't take their complaints with them to the polling booths.

[KG]

Seattle has defeated two mayors in recent history -- Nickles and Paul Schell. I doubt that the 2004 Convention, however people feel about it, will be a factor in this year's election, and surveys show general satisfaction with city services, a key part of Menino's general approval rating.