PROGRESSING FROM THE MACHINE

With the close of the 2009 Boston mayoral election fast approaching, an entire city that has heretofore been divided on matters ranging from the Boston University Biosafety Level-4 laboratory to the ‘No More Than Four’ legislation to term limits now has to come together over one universally desired cause: progress. Although candidates Mayor Thomas Menino and City Councilor-At-Large Michael Flaherty and their respective constituents may not exactly agree over what ‘progress’ really means, it’s a safe assumption that all voters want a progressive Boston in some form or another. But in a decision between a fresh face with liberal views and plans to modernize Boston’s politics and a fourth-term figurehead with too much power and too much pull, The Daily Free Press must look to Flaherty for a change of pace.

What before the preliminary election was a question of risk has now, for the final election to be held on Nov. 3, become a question of safety. Flaherty is by no means a perfect candidate ‘- his initial blind trust in the biolab set to open in the South End and harbor the world’s most dangerous pathogens, for example, proves his inexperience in making decisions that affect the whole of the city. Even now, his stance on what should happen with the lab remains unclear. And his adoption of former candidate City Councilor-At-Large Sam Yoon as his hopeful deputy mayor has come to seem more like a gimmicky, anti-Menino publicity stunt than an actual political strategy. Flaherty has yet to make it clear what Yoon’s position will actually entail, leading some to believe the duo has a bit too much interest in their brand and a bit too little interest in the soundness of the infrastructure of Flaherty’s campaign platform.

But where Flaherty shines is in his affinity for being a departure from Menino. Flaherty represents a necessary new direction in contrast to Menino’s old politics, strong government routine. While Menino remains behind several defensive layers of public relations cronies, Flaherty is not yet smothered under City Hall’s PR machine. Flaherty represents accessibility, connectedness and the opening of doors that have, for the past 16 years of the Menino administration, been closed and locked. And, together with Yoon, the team heralds the same glow of novel promise that President Barack Obama had after two decimating terms of the Bush regime. To a constituency exhausted by its own government and its all-encompassing power, mould-breaking candidates spark a new excitement.

On a more local level, college students, although admittedly not traditionally very active in local elections, deserve fairer representation in government. Comprising a third of Boston’s population and contributing heavily to both its financial and intellectual economy, students currently face rights-threatening housing legislation, possible tuition spikes due to an unstable Payment in Lieu of Taxes program and an overall sense of disconnect between themselves and the current city government. Menino couldn’t even make it in to The Daily Free Press office for a pre-endorsement interview, despite all of his opponents finding time to do so before the preliminary election and Flaherty and Yoon’s second visit in October. If the mayor of the city ‘- who seeks his fifth consecutive term and is as large a presence in Boston as Boston University itself ‘- has no interest in having a conversation with the voice of a student body of more than 30,000, not only does he make himself look haughty, but he makes it clear that he sees little worth in the city’s entire college student population. And with such hot-button issues in the race revolving around students exclusively, that kind of ignorance simply won’t do.

Flaherty and Yoon did come to The Daily Free Press. They sat at the end of the office’s conference table and established a dialogue that made them look every bit the Menino antithesis, giving students the feel that they were valued not just as students but, more importantly, as constituents. Where Menino seems remote and untouchable, surrounded by henchmen and shrouded in silly scandals, Flaherty sits in the office of a college newspaper, talking about how he and Yoon simply want to do a good job. This all goes back to the question of which candidate is the safest choice for Tuesday’s election ‘- and the answer is clear, and has been all along.

Machines are not safe choices for local government. And after almost two decades of holding office, Menino has become a machine, holding City Hall and a large number of Boston jobs in the palms of his hands. He’s become a fixture, and with the momentum he’s acquired as such, he has lost all zeal for political refinement and is simply coasting. But for the first time in a long time, he has been challenged by a viable candidate who, while far from perfect, is real. Flaherty represents the things Boston really needs after the Menino regime ‘- a man with a strong voice and a strong plan, who stands for integration of Boston’s many isolated communities rather than separation and who stands for transparency. If Flaherty can take on Boston with the same straightforwardness and enthusiasm with which he took on the interview here at The Daily Free Press, he’ll become a successful new face for the city, slowly and steadily winning the race. If he does unseat Menino, The Daily Free Press will look to Flaherty to act as a responsible, evenhanded leader and to maintain his independence from the City Hall trap, in the hopes that Boston ‘- its professionals, its workers, its students and its families ‘- can once again be led by a man, not a machine.