STAFF EDIT: Three’s company

‘ Thursday heralded the first official mayoral debate following the preliminary elections, and it hinted to voters that the contestants are up to their old pre-primary tricks again. Now just a duo of Mayor Thomas Menino and City Councilor-At-Large Michael Flaherty, with City Councilor-At-Large Sam Yoon becoming an awkward third wheel as Flaherty’s proposed Deputy Mayor hopeful, the candidates reverted back to their routines of slinging theatrical low-blow insults and seemingly irrelevant points back and forth at one another, with Yoon all the while tweeting from the studio his would-be retorts.

Viewers of the debate were likely left wondering if perhaps, in the winter of the election, a commitment to exceptional showmanship has been replaced by a commitment to the maintenance of political soundness. The Flaherty-Yoon ticket seemed to have lost its novel charm and was de-emphasized by Flaherty throughout the debate, while his running mate rather cheapened himself by updating his Twitter with rapid-succession responses to Menino’s jabs and Hallmark-worthy pro-Flaherty sentiments, all in 140 characters or less. The event seemed less like a well-orchestrated politically oriented meeting of the minds and more like a high school pep rally, with Menino and Flaherty behaving like the swaggering quarterbacks of rival football teams, and Yoon on the sidelines playing the overzealous cheerleader.

Where the debate burgeoned with stinging theatrics, it fell flat when it came to actual debating. The opponents resorted to quick jibes and fancy footwork to avoid providing concrete answers to concrete questions. And when the real issues were touched upon ‘- Menino’s mysteriously deleted emails, Emerson College being ranked the most dangerous on a list compiled by The Daily Beast, charter schools ‘- there wasn’t much said that voters hadn’t heard before. Flaherty remained in his position as a rogue, more loosely wound Menino, and Menino maintained his position as the city’s stalwart. Flaherty was for charters, a designated Hazardous Materials team to be established within the Boston Fire Department and, of course, ‘progress,’ while Menino, true to form, stuck by the Biosafety Level-4 lab, stuck by Boston’s public schools and stuck by its public safety.

All the while, Yoon’s role in the race became more and more ambiguous. Aside from his input via Twitter and his short-leashed campaigning alongside Flaherty since his announcement as Flaherty’s ticket mate, Yoon seems to have lost steam as a crucial political pawn in the race. Menino’s accusation that the Flaherty-Yoon ticket was nothing but ‘jobs for votes’ was, perhaps, taking it too far, but voters who expected something different from Flaherty at Thursday’s debate during his first exposure after announcing his running mate were left decidedly unsatisfied. Yoon’s absence became a concrete indicator of this, and the ensuing debate between a mayor Boston knows all too well and a challenger voters are quickly learning how to see through was simply a continuation of a very tired theme.