Free Mayor for a New America by Thomas M. Menino

I said, “We have to have a police department that reflects the diversity of the city.” Salerno, Sheriff Robert Ruffo, City Councilor Bruce Bolling, and Lydon had all taken the same position. Only Brett, “who hails from conservative Dorchester, remained ambiguous on the issue,” the
Globe
reported. Then at a meeting held in a Roxbury church, Brett, normally a careful speaker, referred to “you people.” This was a year after Ross Perot, addressing the Urban League, had created a furor by speaking of “your people.” The Roxbury audience seemed shocked. “Condominiums” for “condoms” revealed my struggle with language. “You people,” to African Americans, betrayed contempt. In this context it wasn’t surprising that Bolling, the only African American in the race, now endorsed me. So did Mel King, the civil rights legend who ran against Ray Flynn in 1983.
    Jim’s chances of winning were fading fast. A question in our last debate destroyed them. A
Herald
columnist quoted a Brett campaign slogan calling Jim “a forceful, intelligent voice for Boston.” Picking up on the implied contrast, he asked, “Do you consider yourself more intelligent and articulate than Mr. Menino?” Jim, sensing danger in sounding superior, objected: “I find that question rather insulting. I have never said that and I know Tom would never say that.” The debate was held before a large audience at the Boston Public Library, and there was a rush of applause for Jim. Yet the idea that Jim’s slogan was slyly equating my thick tongue with a thick head was out there.
    It wasn’t as if I was hiding my difficulties as a public speaker. My TV ads included the line “I’m not a fancy talker” (pronounced “talkah”), “but I get the job done.” And in interviews I was careful to say things like “Hey, I’m not the best-looking guy in the world and I know nobody is ever going to ask me to host
Masterpiece Theatre
.” And then add: “But mayors don’t get paid by the word. You can’t talk a playground into being clean.”
    Well before Election Day someone was stapling R.I.P. on Brett lawn signs in West Roxbury. As voters went to the polls, the only question was the size of my victory margin. It was bigger than I expected: 28 points. Eighteen of the city’s twenty-two wards.
    My one regret was that my friend Tony Crayton, who’d put me first in line to be acting mayor, lost his council seat by 80 votes. “I gave him his dream to be mayor,” he said. Credit was also due to another politician, and when just before midnight he called to congratulate me, I gave it: “Thank you, Mr. President, for making the mayor ambassador.”
    Brett later said he thought he was running for an open seat: “But what happened when Tom became acting mayor changed the race. I didn’t see that coming.” He was running against an incumbent, a sitting mayor. The last one to lose was Curley, in 1949, when he was old, sick, and lately returned from federal prison.
    Ray Flynn knew why Jim Brett lost. It happened the day I became acting mayor and Ray said he was leaving the city in good hands and the media treated it like an endorsement and the cameras zoomed in on the hug: “Jimmy Brett was upset with me for that. . . . I heard him say it cost him the election.”
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    The five thousand friends and supporters attending my inaugural party at the Hynes Convention Center were entertained by representatives of the New America—multiracial, multicultural, LGBT-friendly—rising in the old city. A Roma band performed, followed by two groups of Irish step dancers and a gay country and western dance troupe and actors from the Ramón de los Reyes Spanish Dance Theatre and performers illustrating “The Art of Black Dance and Music.” Sandy Martin sang a selection of songs from
The