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Curb Your Enthusiasm

Hopes of big Boston Election Day turnout fade. Good news for Menino?
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN  |  July 29, 2009

090731_turnout-Mian

Nine months ago, on the heels of the Obama-assisted deluge at the polls, political observers anticipated mayoral fever triggering huge voter turnout in the Hub this fall. Now, as the race has so far been a bust, they are downgrading their expectations — and as a result, are seeing less of a chance for a challenger to beat incumbent Thomas Menino.

A sleepy, poorly attended city election is expected to benefit Menino as it did in 2005, when he trounced Maura Hennigan by a greater than two-to-one margin.

This year, with "change" sweeping recent elections, and serious challenges from top citywide officeholders Michael Flaherty and Sam Yoon, even Menino himself seemed to assume things would be very different. To that end, he has raised far more money, run much earlier ads, and agreed to more debates than ever before (if still not all that many).

But now, some doubt that turnout cannot muster as many as the relatively meager 97,000 who voted in the 2005 Hennigan debacle, unless Flaherty and Yoon start bloodying the mayor — and perhaps each other.

Preliminary adjustments
Not even the most enthusiastic political pundits thought the 2009 mayoral election could attract the 236,000 Bostonians who cast ballots in last November's presidential election. But 150,000 voters seemed a realistic expectation for the final election, and many expected more than 100,000 for the city's first meaningful mayoral preliminary (which will narrow the field to two) since 1993 — especially since efforts in recent election cycles have swelled the city's registered-voter rolls to roughly 350,000 (of an eligible population of 450,000).

With less than two months remaining until the September 22 preliminary, however, Flaherty and Yoon advisers now say they are expecting less than 100,000 to show up. At-large city councilor Stephen Murphy tells the Phoenix he is guessing between 65,000 and 75,000 will turn out. Another citywide candidate expects even less. That's in line with what most others are guessing: no more than 80,000, and perhaps fewer than 60,000. That figure would be only a little more than in recent city preliminaries that didn't boast mayoral contests.

Many of those same observers still believe turnout will jump to well more than 100,000 for the final election in November. But that may also prove fanciful. The 1993 election turnout was almost exactly the same in the preliminary and the final election, at 50.3 percent of registered voters.

The reasons given for the apparent current disinterest are myriad, so much so that it's hard to say which are causes or effects of voter ennui.

Some political observers, for instance, claim that city politics simply do not capture the attention of residents, who are more interested in the action in Washington or the squabbling in the State House. Others argue that the local media is to blame for ignoring the mayoral and council races, while still others say that the public — perhaps accurately — perceives that Menino will cruise toward re-election.

Opponents of Menino charge that he deliberately suppresses news and talk of the contest, assuming that low turnout benefits him. Meanwhile, critics of the challengers charge that Flaherty, and particularly Yoon, have failed to catch fire with their campaigns. Certainly, that perception hasn't been helped by relatively anemic fundraising — a problem some blame on economic conditions and others blame on the candidates themselves.

The current campaign doldrums may end abruptly after Labor Day, when Bostonians return from summer vacations and candidates begin spending their war chests. But for now, expectations are low — which means Menino is surely enjoying his summer.

To read the "Talking Politics" blog, go to thePhoenix.com/talkingpolitics. David S. Bernstein can be reached at dbernstein@thephoenix.com.

Related: Can Sam Yoon win?, Fixing Boston Schools, Yoon or Flaherty, More more >
  Topics: Talking Politics , Elections and Voting, Politics, Media,  More more >
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Comments
Curb your enthusiasm
Bravo Richard, for being a voice in the wilderness. The current debate on climate change has taken the same path that several scientific issues have suffered over the past few decades. First there is a flood of new and wonderful data from new sensors which is knit together with new theories and yields new understandings. Some of these new understandings become the fodder for political debates and the discussion is transformed from one on technical issues to one on sociological issues because this transformation is acheived by making people afraid. We poor technoids often do not get this and are still debating technical aspects when in fact the discussion has left us behind. I recall when Gore was VP the impression was that science did not matter - do not confuse me with data - was the word on the street. He had is biases and there was nothing to do about them. Anyhow Bravo again.
By mvhynes on 06/01/2006 at 6:46:36
Curb your enthusiasm
"But when you step into the realm of the skeptics, you find yourself on a parallel Earth. It is a planet where global warming isn't happening -- or, if it is happening, isn't happening because of human beings. Or, if it is happening because of human beings, isn't going to be a big problem. And, even if it is a big problem, we can't realistically do anything about it other than adapt." Joel Achenbach "The Tempest" Washington Post Quotation from John Rennie Scientific American //blog.sciam.com/index.php?title=achenbach_s_tempest_and_the_global_warmi&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1 Lately I met Gregory Khosid, a Holocaust survivor from Grodno, Belorus, and he told me: "The Nieman River is not freezing these days like it was before; a few years ago it got freezed, but not like it was freezing in the past."
By Eyal Morag on 06/03/2006 at 10:54:49

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