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Boston Mayoral Debate Tonight

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Tonight on WBZ (TV and Radio) at 7:00pm is the first Boston Mayoral debate.  First chance to see all of the candidates on stage together in what could be the most lively debate based on Jon Keller’s format.

Who has the most to gain? Will a knockout punch be thrown by any of the candidates? How many bombs will Kevin McCrea throw? Will Mayor Menino call another candidate a liar?

Blogging during the debate anyone?

UPDATE (by David): If you missed it live (as I did), you can watch it on four video segments at these links (unfortunately WBZ does not allow embedding of its video):

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

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Comments

  1. I would argue that Yoon has the most to gain. The race for now is for the top two slots in the primary, and it seems that Yoon is currently in third place. He needs to shine to give himself a chance.

    <

    p>Menino just needs to play defense and not make any egregious mistakes.

    <

    p>Flaherty should be trying to throw barbs at Menino without going too negative and possibly turning people off.

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    p>Who knows what McCrea will do. He has absolutely no chance in this race and it is not clear what is motivating him. Is he trying to push his agenda (e.g. eliminating the BRA) on the other candidates, is he just seeking his 15 minutes of fame, or is he delusional enough to believe that he actually has a chance? It is a good bet that he will attack all three candidates.

    <

    p>Yoon and Flaherty also should be hoping to rev up their supporters and bring in some last minute desperately needed cash for the final push.

    <

    p>

  2. Mumbles is going to win the race again. And frankly he’s probably one of the best politicians we have in this state now that Teddy is gone.

  3. McCrea is tossing bombs at everyone. Menino having to defend the BRA is comical. Yoon can’t say change enough. Flaherty is more polished than I thought he would be. Anyone else?

  6. His statements seem to have more power and substance than the other candidates’. A more memorable performance than either Yoon’s or Flaherty’s.

    • Check out twitter.com/dbernstein

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      p>McCrea can be awesome but then also get very ridiculous very quickly

        • I thought when he brought in the deed or whatever and asked the Mayor to explain why his associate got the lot of land for 5K instead of 100K was excellent

          <

          p>I’m not sure the 2nd line of inquiry abt the 120 mil budget worked out as well  

          • I happen to know someone else who bought land abutting his, and he said the City was in the process of getting rid of random small non-buildable lots by selling to abutters. It would be nice to know some more details, but those lots aren’t necessarily worth what the tax assessor says. In the case I know about the lot had become a drinking hang out for teenagers and its sale effectively ended the problem.

            <

            p>I never bought McCrea’s argument regarding the budget and I think that Menino is right that he does not understand budgeting.

            • There are people asking for variances to build on lots as small as 4000 square feet in front of the ZBA all the time. 10,000 square feet, in Dorchester, will get you proposals for 3 to 6 unit buildings. Look at any of the proposals Tim Callahan has put up, and you would see how absurd this is. 10,000 is no where in the ballpark of non-buildable.

              <

              p>And before you, once again, call me a liar, the link, and all the documentation is at Kevin McCrea’s site. The link to the parcel is below:

              <

              p>http://gis.cityofboston.gov/EG…

              <

              p>This is no different the sweatheart deal Senator Dodd got. Menino gave away land worth around $100,000 to a contributer for peanuts and is now pathetically hiding behind this reasonable and respectable program to dupe people into believing “it is not big deal”. This singular deal, if sold at market rate, could have saved a teacher (or two) their jobs, and Menino threw it away for nothing.

              • The lot I personally knew about is 5000sf; large enough for a house, but non-buildable because it has no street frontage. But regardless of the size of the lot, it is only buildable if the zoning and deed allows it. I had no idea about the details the deal that McCrea was talking about until now.

                <

                p>But if that really is the lot, it is obvious that it is in a really crappy location. It abuts a rail yard and the parking lot of a large currently-unused industrial site at the end of a dead-end street in a run-down neighborhood. No one was going to be paying 100K for that lot anytime soon.

                <

                p>If you or Kevin had actually bothered to read the deed he would have seen the following:

                <

                p>

                The Premises are to be used and maintained for open space purposes only, which purposes include, but not limited to, residential yard space, gardening, and landscaping, provided, however, that at no time shall Grantee be permitted to lease, sell or otherwise charge or receive any fee or monies whatsoever for parking on the premises.

                .

                <

                p>and later

                <

                p>

                No structures are to be erected, constructed or installed upon the Premises, whether permanent or temporary in nature, except a tool/gardening shed, garage and/or fencing.

                <

                p>This is a good deal for the neighborhood and the city. This property was never worth 100K, and would be a magnet for teenage drinking, drugs and other misbehavior. The abutters would never be able to afford that much money to buy the land, and now they will be able to enclose the land and properly maintain it.

                <

                p>After looking more closely at this deal, I have to say I have lost all respect for Kevin McCrea.  

                • Wow. Who am I going to believe. A Menino troll and apologist or Donovan Slack at the Boston Globe.

                  <

                  p>http://www.boston.com/news/loc…

                  <

                  p>The program is a good program, but it is being used a “cover” for what could be something far worse. Randy “Duke” Cunningham was convicted and sent to federal prison for something similar, only in this case, Menino is the seller, not the buyer, and he is selling land without the public process AND selling it to a BRA employee and campaign contributer.

                  <

                  p>As for loosing respect for Kevin McCrea, you have, by your own litany of claims, lost “All” respect for Kevin McCrea so many times over, I have lost count. Your protestations are simply pathetic at this point.

    • Yes his performance was more memorable, but not in a good way. Why hasn’t someone told him it looks ridiculous when he waves his hands for every syllable that comes out of his mouth.

      • i can’t get over the fact that he sounds like a funeral director. show some emotion. debbie downer over there.

        • I listened to the debate online, didn’t get to see the participants’ stage presence

          <

          p>From the sound of it, it was Yoon and McCrea doing well

          <

          p>Menino was OK

          <

          p>Flaherty was not strong from the sound of it

          <

          p>Thoughts?  

        • A couple of the things he said that did not impress me were:

          <

          p>- He tried to make a big point about being the first person who wanted to eliminate the BRA. Who really cares? Its not like the voters already know they want to get rid of it.

          <

          p>- His pledge to spend huge amounts of his time personally visiting every school in the city to try to fix their problems seems foolish to me. He has no expertise in education. What would he really accomplish by that? It is either just a stunt or a sign that he doesn’t know how to delegate.

          • Yea, that part did seem a little silly to me.

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            p>Classic politician’s line…”I’m going to visit every county in this state.”

            <

            p>I’m sure Menino has visited many schools in Boston. That hasn’t gotten us very far…  

            1. The city council (Flaherty and Yoon) made a habit out of violating open meeting laws, and concerned citizens had to sue in order to get them to stop. Flaherty’s contrition was unconvincing, especially after having spent a lot of city money fighting the lawsuit.
              2. The JP MorganChase tax abatement was an outrageous and unjustifiable gift to those who need and deserve it the least.
              3. Cops staring into holes in the road might not be the best usage of their time or our resources
              4. The BRA sells city-owned land to connected individuals for below-market prices with no obvious benefit to the rest of us, and does so without proper public hearings. These types of shadowy, insider deals need to stop.

            <

            p>The other candidates offered mostly platitudes and non-responses, in my opinion.

            • He did a decent job of attacking. He just didn’t do a good job demonstrating that he can be Mayor himself.

              <

              p>It doesn’t really matter. The fact is that he has absolutely no chance. He has raised less than $5000 from less than 40 people after many months of campaigning. He clearly has no base of supporters, and very little campaign organization. Instead of going out and attracting supporters and building a campaign he has wasted time heckling public meetings and writing blog entries that few people read.

              <

              p>

                • Yoon – 321,402.76 Raised in 2009 – I think he has a CD with 175k in bank, but I see a transfer so that means he has less.  Smallest percentage of donors from Boston only 18 percent last I saw.

                  <

                  p>Menino – Over 1 million raised in 2009 with a large saving account (nearly 750,000 or more?) Lots of large donations from developers and people with city business, but power of incumbency.

                  <

                  p>Flaherty – 500,000 raised in 2009 with a CD/saving of nearly 500k.  58% of donors from Boston — the largest percentage of all the candidates.

                  <

                  p>Flaherty has almost triple Yoon does on hand and Menino has almost triple of Flaherty.

                  <

                  p>I don’t know how Yoon runs a GOTV operation with so little money. Menino will be on TV everyday starting soon I suspect.

                  <

                  p>

                • It’d be interesting to see the Cost Per Vote calculation after the election is over

                  <

                  p>Menino is plastering the shit out of the city with signs, but how many is that actually getting him?

                  <

                  p>Flaherty definitely has more cash and a good chance to reach voters. But I know his burn rate is high too.

                  <

                  p>Yoon is working with less, but he made it through the last few times with less. We’ll see how it plays out.  

                • It is hard to calculate the CD’s but if you search the previous few years of reports you will see transfers to savings accounts or CD’s. You will also see transfers from CD’s to savings as receipts (contributions). For example the mayor transferred 300k from his savings account last month. Yoon transferred something as well. My figures are close but not exact.  

                • OCPF should put that on each months report so the public can get an accurate view of campaign funds. Shouldn’t be hard. I find the website pretty good overall. Doesn’t look the greatest but it is very functional and quick with the data.  

                • They should provide a simple web api to do queries and return it in a simple eash-to-parse format. Then interested MA hackers could build a more powerful GUI for exploring the data. Of course, it would not be impossible to reverse engineer their HTML and “screen scrape” for results, but it would be a big pain and would break every time they change their website.

  10. Flaherty did the best job of looking at the camera. Actually, I think he was the only one who looked at the camera.

    <

    p>I think that Menino did an adequate job of defending himself and did not make any exploitable mistakes.

    <

    p>Yoon impressed me the most, but he also came across as really wonky. It seemed like he was running for City Manager instead of Mayor. It also was a little strange to hear him criticize the power of the office he is trying to win.

    <

    p>McCrea attacked a lot as predicted but I don’t think he did such a great job selling himself as mayor. Really he functions more as an additional questioner and a foil for the other candidates.

    <

    p>I really did not like the commercial breaks. The candidates got screwed by Keller when he told them they could rebut McCrea after the break, but then never gave them a chance to do so.

    <

    p>At least WBZ thinks enough people will watch the debate to make it worth selling commercials. 😉

    <

    p>

    • The only difference is that I was more impressed with Flaherty’s commmand of the issues. He came across just as wonky but more personal. Menino didn’t really answer the questions posed — he tried to pivot off of them most times. The bar being lower for Menino helps people who watch the debate comes away thinking he did ok. To be fair it is hard to push an agenda or message when you are constantly defending your record, as he was forced do. One of the issues with being the 16 year incumbent I guess.

      <

      p>With as many commercial breaks as we had, one hour is not enough for a debate with four candidates. I did like the format quite a bit.
       

      • Flaherty held his own for sure, but do you remember any good moments/one-liners?

        <

        p>As I think back at the debate, I just can’t remember anything noteworthy he said.

        <

        p>I remember Menino playing defense, McCrea on the attack, Yoon talking about changing the system…what was Flaherty’s main contribution?  

          1. 16 years, 13 years, it is too long.

          <

          p>2. City does not have a revenue problem, but has a spending problem.

          <

          p>3. Called for an annual performance review.

          <

          p>All good points that I wrote down. Talking about change is fine, but how? Wanting to become what you are constantly bemoaning was boring to me. Tell me how you are going to make it better.  

        • I think that he is firmly in second place right now which is all he needs to get through the primary.

          • There’s no way to tell right now…

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            p>We have no idea whether turnout is going to be the same as always or whether its going to spike

            <

            p>Saying he is in 2nd place assumes a lot of things

      • I think Flaherty did ok. I think the only misstep was that I think he overplayed the whole DA thing. I don’t think voters believe that being an assistant DA is an important qualification for Mayor.

        <

        p>He was fortunate that there were no questions about the firefighters.

        <

        p>I do wonder if his pledge to make personnel cutbacks will hurt him in the city employee vote, which is probably overrepresented in the primary.

  11. Menino didn’t call any candidate a liar  – your own link confirms that. Not at all sure what point you are trying to make there.

    <

    p>Menino more than held his own. Flaherty and Yoon fighting to make the final. Flaherty will be the number 2 slot and it will be closer then Menino’s campaign thinks.

    • because Menino called a supporter of another candidate a liar at a debate a few nights ago. That is what the link refers too.

        • Which people can read in its totality at Bay Windows’ website:

          <

          p>”So who’s right?

          <

          p>I’m going to have to side with Menino on this one (although losing his cool does nothing to dispel the rumors that he and his team intimidate and bully.)

          <

          p>Menino does not march in the parade and moreover, he tells everyone he does not march in the parade. Yes, he works the sidelines. Yes, he goes to parties. And, yes, his motorcade interrupts the parade to cross Southie to get to said parties. It’s not a distinction without a difference. He uses the power of the bully pulpit to remind all that we are discriminated against every year by the powers that be in Southie. There is value in that to our community.“

          <

          p>Elsewhere in the article, O’Connell refers to Menino as “undeniably the most pro-gay mayor in the nation”. To be fair, she also has some kind words for Councilor Flaherty.

          <

          p>Onward ….

  12. From Commonwealth Unbound
    Always welcome. My favorite piece

    <

    p>    

    * McCrea during the debate said Menino’ and city councilors Sam Yoon and Michael F. Flaherty used their political connections to get their children and grandchildren into their top-choice schools.

           Boston.com reported that McCrea’s rivals or their spokespersons denied the charge. A spokeswoman for Flaherty said his 11-year-old son did get his first choice but his younger twin daughters did not. Yoon said his two children did get their first choice, but prior to his being elected to the city council. A Menino spokesman said the mahyor’s grandchildren did not get their first choice.

    <

    p>Now,a if this Grandmother was Mayor, I would find it hard to sit still for that one.  

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