Former Boston mayor Marty Walsh – regardless of taking a excessive paid job main the NHL gamers’ union – nonetheless looms over the Massachusetts political scene and the present mayor’s race.
Sources say Walsh, the previous Labor Secretary underneath Joe Biden, has taken an curiosity in who would be the subsequent mayor, together with presumably taking a leap and endorsing Josh Kraft.
Walsh nonetheless lives in Dorchester although the NHLPA is in Toronto, and has at all times had his roots in Boston.
And it seems to be like Walsh, an adviser to the good Kamala Harris and a part of the braintrust that picked Tim Walz because the VP candidate final yr, nonetheless has the political bug.
He’s one of many Democrats talked about as presumably taking an curiosity within the 2026 governor’s race, although it’s questionable whether or not he would problem incumbent Maura Healey.
It’s extra doubtless that Walsh will ultimately again Kraft, whose marketing campaign he’s been informally advising, in response to sources. Would that be a lift or a threat to the mayoral challenger and will it truly play into the palms of incumbent Michelle Wu?
Wu was going to problem Walsh earlier than the previous mayor cashed in on his union connections to hitch the Biden administration. Then he broke the financial institution when he took the $3 million a yr job working the Nationwide Hockey League Gamers’ Affiliation.
Walsh, although a diehard liberal Democrat, is a part of the “previous Boston” that Wu talks about working the town for hundreds of years. As mayor, he signed into regulation a invoice making Boston a sanctuary metropolis for immigrants.
A Walsh endorsement of Kraft might reinforce the stereotype that the son of Patriots proprietor Robert Kraft is a part of the previous coalition of white males who used to take a seat within the mayor’s workplace.
That’s not the message Kraft is making an attempt to promote to voters.
And it’s questionable how a lot clout Walsh nonetheless has within the metropolis and state.
Final time he received concerned in a political marketing campaign, it was for congressional candidate Dan Koh, his former chief of employees. Koh was defeated by present U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan.
Even when Walsh stays out of the race, Josh Kraft received a reprieve of types when developer Thomas O’Brien introduced on Monday that he gained’t be working for governor.
Meaning Kraft is prone to have a a lot simpler path securing one of many two slots within the preliminary election to make it to the November remaining.
“Sources” near O’Brien – a former redevelopment czar underneath Mayor Thomas Menino – insisted he was working final week. Now that appears extra prefer it was a trial balloon and nothing else. O’Brien clearly had some sense talked into him by individuals who know he would have been destroyed by Wu.
Like Kraft, O’Brien is a rich white man. He would have been a strolling poster youngster for battle of curiosity if he had determined to run.
O’Brien has his palms in a few of the greatest growth initiatives within the metropolis and his pursuits would have been questioned by Wu.
In his assertion bowing out of the race, O’Brien took a swipe at Kraft by primarily endorsing Wu. He clearly hopes his flirtation with working gained’t damage him safe permits for all his growth initiatives.
“I’ll preserve working to make our metropolis a extra reasonably priced, inclusive and vibrant place to dwell, work and thrive – and I stay up for partnering with Mayor Wu, her administration and others to assist obtain that imaginative and prescient,” he stated.
Ouch.
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