Grappling with the youth vote
As network bigwigs like Ted Koppel scale back their convention coverage, others, sensing a civic need, are stepping up.
Like 7-foot-tall, 500-pound ''Big Show" Paul Wight, and Mick Foley, known as ''Cactus Jack," and ''Dude Love." The two stars of
Christopher Nowinski, the first Harvard graduate turned wrestler, will be interviewing politicians on youth issues for segments to air on WWE television and attending a panel discussion at Harvard's Institute of Politics.
Gary Davis, spokesman for the Connecticut-based WWE, said the WWE counts among its Democratic fans Representative Kendrick Meek, Democrat of Florida, as well as Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.
Support for locals piques police
The activist Bl(a)ck Tea Society says it simply wanted to make a gesture of support for local businesses during the convention. But to the Boston police, it may have appeared more sinister.
The society, which has an anticorporate bent, printed about 250 signs to hand out to business owners. The signs proclaimed that the restaurants and shops are ''locally owned," and they carried the Bl(a)ck Tea Society's name.
Carmine Federico, co-owner of Osteria Rustico, an 18-seat restaurant on Canal Street near the FleetCenter, accepted the sign from two 20-somethings last Saturday. Later, Federico got a visit from Boston police detectives, he said. They asked if he'd been extorted or threatened by the people who gave him the signs and also what they looked like.
Boston police spokeswoman Beverly Ford said police were only questioning business owners as part of ''routine precautionary measures you would take for any big event."
But a State Police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said authorities were investigating whether anarchists were extorting money from business owners with the message, ''If you donate, we won't trash your place," the source said.
Federico said he wasn't threatened at all, or charged for the signs. Frank Little, a Bl(a)ck Tea Society member, said the idea was to tell out-of-towners, ''If they have a yellow sign, you don't have to worry that you're supporting a corporate chain."
For his part, Federico decided to print up his own signs with the sentiment -- ''This is a locally owned shop. Support the local community!" -- but without the Bl(a)ck Tea Society logo. He didn't want to risk alienating any group.
Going door to door for black voters
As many as 600 Massachusetts black political activists and lawmakers, eager to energize African-American voters for John F. Kerry, will leave the Bay State and go door to door in critical swing states after the Democratic National Convention.
In the planning since April, the volunteer exodus will include state Senator Dianne Wilkerson of Roxbury and Representative Marie P. St. Fleur of Boston and is aimed at swing states such as Ohio, as well as Southern states where blacks make up a large slice of Democratic voters.
''We get the questions often: What is John Kerry's relationship with black voters?" said Wilkerson, an Arkansas native who hopes to spend her time for Kerry in the South. ''And there is no one better to answer that than his constituents. We have stories to tell, and it's the stories that we tell to people who are looking to us that will make a difference"
Recent polls have shown that Kerry enjoys a massive advantage over President Bush among blacks. Earlier this month, Kerry unveiled a $2 million advertising campaign designed to appeal to black voters. He also courted black voters at the NAACP's national conference in Philadelphia, an event the president skipped.
Compiled by Jack Encarnacao, Marcella Bombardieri, Suzanne Smalley, and Raphael Lewis of the Globe staff.
