A busy Menino elects to stay above the fray

As Mayor Thomas M. Menino left a St. Patrick's Day luncheon in South Boston yesterday, he was confronted by a phalanx of television cameras and reporters questioning him about the city councilor who has thrown her hat in the ring to unseat him.

''What do you want?" he snapped. After a few reluctant bromides about his being too busy to campaign -- ''I have more important issues to deal with" and ''I'm focused on running the city" -- Menino hurried out the door and into an idling Ford Expedition that whisked him to City Hall.

As Councilor at Large Maura Hennigan ramps up her campaign, Menino is filling his schedule with press conferences about summer jobs, affordable housing, and education.

It seems a deliberate strategy of using his office to highlight his biggest advantage, that he is an experienced incumbent, political observers say.

In recent days, Menino and his aides have refused to answer questions about his campaign, declining to comment about whether the mayor has hired a campaign manager or whether he has settled on a date to announce his candidacy.

''The mayor is focused on the business of the city," a mayoral spokeswoman, Rebecca Frisch, said yesterday in declining a reporter's request for an interview about the campaign.

But recent weeks have also shown him busily ensuring that his opponent can't get a toehold on issues. After a dog was electrocuted by stray voltage from a buried wire earlier this month, Hennigan accused the city of failing to do enough about such problems. Menino immediately elbowed her out of the spotlight, staging a press conference with electric company officials to announce plans for inspections of possible trouble spots and a mayorally appointed task force to end stray voltage.

''If you run a city that works, that sends a message to the city of Boston," he said yesterday.

As one of Boston's longest-serving mayors, Menino already has fund-raising power and name recognition. After 12 years in office, everything from parks to housing projects to a hospital have signs bearing his name.

Veterans of Boston's political scene say the mayor is now taking advantage of that, adopting a campaign posture known as ''the Rose Garden strategy." Done successfully, it lets incumbents avoid confrontation and can prevent opponents from gaining traction, political consultants say. But the risk for longtime officeholders is that they can appear arrogant.

''Some people would argue that he should be going to a renewal strategy, making sure you're not perceived as above the crowd, granting access, and reconnecting with your base," said Lou DiNatale, former director of the Institute for Public Affairs at the University of Massachusetts at Boston.

Hennigan, meanwhile, is attempting to exploit Menino's tactics, accusing him of being too busy or self-absorbed to answer probing questions or to listen to critical input about his policies. That is the way Menino runs his administration, too, she said.

''It's the dynamic that occurs when mayors stay in office too long," said Hennigan, who has been a councilor through three mayoral administrations. ''It becomes more about you than about the job."

Others say that whatever Menino does, with nearly six months before the preliminary election in September, will be forgotten as the campaign heats up.

''Most people's minds are on the weather, maybe the Red Sox," said Lawrence S. DiCara, former city councilor and longtime political observer. ''I'd make the case that a majority of people don't even know there's an election."

Donovan Slack can be reached at dslack@globe.com.