Felix Arroyo's defeat Tuesday was an understandable letdown to those who cheered his election to the Boston City Council. The first Latino elected to the body, he is now the first to go down to defeat.
But while it may spell a setback for the progressive wing of the council, it isn't the body blow to Boston politics that some believe.
Arroyo's defeat was a surprise, especially given that so few incumbent city councilors have lost in modern times.
Arroyo is a notoriously nice man and has been, in other roles, a fine public servant. But his passion never seemed to be in the workaday issues that dominate a councilor's workload, and he was never an enthusiastic campaigner or fund-raiser.
Nonetheless, those who should know better have blamed his defeat on a lack of media coverage, the lack of a preliminary election, and, most implausibly, the rain on Tuesday.
Actually, it rained on everyone's supporters, not just Arroyo's. More to the point, he had tumbled in a mere two years from a progressive darling to fifth place. The opportunity was there, but he was never able to capitalize on it.
Give the man himself credit for getting it. "You have to be a politician to be able to complain," he said yesterday when I asked him about the election results, refusing to lament his defeat.
Obviously, Arroyo's defeat makes the City Council an even less representative body than it had been. That is bad news.
But there is more to influence than symbolism, and the fact is that the City Council is not going to be all that different because Arroyo is not on it. It's entirely possible that newcomer John Connolly will be a more effective advocate for some of the causes they share than Arroyo was able to be.
Yesterday, Arroyo was still pondering his future. He said he might get involved with an existing nonprofit, or start one of his own. He wants to promote dialogue on pressing civic issues, citing the dropout rate and mortgage foreclosures as examples.
"I don't intend to go away or to be inactive," he said. "I guess I will always be an activist, elected or not."
Arroyo believes, as many do, that there is a generation of potential leaders of color poised to take office. I hope he's right, but no one will really know until they have more opportunities to seek office.
The difficulty of toppling incumbents, combined with a reluctance to challenge elders, has meant that blacks and Latinos who want political careers in Boston can endure a long wait to run for a seat that they can win.
Part of the problem, frankly, is that once people win seats they cling to them.
Just to cite one example, Charles Yancey has held his council seat since the advent of district representation in 1984. Most of the Legislative Black Caucus has been in office for well over a decade, as well.
Though many people are too polite to say so publicly, the truth is that African-American and Latino politics needs more turnover, not less. More defeats wouldn't necessarily be tragic. They might even be healthy.
Arroyo wasn't concerned about himself yesterday. Admirably, he was far more concerned about the historically abysmal turnout on Tuesday.
He mocked the reasons analysts have offered to explain it.
"It was too wet, I didn't like the candidates, nobody wrote me a note - those to me are silly reasons," he said. "The world doesn't stop because it's raining.
"I want a society - and it's probably a dream - where candidates don't have to bring people out, because either force a candidate out or get a candidate in."
Given the low turnout, democracy worked imperfectly Tuesday, but it did work. That's never a crushing defeat. Felix Arroyo deserves credit for understanding that.
Many politicians would not, but he never claimed to be a politician.
Adrian Walker is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at walker@globe.com.
