Little guy, big run
Meet Jack; he wants to be Boston mayor
Aside from conservative principles, a dim view of property taxes, and a beef against the smoking ban in restaurants and bars, John ''Jack" Hanney is running for Boston mayor for a simple reason: He's going to need a job.
In a few years, Hanney plans to retire from Polaroid, where he has worked as a chemical technician for 29 years. His pension, loaded with company stock, has dwindled to dangerous lows. He's 48 now and figures he'll be tough to hire. ''It's not that I'm not skilled," he said yesterday. ''It's that I'm too old."
Politics would provide a steady paycheck (the mayor makes $150,000 a year), he said, and give him a choice opportunity to execute some of the ideas he and his work buddies share on breaks from lifting 55-gallon chemical drums. They're constantly devising ways to fix the world, he said.
''At least I could get out the regular man's point of view," he said.
Granted, few regular men would run for a big-city mayorship with no political experience, no high-placed allies, and no organization. Hanney has a decidedly lower profile than his rivals: Mayor Thomas M. Menino, Councilor at Large Maura Hennigan, and Gareth Saunders, a former city councilor.
Another candidate who entered the race this week, Margaret Trowe, 57, has a political history: She ran for vice president in 2000 on the Socialist Workers Party ticket.
As Hanney sees it, the mayor's race was a logical choice. He's a Republican (''Democrats are too wishy-washy for me") and imagines that he would have trouble getting heard on the City Council. His notions about fixing potholes and clearing snow demand an executive post.
Besides, Hanney has never cared about convention. ''I set the mark; I don't follow it," he said. ''I've been that way my whole life."
Hanney was born in Dorchester and moved to Dedham. ''We were part of white flight," he said. He married a South Boston native and moved to the neighborhood in 1981.
He has worked since age 15, first carrying groceries for a nickel a bag, then moving to a storm door outfit, a dungarees warehouse, and Polaroid, where he works 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. three times a week.
And he has been a fixture on his block, where he shovels elderly neighbors' walks and did the dog-walking circuit until December, when his Labrador died. Some dog food still sits in the bowl, beside the dining room window in Hanney's modest rowhouse.
In a neighborhood like his, Hanney said, one can see how a mayor interacts with people. Hanney disapproved, for example, of Menino's crackdown on parking space markers after snow storms, and he even figured out a way around it: Put paint cans on the street. They were hazardous materials, he said, so crews couldn't pick them up.
Hanney's own idea for snow removal relies on common sense, he said: Scoop the snow off the streets and dump it on beaches.
On the subject of potholes, he proposes assigning a single crew to fix potholes for every neighborhood. ''Simple," he said.
He also hopes to return the cigarette to Boston's restaurants and bars, revealing something personal at stake: the Marlboros in his shirt pocket. ''I won't fool you," he said. ''There will be smoking in the mayor's office if I'm elected."
Hanney has ideas on other issues, too, from parent-teacher relations to the Big Dig, which he called ''a total disgrace."
''I've got opinions," he said, ''and I'll just spit them out."
Not all of those issues might fall under a mayor's purview; Hanney isn't exactly sure. He's still figuring out this whole politics thing and met with officials of the state Republican Party yesterday to get some tips.
He has spent about $3,500 of his own money so far on bumper stickers, posters, marching rights for South Boston's St. Patrick's Day parade, but he has yet to set up a campaign bank account. He's planning meet-and-greets, but he has told friends to wait until the weather improves.
Better to gather in someone's backyard than tramp everyone through his house, Hanney said. That's common sense.
''I really don't have an idea of what I'm doing," Hanney said. ''But I know that when I speak, the regular guy is going to sit there and say: 'Yeah, he's right. That's what I think.' "
Joanna Weiss can be reached at weiss@globe.com. 