Menino says this may not be his final campaign

Mayor Thomas M. Menino once declared he would serve no more than two terms. But here he is, on his way to a fourth, which would make him the city's longest-serving mayor if he completes the term. But what then? Could a fifth term be in his future?

The mayor is famously coy with answers to such inquiries. But catch him in an unguarded moment, say on a chilly morning as he stands in his shirtsleeves near the rear entrance of City Hall.

''The people of Boston make that decision," he said yesterday. ''They make that decision like that all the time. I don't make that decision. They make that decision."

But is he ruling out another run in 2009?

''I'm not ruling anything out," he said.

Menino has been called the accidental mayor, because he succeeded to the office from the City Council after Mayor Raymond L. Flynn left in 1993 to become ambassador to the Vatican. And some talk about him as a man of very particular destiny, whose one chance of fame and political fortune began and will end in the fifth-floor office of City Hall. All agree he has become one of Boston's most popular leaders, with approval ratings exceeding 70 percent as he heads into the November election.

He would end a fourth term with a few more months under his belt than two of his longest-serving predecessors, Mayors Kevin White (1968-1984) and James Michael Curley (1914-18, 1922-26, 1930-34, 1946-50). Unlike those mayors, Menino has so far not been seriously threatened for his seat. Peggy Davis-Mullen, a city councilor from South Boston, captured just 23 percent of the vote in 2001. This year, Councilor at Large Maura A. Hennigan of Jamaica Plain has resorted to borrowing against her home and other real estate to raise money for her campaign.

Hennigan, a 24-year veteran of elected office, has called for an eight-year mayoral term limit and has criticized the mayor for reneging on his two-term limit statement.

''Otherwise it becomes, 'I'll do it next year; I'll do it next year,' and next year never seems to come," she said. ''There's no incentive to do anything in a time certain. The public is the winner, because it really holds the mayor's feet to the fire."

But the mayor brushed aside such concerns yesterday. In the rooftoop ballroom of the Omni Parker House, which is celebrating its 150th anniversary and is the longest continually operating hotel in the country, he took a break from chatting with seniors at an annual luncheon he hosts for Bostonians who have been married 50 years or more.

What about his 1993 pledge to serve ''only two terms, and that's it for me"?

''I made that statement more in jest than in reality," he said.

His campaign press secretary, Jacque Goddard, had a slightly different take when reached at her office later in the day.

''In 1993, he meant it," she said. ''He has changed his mind, and now he feels the people of Boston have a chance to decide who should be mayor every four years."

The mayor said term limits are a bad idea. ''The problem with term limits is that you lose a lot of institutional knowledge and experience," he said.

So, could Menino see himself mayor when he's, say, 80? ''Oh, no," he said.

As they finished their lunch, Joan and Laurence Headle of Charlestown, who are celebrating their golden anniversary this year, said they hoped the mayor would get reelected. Franklin Delano Roosevelt did just fine without term limits, they said. ''He put an awful lot of people to work," Laurence Headle said.

After the mayor and his wife left the ballroom, a small crew of Hennigan campaign volunteers arrived, armed with Hennigan's trademark wicker basket of chocolates wrapped with little papers that read, ''Maura Hennigan for Mayor, Vote Nov. 8, 2005." The volunteers worked their way around the tables, delivering them to the elderly couples.

And the favors from the city each couple received on the way out? A pair of blue glass champagne flutes, embossed with the mayor's name under the city seal.