The strong, private type
Not long before he left office in 2002, Suffolk District Attorney Ralph C. Martin II got curious about what the transition to the private sector would be like, a life with none of the trappings of office.
Without telling anyone on his staff, he slipped onto a Green Line train at Government Center, got off at Copley, and walked around. It might sound strange, but district attorneys almost never just walk around town.
"I realized then that going back to private life was going to be fine," Martin recalled a few months ago.
Life without politics will apparently be a permanent state of affairs. Martin said yesterday that he is no longer considering a run for mayor in 2009, probably bringing an end to his political career. "Psychically, I haven't come to that decision, because this one is big enough," he said. "But, for all practical purposes it could end up that way."
Over the years, Martin has been criticized at times for lacking an obsession with politics, the so-called fire in the belly that grips its most successful practitioners. He could always envision life without it.
Ultimately, he relished his private life more than another shot at holding office. This decision "is all about the tension between being attracted to public issues and critical opportunities and the restraint it puts on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness from a very personal perspective," Martin said.
His exit from a race he never entered can only be good news for Mayor Thomas M. Menino. His path to becoming Boston's longest-serving mayor has been about as free of competition as anyone could imagine.
Menino remains popular, but there are signs that he could be more vulnerable than in the past. The Fire Department is a disaster. Called to a homicide, the Police Department had trouble finding the right Washington Street. The School Department is receiving a $10 million bailout from the city's reserves, which merely delays the day of reckoning with its untenable finances.
The Menino Machine? The national media might have been impressed by the small army that Menino deployed to New Hampshire for Hillary Clinton. But Bostonians know that Tom Reilly got wiped out in Boston in the 2006 governor's race, despite Menino's backing. We know that Clinton was soundly defeated in Boston despite Menino's ardent backing. Clearly, plenty of people in this town are not taking their political marching orders from City Hall. Martin might have appealed to enough of those voters to give Menino his first truly competitive race.
Alas, the same probably cannot be said of Michael Flaherty, the city councilor who now becomes Menino's most likely adversary. Flaherty's South Boston base is only shrinking, as the neighborhood itself continues to evolve. It doesn't help that he largely squandered five years as City Council president, producing little of lasting value. True, he has a formidable fund-raising operation - for a councilor. His chances of outraising Menino: zero.
When Menino was running in 1993, it was common to hear commentators say it was a race to elect "the last white mayor of Boston." That might still be the case. Even Menino insiders believe that the candidate with the best chance of beating him might be a black or Latino candidate who could articulate the message that it is time for change, someone who could duplicate the kind of campaign Deval Patrick ran in getting elected governor.
That won't be Martin, and I wondered how the prospect of making history had weighed in his decision. "I don't mean to ignore the appeal of a distinction like that, but I would never ask for anyone to vote for me on that basis," he said, "so, you shouldn't make a decision solely on that basis."
Regardless of its outcome, a mayoral race in 2009 would be a vitally good thing for Boston. We might yet get one: As Patrick's run proved, viable challenges sometimes emerge from unexpected places. All that is clear for now is that a strong candidate, and potentially a very good mayor, opted instead for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Adrian Walker is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at walker@globe.com.
