Flaherty keeps punching as Menino stays low-key

Mayor Thomas M. Menino, seeking an unprecedented fifth term in office, continued his closing strategy of carefully avoiding a confrontation that could alter the contours of the race. Ignoring Flaherty’s attacks, the mayor spent his day greeting senior citizens who dined on ziti and meatballs at a city-sponsored luncheon in the South End and touring a Dorchester police station that was decked out with a Frankenstein ice sculpture and other decorations for a children’s Halloween party.

The stark contrast between the candidates - one aggressive, the other low-key - reflected the vastly different tasks each faces before Election Day on Tuesday.

Flaherty, trailing in the polls and lacking the money for television ads, has been attacking the mayor every day as he tries to gain an edge against Menino, but he is struggling to attract attention. None of the local television affiliates covered his major appearances yesterday. Menino, who has been mayor since 1993, is trying to remain above the fray, using his considerable war chest to run ads on radio and television that do not even mention his opponent.

Flaherty’s announcement yesterday that he has been endorsed by McCrea unites all three of Menino’s challengers this year - Flaherty, McCrea, and Councilor at Large Sam Yoon - in the long-shot effort to unseat the long-term mayor.

Flaherty has been calling on a variety of prominent figures to help him. Former mayor Raymond L. Flynn and his 1983 rival, Mel King, have recorded phone calls for Flaherty, and yesterday Flaherty launched another automated phone call to voters featuring an endorsement from Jack Hynes, the former newscaster and son of the late mayor John B. Hynes. Hynes said in his phone message that his father had defeated “the thriving political machine of James Michael Curley, Boston’s incumbent mayor at the time.’’

“In the last 60 years, no one has been able to achieve this same milestone,’’ Hynes said in the message. “But now, it’s time for Bostonians to demonstrate that same courage to change.’’

In a bit of political theater, Flaherty took his campaign yesterday to the Menino Pavilion, a new wing of Boston Medical Center, where he lambasted Menino for not fully enforcing a city policy that requires Boston construction sites to fill jobs with 50 percent city residents, 25 percent people of color, and 10 percent women. The city has met the goal for minority workers, but not for women or residents.

“The mayor is quick to call his developer friends, to put his friends to work, or to fund his pet projects,’’ Flaherty said to cheers from about two dozen African-American union pipe fitters, painters, and ironworkers. “Wouldn’t it be great if he was quick to pick up the phone and put the people in the city of Boston to work?’’

Earlier in the day, Flaherty stood in front of the partially demolished Filene’s building with McCrea and Yoon and denounced Menino’s management of Downtown Crossing.

“One, looking at this, would think that we were in Fallujah and that this is the direct result of a surface-to-air missile,’’ Flaherty said, motioning toward the crater where the flagship department store once stood. “It’s not. It’s a direct result of Mayor Menino’s administration, and the failures of his administration to provide quality economic opportunities to this part of our city.’’

The city had approved plans to replace the store with a $700 million commercial and residential project, but the project fell through when the economy tanked. Menino responded to Flaherty’s charges in an interview before attending the luncheon with seniors in the South End. He said the economy, not his administration, was to blame for the hole in Downtown Crossing. “How did anybody in this world know the world markets would explode?’’ he asked. “Nobody knew that. So, once again, they’re using issues to try to get headlines.’’

As for providing more construction jobs for Boston residents, women, and minorities, Menino said he wants to do better but is worried about inviting a legal challenge. “I want to do it the right way,’’ he said. “I don’t want to get in the problems that Worcester and Lowell have, where they were ruled unconstitutional and we lost that leverage.’’

The endorsement of Flaherty by McCrea was somewhat ironic, given that McCrea had successfully sued Flaherty when he was City Council president for presiding over illegally closed-door meetings. McCrea said he had wrestled with the endorsement. He said he and his wife had had dinner with Menino and his wife and had also met with Flaherty and Yoon. McCrea said he appreciates the mayor’s empathy and his attention to homelessness. But McCrea said that only Flaherty supports his top priorities: eliminating the Boston Redevelopment Authority, instituting term limits for the office of mayor, and improving public access to government.

“I give Michael a lot of credit,’’ McCrea said. “Michael has really grown. Michael has been open to new ideas, Sam’s ideas, my ideas, other constituents’ ideas. And he’s learned, in his time as a city councilor and candidate, that the BRA is a nondemocratic, corrupt institution, and it has to change.’’

Menino said he was not surprised by McCrea’s endorsement.

“I expected it because they’re more in tune with each other on the demolition of the BRA,’’ he said. “I don’t sell my beliefs for endorsements.’’

Michael Levenson can be reached at mlevenson@globe.com.