Marty Nolan still has nose for Boston news

By Brian C. Mooney, Globe Staff

The esteemed Martin F. Nolan, retired after many years as reporter and chief editorialist for The Boston Globe, still produces penetrating pieces on politics for The Huffington Post and media outlets of both the old and new variety. But his first love is his native Boston, and he hasn't yet lost his journalistic legs, as this nugget, unearthed during his recent holiday visit to the Hub, and passed along via email from his home in San Francisco, will attest.

A student of all things political (and a card-carrying member of Richard M. Nixon's "enemies list" from his days covering Washington), Nolan was curious about the presidential vote in Boston, a Democratic stronghold but with some areas that in the past were less than hospitable to black candidates.

In Massachusetts, Democrat Barack Obama thumped Republican John McCain by about 800,000 votes out of three million cast, and in Boston, he crushed McCain by a 4-to-1 margin. But the Arizonan did manage to capture a few of the city's 254 precincts by small margins, Nolan found.

Here is his report:

"At our fine gathering at Doyle’s Café Dec. 20, we discussed how many and which Boston precincts voted for John McCain over Barack Obama. The [Election Commission] website is good, but slow, so I trekked to its City Hall bunker on what once was Hanover St. to discover the number, three, and the precincts:

-- Ward 6, Precinct 9 is City Point in Southie, where citizens vote at St. Matthew the Redeemer Episcopal, attend St. Brigid’s on Sunday and probably follow the gospel according to St. Sean Hannity.
McCain: 532; Obama 467, a percentage of 52.5 over 46.1.

-- This precinct’s neighbor, Ward 7, Precinct 2, votes at the L Street bathhouse.
McCain: 561; Obama 548, a percentage of 49.6 to 48.4.

For the 3rd precinct I guessed somewhere in West Roxbury’s Ward 20. Nope, it’s ...
-- Ward 16, Precinct 9 in Neponset. “Ah yes, the Kenny School,” noted Jim Brett, who has campaigned throughout Dot and all of New England. I would have guessed St. Brendan’s parish across Gallivan Boulevard, but it’s the heart of St. Ann’s, with semi-posh houses on Chickatawbut Street high above Garvey Playground.
McCain: 509; Obama, 478, a percentage of 50.3 to 49.2.

Just 109 votes separated Obama from sweeping the city ... In the Reagan era, the Republican districts were in the housing projects of South Boston and Charlestown. Republicans are finally gentrifying in the Hub.

Boston’s vote, as always, was historic."