In the days leading up to Mayor Marty Walsh‘s inauguration, talk of former Mayor Tom Menino‘s expected absence at Boston College’s Conte Forum swept throughout the internet with Bostonians, politicos, and press simply wondering: why? It’s a tradition at nearly all levels, from the highest office of the President down through the ranks of municipal government. The outgoing executive, in good faith, accompanies the incoming upstart.
Mayor Menino, arguably the most popular person in the city of Boston with an approval rating that hovers around 80 percent favorable, was strikingly absent despite rich acclamation from the newly anointed Mayor Walsh. The new helmsman of The Hub thanked Menino and his wife Angela, designated him a legend, and upheld his administration as one by which he hopes to measure his own.
Menino’s truancy was a cold exemplification of arguably his biggest folly. When considering what Boston’s longest serving Mayor could have done better, it became almost obvious that he took it upon himself to overtly embody and personify Boston as a single entity. By doing this, he believed Boston to be an extension of himself and therefore was slighted when metropolitan items didn’t go his way. Subsequently, he failed to realize that today wasn’t just about Marty Walsh but about Bostonians in general.
Back in December, Menino told the Boston Herald – via the Boston Globe – “It’s Marty Walsh’s day. It’s not Tom Menino’s day.”
That single statement summed up that Menino, while near-universally adored by Boston residents and beyond most often with their best interests at heart, never fully grasped the notion that his stranglehold finger on the pulse of Boston was sometimes, however unintentionally, a play to his own ego.
Peter Ubertaccio – Director of Joseph Martin Institute for Law & Society at Stonehill College, Chair and Associate Professor of Political Science & International Studies – told BostInno back on January 1, “He takes personally parts of the city that I think can be a little dangerous.”
Ubertaccio continued to write today on the political blog MassPoliticsProfs, “Inaugural events are bigger than the people taking an oath of office.”
For Menino, he was always bigger, a larger than life figure, than the city and those he represented. In terms of development and policy, it was always about who would partner and collaborate with Mayor Menino, not who would partner and collaborate with Boston.
In contrast, Mayor Walsh made it abundantly clear today that it’s not about the sole person who occupies the City Hall office and what they can do to make Boston succeed, it’s about how that person can work in tandem with its citizens, its lifeblood, to make Boston succeed.
Said Walsh in his inauguration speech, “I will listen. I will learn. I will lead…. We must increase transparency and make clear that Boston’s interests come first.“
For Walsh, it’s not about being bigger, a larger than life figure. It’s about being cohesive with Boston, one with the city.
Congratulations to Mayor Marty Walsh on a successful mayoral campaign and thank you to Mayor Menino for two decades of unwavering service.
