Victory Bittersweet For Flynn

While Boston's current mayor, Raymond L. Flynn, enjoyed a landslide victory in the September 22 preliminary election, his win was bittersweet in light of a record low voter turnout.

He received more than 70 percent of the popular vote. But only one in four Bostonians eligible to vote actually cast a ballot.

To be sure, the low voter turnout is due to the fairly uneventful race for mayor. Flynn's closest competition, City Councilor Joseph Tierney, proved to be a weak challenger, scraping up only 27 percent of the vote. The two other candidates in the preliminary election barely made a dent in the electoral column.

To some political observers Flynn's victory--in which he received a larger portion of the vote than he did in the last preliminary mayoral election, when twice as many candidates ran--indicated popular satisfaction with the incumbent and the good economic times in Boston.

But others question if low voter turnout is the result of political disinterest and uninspired leadership.

Most politicians have little doubt that the victor of November's upcoming mayoral election will be Flynn. But, the fact he received so few votes troubles pollsters and political analysts. To these observers Flynn was elected by a discouragingly tiny portion of Boston's residents, and not by the vast populace he and his supporters would probably like to think placed him ahead of the other candidates.

Boston political consultant Michael Goldman said the low voter turnout is a positive gesture on the part of Bostonians. "When times are good, voters show their satisfaction by not turning up at the polls."

Goldman said even those that did not vote in the preliminaries were demonstrating a form of passive support by not voting against Flynn.

Before Flynn's initial term in office, Boston was a city riddled by a $41 million debt. The city now faces a monetary turnabout due to considerable prosperity.

According to former city councilor and Boston lawyer Lawrence DiCara, "Low voter turnout everywhere, not just in Boston, can be based plain and simply on prosperity."

"We have a new generation of people with spending power. They do not need politics as an occupation, nor do they need political support to succeed," he said. "Where at one time we had baby boomers of the sixties running around without any power of the dollar, we now have an older generation of individuals with a great deal of spending power."

Yet to some there is a downside to this prosperity. Political observers said this power of the baby-boomer vote and dollar is disenfranchising other members of the Boston community and thus leading to low voterturnout. These analysts said the success of thebaby boom generation has forced traditionalBostonians out of gentrified neighborhoods and seta political agenda attractive to only a few.

While DiCara targets generational change andgood times to explain the absence at the polls, healso said there are "no real big issues" in theupcoming November election.

"Ray Flynn has won before the election," saidGoldman. "He has created a safer city and even thepoorer sections of Boston like him.