Menino Elected for Fifth Term

Boston mayor Thomas M. Menino, was reelected to serve an unprecedented fifth consecutive term last night, putting a new flourish on a political legacy that has already led some commentators to jokingly brand him “mayor for life.”

Defying predictions that this would be a close race, Menino defeated his opponent, former City Councilor Michael F. Flaherty, by a margin of 15 percent, according to unofficial election results provided by the City of Boston’s Web site.

With over 100,000 voters at the polls—the highest number in a mayoral election since 1993—Menino garnered 57 percent of the vote, or 63,123 ballots, to Flaherty’s 42 percent, or 46,768 ballots.

Former City Councilor  mayoral candidate Lawrence S. DiCara ’71, who said he continues to follow Boston politics closely, described the mayor’s relationship with Harvard as “cooperative.”

“They’ve been working together on Allston,” DiCara said. “That doesn’t mean that Harvard can buy up land and do nothing with it, though.”

He added that “the mayor had a good working relationship with [former University President Lawrence H.] Summers and I’ve heard that he has a good working relationship with [University President] Drew Faust.”

While DiCara emphasized that he would not make any value judgements regarding whether the mayor’s reelection was good or bad for the University, he did say that Menino’s experience with Harvard would allay the need for any learning curve.

“Nobody will have to go to school,” he said. “He knows what the issues are and he can call up the president and the president can call up him and that’s good.”

Menino, who ran on the slogan “moving Boston forward,” pledged to make the city safer and greener, uphold its diversity, ensure access to quality education for all, maintain fiscal stability, reduce homelessness, and invest in job creation.

In his victory speech, the 66-year-old former insurance salesman acknowledged the challenges that his ambitious platform will face in the coming four years.

“To bring our city together, to move it forward we are going to need all our strengths,” the Hyde Park resident said in his thick Boston accent. “So celebrate this evening and rest up tonight, because our work begins tomorrow.”

DiCara. who said he was pleased with the election’s results, added that he thought the mayor would be able to push through the complacency of union interests—initiating things like mandatory drug and alcohol testing for firefighters—while “look[ing] towards bold initiatives as his legacy.”

Menino, DiCara said, would be able to reform “some of the bureaucracy that has stymied this city since I was a freshman in Pennypacker.”

The former city councilor attributed Menino’s victory to his solid following among “people of color, liberals, and Italians.”

He described these groups as “the informal coalition who have elected most every mayor in the modern era.”

DiCara said that while Flaherty’s challenge of Menino was “quite bold,” his failure was due to the fact that he was “unable to peel way some of the pieces of that coalition.”

Despite his loss, Flaherty struck an optimistic note in his concession speech tonight. “What we’ve learned tonight is that change takes some time,” he said.

—Staff writer Sofia E. Groopman can be reached at segroopm@fas.harvard.edu.