UNLIKELY HORSE RACE FOR DISTRICT 4
When Andrea Joy Campbell steps to yet another door in Dorchester or Mattapan to introduce herself to a voter, the idea that her challenger, incumbent City Councilor Charles Yancey, and several other councilors want to hike their own pay isn’t so much the issue.
It’s that the debate has stretched nearly a year, encompassed multiple hearings and seemingly sucked the oxygen from the fifth-floor chamber. In an otherwise sleepy election season, it’s injected a new issue. But in perhaps the council’s most far-from-sleepy race, it’s ability to distract may be the most frustrating to people, she said.
“When people are reaching out to me to find out my position on the pay raise issue, I think there is some frustration that the councilors are focusing on it,” said Campbell, the buzzy first-time candidate in District 4 that political watchers say is giving Yancey his most significant challenge in more than a decade. “I know the incumbent” — Campbell several times didn’t refer to Yancey by name — “way back when pushed for the highest possible suggestion from all the city councilors. I think that was unsettling for city residents, who want us to focus on issues that are important to them.”
As the city’s Sept. 8 preliminary election approaches, seemingly with little widespread notice, the Mattapan-dominated district is proving a race to watch, pitting Yancey, the council’s dean at 32 years, against Campbell, a 33-yearold lawyer and Princeton grad. Repeat candidate Terrance Williams is also vying to survive next week’s preliminary vote.
Campbell, though, has commanded attention, raising more than $108,000 since launching her campaign last November. She’s littered the district with mailings — Yancey admits more than he has — and counts in her corner former attorney general and gubernatorial candidate Martha Coakley, who’s donated $1,000 and headlined an Aug. 12 fundraiser for Campbell at the Boston home of Georgia Murray. Barbara Lee, the well-known Cambridge activist, and Swanee Hunt, the former U.S. Ambassador to Austria, have also opened their checkbooks, as has former U.S. Sen. William “Mo” Cowan.
But political watchers note many of her high-profile supporters don’t live in the city, though Campbell counters that “90 percent” of her contributions have come from the “greater Boston area.”
Said Yancey: “They don’t have to live in the district or care about the district to make a contribution.”
The race, opined strategist Joyce Ferriabough-Bolling, will likely come down to Campbell’s fresh face and intriguing story — she rose to the Ivy League and later to former Gov. Deval Patrick’s administration as a deputy counsel despite a host of family struggles and time in foster care — against Yancey’s long track record in the community.
“On this one, I’m not going to wager,” said Ferriabough-Bolling, who is a board member for the Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus, which endorsed Campbell, but also has donated to Yancey. “It’s simply the incumbent’s to lose.”
Yancey, for one, doesn’t view pay raises as an issue that can hurt him. “I haven’t spent a lot of time on that,” he said. “I think the public needs to ask what has each of the candidates done for District 4 up to this point — and what they plan to do.”
Twitter trivia
Sonia Chang-Diaz has double jointed shoulders. Harriette Chandler’s grandfather guarded Abraham Lincoln’s body on a funeral train. And Karen Spilka spent her first date with her husband changing an engine.
No, groundbreaking news isn’t streaming out of Beacon Hill during the usually dead days of August. But the official state Senate Twitter handle has proven a handy source of little-known facts — and GIFs — about state leaders lately. Run by Senate President Stanley C. Rosenberg’s staff, the account last week launched a series of “Did you know” tweets, with the permission and input from the senators themselves, providing a great start to a round of Beacon Hill never-have-I-ever.
Thanks to it, we now know Ben Downing names his fantasy sports teams the “Liberal Lions” — and admittedly, they’re not very good.
And if that tidbit doesn’t make it into a challenger’s campaign ad, this surely will: Chang-Diaz’s car still has a tape deck.
View from the top
Give it to Charlie Baker, as Donald Trump takes his swings at critics — and seemingly every Massachusetts pol — he knows where to hit back.
Asked a question at a western Mass. event last week comparing him and the unfiltered presidential front-runner, Baker sounded “a bit indignant,” MassLive.com reported.
“I have better hair and I’m way, way taller,” Baker said.
We won’t argue with the closecropped Baker, whose follicles appear to have recovered from his for charity buzz cut last spring.
But at 6-foot-2, Trump doesn’t exactly have a future as a horse jockey, either. Then again, when you’re a 6-foot-6 governor, (mostly) everyone is short.