Walsh, Tito eye magic number of signatures
The sprint to be first with those 3,000 signatures is on. Anyone looking to become Boston’s next mayor needs to start door-knocking today for the John Hancocks needed to advance in the mayoral fight.
Mayor Martin J. Walsh told me yesterday on Boston Herald Radio, “We will be in the streets of Boston. I will be out there myself. We will have at least 500 volunteers out there. People are excited. The people who helped me get elected in 2013 are fanatical campaigners.”
That’s before he had his City Hall staff — many of whom, if they know what’s good for them, will be volunteering for the campaign, theoretically on their own time, to avoid a change of guard and keep their jobs.
Walsh’s campaign will have 15 different staging areas — basically in every neighborhood. Volunteers will be out until 8 p.m.
In theory, the mayor should be able to obtain enough signatures on Day 1, and won’t require the allotted month.
Today’s results should be viewed as a flash poll into how well he’s governing, because this process also gives voters a chance to give feedback.
If each supporter brings in 10 signatures they should surpass 5,000. However, those close to the campaign claim they hope to get well above that number over the next month. Their engagement with voters could provide an important read on whether Walsh is succeeding or coming up short. He can then hone his campaign based on those conversations in the field.
You can also expect to see hundreds of volunteers who want to convince you to avoid Walsh’s clipboards and sign onto real change for the city under Boston City Councilor Tito Jackson’s leadership.
Despite a road bump last week where he announced he’s reorganizing his campaign staff, Jackson promises a solid fight. The Roxbury city councilor said he is “totally focused on signatures, this is about execution. Flawless execution is important.”
On Herald Radio’s “Morning Meeting,” Jackson urged critics to ignore campaign staff size and bank accounts when analyzing who is running a more successful campaign.
“Our campaign is a grass-roots campaign and the way that we win, the city wins and the people that are having the toughest time wins is being engaged at every level on the ground,” he said. “The count that many want to do is based on how much money you have in the bank, but the real count is based on the number of voters we are able to connect with to motivate and mobilize.”
Today will be the first real test of the campaigns to see who can hit the magic number first.