A few stray observations as we ease toward the ides of August:
The mayoral contest has taken a pitched turn in the last week or so. It’s to be expected, perhaps, given the scarcity of time left on the preliminary election countdown. A feisty debate is a healthy dynamic for our city. On that score, incumbent and heavy favorite Michelle Wu and her top challenger, Josh Kraft, have turned up the volume.
Kraft has been roundly criticized – including in this space – for his failure to disclose the full dimensions of his financial profile. While he did release a taxes summary last week, that report fell short of what the public should expect from a serious contender.
The specter of a family-financed soccer stadium on Boston’s border with Everett has cast a giant shadow over the race, and Kraft’s promise to “recuse” himself from such a massive obligation strains credulity. In football parlance: His stance amounts to an end-of-the-first-half pic-six for Team Wu.
On a different matter, though, let’s give candidate Kraft some credit for taking a very public stance in opposition to Donald Trump. In two widely circulated campaign mailers sent to Boston voters, Kraft makes very clear his opposition to Trump and his regime.
In a speech to supporters in South Boston on Sunday, he emphasized his disgust with Trump and his policies. And, in an interview with this newspaper published today, Kraft makes it plain that he voted for, and donated to, Kamala Harris in the last election cycle. And he explains why, invoking his grandparents’ immigrant flight from Nazi-imperiled Europe.
None of that necessarily makes Kraft a better choice than Michelle Wu. But, even here in dark-blue Boston, it’s refreshing to see a politician refuse to kowtow to this president and his red-domed minions, including more than 51,000 Bostonians (roughly 1-in-5 ) who voted for Trump in last year’s election. Most of those acolytes, it’s fair to say, are no fans of the current mayor.
But, to his credit, Kraft has risked alienating them to make it plain that — in Josh Kraft’s own words: “Donald Trump is dividing us, threatening our freedoms, and making life worse.”
A second mailer included a more dramatic quote attributed to Kraft: “We don’t let lunatics like Donald Trump push us around.”
Skeptics might see such pronouncements as hollow electioneering. And Wu supporters can justifiably say that the mayor has more than matched Kraft’s campaign lit bravado with real action, most notably her star turn in front of a hostile Republican-led panel in DC last spring.
No question. Still, at a time when fealty to the Trump “crown” is a prerequisite for so many on the right‚ including a healthy chunk of Kraft’s anti-Wu base, it would have been a safer play for him to say nothing.
Good for Josh Kraft for making it clear that he, like the vast majority of Bostonians, sees Trump and his Congressional cronies for the threat that they truly represent.
Hopefully this sends a message, too, to Kraft’s donor base, including the candidate’s own Trump-cozy clan: There’s no room for Trumpist collaborators in the halls of power in this city.
