Martin Walsh defeated at-large City Councilor John Connolly

Good day, all.
State Representative Martin Walsh defeated at-large City Councilor John Connolly by almost 5,000 votes yesterday in the first open race for mayor in more than 20 years. Mr. Walsh cobbled together a winning combination of labor support, endorsements from virtually all local elected officials of color, and decades of service to the recovery community — as well as a sterling reputation as a caring legislator — as he faced

Mayor-elect Marty Walsh

off against Mr. Connolly, who ran what some saw as a single issue campaign to disassemble the public school system. Mr. Walsh’s ground troops, by all accounts, did a tremendous job in identifying and pulling out sympathetic voters throughout the day. This effort, many observers agreed, was key to his victory.

The BTU, while not officially endorsing Mr. Walsh, made 14,000 robocalls to its 11,000 active and retired members Monday night urging a vote for Mr. Walsh. (We apologize for in some cases multiple calls, but as a practice we call every number, cell and land line, that we have in our data file.) We also followed up with a membership-wide email yesterday morning to restate our request. Our support for Mr. Walsh was based on his pledge to work with us, not against us, as we join forces to improve our schools.

Mr. Connolly, who called himself the “Education Mayor,” ran what amounted to a narrowly-focused campaign to dismantle the school system and start over. This may have backfired. A recent U Mass Poll stated that parents with children in our schools favored Mr. Walsh by a 60% to 34% margin over Mr. Connolly, suggesting that ordinary citizens, particularly those who are users of the school system, have a more favorable opinion of our schools than Mr. Connolly might believe. Much of Mr. Connolly’s support came from educational reformers (Boston:Forward) and outsider activists (DFER) who do not use the school system.

Mr. Connolly deserves acknowledgement and respect for becoming the first and only candidate for a position that was at the time held by an incumbent mayor, Tom Menino.

All of this said, we look forward to working with Mr. Walsh, and while we differ with his proposal to support the expansion of charter schools, we see him as a person with whom we can work cooperatively to improve our schools. That is a goal we share with him. His passion and concern for working with people and granting equal access will translate well, we believe, into making our schools as good as they can be.

We congratulate both candidates for running a good race, paying attention to the issues, and working to do what’s best for our city. We wish Mr. Connolly well, and we look forward to working with Mayor-elect Walsh. We also wish Mayor Menino well as he enters the next phase of his life.

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(We also want to give a quick shout out to Annissa Essaibi-George, who came in a strong fifth place in the at-large city council race. Annissa is a teacher at East Boston High School and a respected small business owner and community activist. We congratulate her as we hail one of our own. Annissa ran an outstanding race.)