The mayor and BU and those folks just felt they could come over here, plunk this thing down, not ask any questions. There’s a thing that goes on about, “Well, this is prestige.” It doesn't make any sense.
FLYNN: Does Menino pay a price for any of this stuff?
KING: No, because we don’t have any leading candidate [to oppose him].
FLYNN: That’s it. It gets back to that.
KING: No one [credible] has run against him. I think he's vulnerable. But anyhow . . .
FLYNN: Anybody you see out there?
KING: I thought [Boston City Councilor] Sam Yoon might have had a chance.
FLYNN: Is he going to run?
KING: I don't know. I think [Boston City Councilor Michael] Flaherty is going to run.
FLYNN: Yeah, he is going to run. Who else is out there, potentially? [Former Suffolk County District Attorney Ralph] Martin wouldn't run?
KING: I don’t know. I tried to talk to him a few years ago about a strategy that I thought he needed to use. The number-one focus ought to be to take the guns off the street, and to really keep the guns from coming in. That has to be your campaign, I said.
On whether Flynn and King expected to face each other in a rematch in 1987.
FLYNN: I thought he was one of the best candidates to ever run for mayor of Boston, so I wouldn't be surprised if he did run again. He's experienced, knowledgeable, tough as nails. I wouldn't be surprised to see him run again next year.
KING: [Laughs loudly.]
And Mel, did you think you'd be challenging him again in four years’ time?
KING: I don't think so. I ran for Congress [in 1986], but after that I closed shop.
FLYNN: Sometimes you can do more out of office than you can in office because everything you do in office is politically suspect.
KING: I have absolutely no regrets. But after the election, I had a second or third grader come up and ask me how I felt, having not won. And I'd not had any other person ask me that question.
FLYNN: [Laughs] What did you say?
KING: I said I felt more for the folks who supported me. Their energy and interest. . . . I would rather have had the other feeling. But no one, other than that young person, before or since, ever asked me how I felt.
FLYNN: It’s a cliché, I know, but it's an election that neither one of us won or lost. But the people of the city of Boston won. That's the way I look at it.
KING: Yeah.
