Interesting results in last night's Boston preliminary election. John Connolly lived up to the hype by finishing third in the at-large field. Felix Arroyo can't play the progressive-of-color-on-the-brink card anymore; instead, after finishing second, he's a legitimate threat to top the ticket in November. Then there's Sam Yoon, who sneaked past Patricia White to finish in fifth place, a better outcome than even Yoon and his supporters seemed to expect.
And the losers? Let's start with White, who many people (myself included) thought would fare much better. It's too soon to say what went wrong, but White's gender--she's the only female at-large candidate--clearly wasn't the advantage it was supposed to be. (White's recent failure to land the local National Organization for Women endorsement can't have helped matters.) Matt O'Malley didn't have a good night, either: despite relentlessly flogging his ties to Suffolk County Sheriff Andrea Cabral (not necessarily a good thing these days), O'Malley only managed to place seventh. Finally, the Humble Pie award has to go to developer Kevin McCrea, who pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars of his personal fortune into his campaign and still finished out of the running, in tenth place, behind Althea Garrison (!). McCrea made some good points over the short course of his campaign, and his willingness to talk smack to Boston's powers that be was refreshing. Unfortunately, he also came across as an arrogant exhibitionist.
Look for more on the preliminary in tomorrow's Phoenix, including election-night coverage from Deirdre Fulton and yours truly. For now, suffice it to say that the at-large stretch drive should be fascinating to watch.