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In order to understand the 2009 election, some
background on the 2005 and 2007 elections is in order. In 2005,
incumbent mayor Tim Murray was re-elected by a wide margin.
Murray, however, resigned
his position as mayor when he won the Lieutenant Governorship in
2006. Konstantina Lukes, a frequent critic of
Murray, was his only opponent for mayor in
2005. According to the rules of the city charter, Lukes became mayor
when Murray resigned. Although council races are
officially nonpartisan, and although Lukes is nominally a Democrat,
Worcester County Democratic leaders sought to coalesce behind a
candidate who could defeat Lukes in 2007. Because any candidate for
an at-large council seat can also run for mayor, there was some
concern that there would be multiple mayoral candidates, and Lukes
could win in a mult-candidate race. Because
Worcester
had a larger-than-usual number of at-large council candidates in
2007, there was a preliminary election. Candidates in the
preliminary election do not have to formally announce that they are
running for mayor, but three candidates (besides Lukes) announced
their intention to run for mayor before the preliminary election. Of
these three, the two with the fewest votes in the preliminary
election subsequently dropped out of the mayoral race; this was,
according to many observers, evidence of an agreement among the
candidates to clear the field. The top vote-getter among these
three, Rick Rushton, went on to garner the endorsements of most of
the major Democratic politicians in the area and to raise over
$80,000 in his campaign. Unfortunately for Rushton, however, a third
candidate, incumbent councilor Gary Rosen entered the mayoral race
after the preliminary election. Although Rosen ran a distant third,
he may have siphoned off enough votes to deny Rushton the
head-to-head race he had wanted. In a bitterly fought race, one that
ended in a recount, Rushton ultimately lost to Lukes by 116 votes, a
36.1 percent to 35.5 percent margin. Rushton did, however, win an
at-large seat on the council. The two other incumbent councilors who
had filed to run for mayor in the preliminary election wound up
losing their council seats.
2009 featured far less intrigue than did 2007.
Like 2007, however, the mayoral race centered more around the
personality and leadership style of Mayor Lukes. Again, two strong
candidates ran against her. Joe O’Brien, the former district
director for U.S. Representative Jim McGovern, garnered the
endorsements of Murray,
McGovern, and many other area Democrats, while veteran council
member Kate Toomey was endorsed by the Worcester County Sherriff and
one of the city’s State Senators. Both O’Brien and Toomey argued
that Lukes was not an active enough mayor, was unable to effectively
advocate for the city at the state or federal level, and and was not
able to bring about consensus among council members (Sutner 2009).
O’Brien, in addition, called attention to his commitment to
inner-city neighborhoods and his residence in the less affluent Main
South region of the city. O’Brien sought to run a movement-style
campaign, soliciting small donations on the internet and using the
internet to organize campaign events. Lukes responded by touting her
independence from the Murray/McGovern “machine” and her conviction
that her model of leadership was appropriate – that the job of mayor
was not a full5 time job and
Worcester
residents did not want an activist mayor of the sort O’Brien and
Toomey were proposing. Lukes also drew comparisons between O’Brien
and Murray, alleging that the 42-year-old O’Brien saw the job of
mayor as a step towards seeking higher office, while Lukes had no
such aspirations. A fourth candidate, Emmanuel Tsitsilianos,
appeared at the candidate debates but appears not to have raised
money at all and received little attention (Horn 2009). Although
Toomey’s decision not to drop out in deference to O’Brien (or vice
versa) raised the possibility that the vote again would be split,
O’Brien ultimately won 51 percent of the vote to Lukes’ 28 percent
and Toomey’s 18 percent. Both Lukes and Toomey were re-elected to
the council.
As the above discussion shows, Worcester mayoral races have generally
revolved more around personality than around policy issues. This is
a well-established feature of nonpartisan races. The remaining
at-large council candidates did raise several issues, including the
closure of city swimming pools, salaries for council members and
other city employees, downtown development plans, and the tax
payments of area colleges and universities. At-large council
candidates, because they had no incentive to target individual
incumbents, tended to run more issue-oriented campaigns; this was
particularly the case for nonincumbents. Among the nonincumbent
candidates, community activist Mary Keefe ran on a platform calling
for increased investment in some of the poorer areas of the city,
William McCarthy established an anti-tax message, area businessman
Stephen Buchalter touted efforts to make Worcester more
business-friendly, and Kola Akindele ran a campaign that sought to
organize minorities, students, and immigrant groups. Some news
accounts assumed that the three mayoral candidates, former mayoral
candidate Rushton, and long-time council member Joe Petty would have
no difficulty winning seats, so that the competition was really for
the sixth at-large seat (Nicodemus 2009). Although first-term
council member Michael Germaine finished sixth, the race was close
enough that many of the nonincumbent candidates speculated that they
would run again in 2011.
To the extent that there was a dominant issue
apart from personalities, it was the treatment by the city of
retired city employees. The city had sought to limit the pension
fund payouts of retired members of municipal workers’ unions. This
catalyzed a campaign by Workers United, a coalition of three
different public employees’ unions, to support three at-large
council members, two non-incumbents (including O’Brien), and to
oppose two incumbent district councilors. Workers’ United’s efforts
included direct mail and print advertising, and was the major foray
by outside groups into the election. District seat races, again
because they tend to be focused on the personality of the incumbent,
often revolve around personality, and the involvement of Workers
United became a major issue. In the city’s first district,
comprising the wealthiest neighborhoods in the city, incumbent Joff
Smith sought to cast himself as someone unfairly targeted by
“special interests,” and in the fourth district, the poorest
district in the city, both the incumbent and the challenger attacked
each other for being out of touch with the needs of workers. Both
incumbents won, but the first district race, in particular, was
hard-fought, with the union advertisements providing additional
ammunition to a challenger who criticized the incumbent Smith for
using his seat as a platform to run for higher office. Two of the
other district councilors ran unopposed, and the other district
councilor won easily.
O’Brien, then, was the only non-incumbent to
win, and in many ways O’Brien was more of an “establishment”
candidate than many of the incumbents. O’Brien’s campaign did likely
drive turnout. 22.9 percent of the electorate voted – a low
percentage, perhaps, but higher than the rate in many other cities
and comparable to the 2007 race which, as we shall see, was by many
measures more competitive and involved far more candidate spending. Worcester is not an
expensive city in which to run – in the recent past, candidates who
have spent scarcely more than $10,000 have won city-wide office. To
the average city resident, the most visible campaign events are the
“stand outs” held by candidates and their supporters at major
traffic intersections during rush hour. Apart from the cost of signs
to wave, these events cost virtually nothing for candidates.
Worcester has no
network television stations, and few candidates advertise on the
radio. According to one candidate, the major expense for candidates
is their signs, and repeat candidates can drive around on election
night, picking up their yard signs and reusing them in the next
cycle. Nonetheless at least a threshold amount of money is essential
for all serious candidates.
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