Michael Pahre takes note of newbie at-large city councilor John Connolly (best known in West Roxbury and Roslindale) and his quick learning of the BC expansion issue and wonders if it might already be time to add him to the list of possible candidates for mayor next year:

We'll watch those fund-raising numbers carefully over the next six months to see how well he replenishes his warchest.

Did John Connolly's not-so-anonymous mailings violate federal postal regulations? Connolly only admits to sending out some of the anti-Murphy mailings, although the Herald reports the others had the same postal permit number as used by the Connolly campaign for other mailings.

Winner:

Loser:

Big winner:

Winner:

Guy whose picture I didn't happen to take at the Roslindale Day Parade:
John Connolly

Steve Murphy proved tonight he's the Model T of elected officials: He can get elected to anything as long as it's an at-large seat on the Boston city council. He came in second tonight, giving him one of the four at-large seats on the city council.

Felix Arroyo, meanwhile, proved that, on a rainy day, when not even 14% of registered voters show up, organization DOES matter, as in: If you don't have much of one, you're going to wonder what the hell happened.

And what the hell happened tonight was that John Connolly, who had an incredibly organized get-out-the-vote effort, especially in his home base of Roslindale and West Roxbury, simply got more votes than Arroyo (who came in second two years ago, which led to a brief Arroyo-for-mayor boomlet). If the flap over Connolly's anonymous anti-Murphy mailings had an impact, in the end, it didn't matter (except to possibly give Steve Murphy some sympathy votes).

Of course, above everybody else sits, again, Michael Flaherty. Not really a surprise there, and you know he already has people thinking what colors to use on the "Flaherty for Mayor" signs. The only question is whether he dares to take on Tom Menino in two years or waits until 2013 - when, who knows, maybe he'll be facing Sam Yoon, who also got re-elected tonight.

Of course, the big question is what this all means for actual policy making in Boston. Granted, we have a "weak" city council, which makes it hard for them to actually get anything done, but they do have the power to hold hearings and get to vote on the mayor's budget, so it'll be interesting to read in the GateHouse and college papers what happens (since we obviously can forget about the Globe and Herald writing much of anything about the council).

In other races:

Mark Ciommo beat Gregory Glennon to win the Allston/Brighton district council race by a roughly 60/40 margin (props to Michael Pahre for calling that margin). He takes over for Jerry McDermott, who moved out of town.

In Dorchester, Maureen Feeney easily maintained her position as the only woman on the council, swamping Michael Cote.

Charles Yancey did even better against J.R. Rucker in his Dorchester/Mattapan district.

It was Chuck Turner over Carlos Henriquez in Roxbury in another trouncing.

All other district races were uncontested.

Vote numbers from the city elections department.

In September Murphy was trying to keep two jobs a $100,000 + state job and his $85,000 councilor seat

He is the one that tattled on Flaherty for having an expired City Council President placard in his window. How does Howie get is inside anonymous City hall info? Ratso gives it to him.

Turned his back on 41 well trained battle worn Boston Municipal police offices. They all got laid off in January and most of them were friends who had helped him win elections.

Look what we got in the mail today:

Of course, as I've blathered, if Connolly loses because of this, it'll be because he attacked Murphy anonymously, not because what he said about Murphy was in any way untrue.

Election's tomorrow, natch.

Michael Pahre explains why he thinks John Connolly is really your basic old-line Irish-American pol, not a harbinger of some new politics in Boston - and not just because of all his political relatives from back in the day:

More than anything else, Connolly's stance on schools betrays his old Boston roots. He's 34-years-old, so when he grew up Boston was already under court-ordered desegration and mandatory busing. He told me he did not attend the Boston Public Schools himself, and he also strongly favors returning to neighborhood schools. In fact, he sat down with me in August and lectured for probably a solid 10-15 minutes on why neighborhood schools were the key towards improving the public schools.

The problem with wanting a return to neighborhood schools is that the city may revert to pre-1970s battle lines with schools segregated based on neighborhood demographics, and uneven school quality from neighborhood-to-neighborhood. It's not a surprise that new Boston Councilor Arroyo opposes continued movement towards neighborhood schools. Councilor Yoon summed up a progressive take on the issue by ensuring equality of schools for all: fix the schools first so that every neighborhood has a good school, and only then can overhauling the school assignment system occur....

Connolly's campaign is admitting sending out an anonymous mailing attacking incumbent city councilor Stephen Murphy.

I agree with the point the mailing makes - that Murphy seems bored with being a councilor, as shown by his repeated efforts to get another job. But if a gutless wunderkind thinks the only way to make a political argument is through an anonymous mailing, then he is equally worthy of scorn - and equally unfit to be a city councilor. There are seven other candidates besides these two running for the four at-large seats. How about voting for one (or two or four) of them?

Thanks to Ron Newman for noticing the statement on the Herald site.

Earlier:
A look at two mailings
What would a Boston election be without last-minute scurrilous attacks?

UPDATE: Connolly just lost my vote. His campaign admits sending out the Murphy piece.

Over the past two days, we've gotten a pair of mailings related to Tuesday's city council elections. One is from John Connolly and basically explains how wonderful he is and why he should be an at-large city councilor. The other is an anonymous mailing telling us how awful incumbent at-large councilor Stephen Murphy is.

What's interesting is the physical similarities between the two mailings. Both are the same size and use the same cardstock. Both make extensive use of dropshadow. The computer-generated mailing "labels" are identical (and in our case, both addressed to "The Gaffin Household"). And then there's the thing I find most interesting: That the cut-outs used to attribute something to the Boston Globe have the same exact scissor-like borders:

The Globe "cut-out" from the John Connolly mailing:

The Globe "cut-out" from the anti-Murphy mailing:

Now, this doesn't prove that the Connolly campaign had anything to do with the anti-Murphy mailing. There probably aren't a ton of union print shops (both mailings have the same union bug) that do political printing and it could be a case of two separate groups using the same shop by coincidence. And the Herald cut-outs on each flier have different borders. It sure would be interesting to find out who at 31 Milk St. (the address listed on the Murphy thing) published it.

And for me, ironically, the anti-Murphy mailing does spell out why I wasn't planning to vote for him: He seems terminally bored as a city councilor and keeps trying (and failing) to get other jobs. But if we do find out that another candidate is behind this gutless (because it's anonymous) mailing, he'll lose my vote as well.

UPDATE: Blame John Connolly.

Adam Rosi-Kessel reports getting several mailings attacking city-council candidates that don't say who put them out:

... My guess is these mailings are all meant to support John Connolly, a West Roxbury resident, attorney, and ostensibly good guy. I was feeling pretty happy about the possibility of Connolly replacing Murphy on the Council (I have to admit some unfair prejudice in that the only house in our neighborhood I've ever seen prominently posting a sign in support of Bush also features a Murphy billboard). But these questionable campaign tactics are giving me pause. Does anyone know anything more about this? ...

Edward Forry, publisher of the Dorchester Reporter, says the paper has absolutely nothing to do with a flier now being distributed in various neighborhoods (alas, he doesn't detail the contents for those of us in remoter parts of the city).

Seth Gitell covers his hat-tossing at the Roslindale Sons of Italy. Connolly came in fifth two years ago in the race for one of four at-large seats.

Special tip for John Connolly: If you want to save money on your campaign, go through your phone list and delete all the numbers that start with 508. They're either people who don't live in Boston and who can't vote for you or they're Boston residents who work in the suburbs who don't appreciate having their work phones tied up by auto-dialers.