Tom Keane

A poorly attended election is better than no election at all

Last November, people stood in line for hours to cast their vote on Election Day. It’s a pretty safe bet we won’t have that problem today. Turnout for the special election primary is expected to be exceptionally low. As the Marines might say: the few, the proud, the voters.

It seems wrong that so few people should select the nominees to be the state’s next US senator. And it raises the question: Why have special elections at all? The obvious answer: It’s better to have a little bit of democracy than none at all.

We face two choices when politicians leave their seats early: Have an election to fill out the remainder of the term, or let someone appoint a successor. Massachusetts has done it both ways. Before 2004, governors had the right to fill the empty seat, a system that seemed sensible to the Democratic-dominated legislature as long as the governor in question was a Democrat. But with John Kerry the 2004 presidential nominee and Republican Mitt Romney the governor, suddenly the old ways didn’t seem that good. No one observing the process thought this anything but an unprincipled political ploy, but the genesis of the change notwithstanding, it was the right result.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 36 states still let governors make the appointments; Massachusetts is now one of just 14 with some version of a special election. The tight-fisted don’t especially care for them. Elections, with poll workers and police officers at each precinct, can be expensive.

Still, that’s only money. The real problem with special elections is turnout. It’s not only low but it’s skewed — it’s unrepresentative of the population at large. The result we get represents less the will of the majority than the will of those who bother to show up.

Voting isn’t some secret ritual that only a few have divined. Last year’s long lines proved that; 65 percent of Bay State voters made it to the polls, drawn in by the presidential race as well as the close contest between Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown. But when there aren’t a lot of contests on the ballot or if media attention is lacking, turnout declines. People need to feel engaged to make it to the polls and this year, it seems, they do not.

When John Kerry resigned Feb. 1, political cognoscenti were salivating over the upcoming contest. But the race never got momentum. February’s blizzard shut down the state. Tom Menino’s late March announcement that he would not be running for a sixth term dominated political chatter for two weeks. And just as that buzz was dying down — and at the moment one would have expected people to start focusing upon the matter at hand — the Marathon bombings so consumed attention that the election seem to disappear.

A special shout-out should also be given to the national Democratic Party, which exerted extraordinary pressure to clear the field for Representative Ed Markey. It was shameful and anti-democratic but for the most part worked; logical candidates such as Representative Michael Capuano ended up bowing out. To his credit, Representative Stephen Lynch didn’t, but the damage was done: by portraying the primary as a done deal, the party helped turn it into a non-event.

The result? The folks who vote in today’s primaries will be the regulars and the party stalwarts, those pushed to the polls by each campaign’s get-out-the-vote efforts. Senior citizens will get rides. Union leaders will make sure their members vote. But a lot of others, occupied with work or family, won’t show up.

Still, the solution to bad elections isn’t no elections. It’s better elections. The final election, scheduled for June 25, may well be more hotly contested in any event, assuming the events of the last few months are not be repeated. There is, as well, a lot we can do to boost voter turnout: allow early voting, hold balloting over several days, provide simple access to absentee ballots, and even — if it can be made secure — permit online voting. And, of course, it would be nice too if national political parties backed off and stopped trying to stifle local competition.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Globe on April 30, 2013.

Remembering

As flowers and memories fade, Boston needs a true Marathon memorial

After jets crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the Pennsylvania woods, a stand-up comedian I know stopped performing. In the face of such an enormity, he wondered, how could we ever laugh again? The aftermath of 9/11, particularly in New York City, was a surreal world of death and wreckage, an alternate reality from which there seemed no escape. Yet it’s natural — indeed, a profound human need — to want to forget, to want to get back to the routine of everyday life: work, school, kids, sports, and the myriad other activities that regularly fill our days. And so eventually (and quite soon in fact) we did.

Almost 12 years later, we are seeing that same impulse in Boston. The Back Bay portion of Boylston Street is the city’s main street, a 1½-mile stretch running from the Common to the Fenway. It is not only the finish line of the Marathon, but an extraordinary mix of colleges, churches, offices, hotels, the Boston Public Library, Copley Square, and all kinds of restaurants, bars, and retailers packed shoulder-to-shoulder. It’s the chic and the hick (a play on words that works better if not read aloud): L’Espalier, Marshalls, the Apple Store, Dunkin’ Donuts, Lord & Taylor, Supercuts, and dozens of others.

For nine days, the street was largely empty. On Wednesday, after cleaning crews had removed the blood, paint, and debris from what had been a vast crime scene, it reopened and, like a rubber band stretched and then released, people surged back in, jamming sidewalks and the roadway.

As one walked the street’s length, there was little left to mark the horrors of that Monday. Marathon Sports, across from the library, was the site of the first blast. A small crowd gathered in front, forming a semicircle and snapping pictures. Ten or so bouquets of flowers, some with notes of condolence, others with words of hope, were laid out on the pavement in a neat line. The scene was the same at the Forum restaurant, just one block west and the location of the second blast: Crowds, semicircle, pictures, flowers. Aside from a few boarded up windows, it was as if the bombings had never happened.

The physical traces of the tragedy are nearly gone. Can memory be far behind?

For five days, the Marathon bombings gripped the nation. It wasn’t just the casualties; two days later, an explosion at a fertilizer plant in Texas killed far more. But an accident is one thing; intentional is altogether different. The images played out endlessly on televisions and computer screens. As with the jets crashing into the twin towers, we saw — from multiple cameras and multiple perspectives — the exact moment terror was unleashed. And we saw it viscerally, at ground level, as bodies lay strewn on sidewalks, blood flowing from grievous wounds.

We saw courage too, as well as resilience and healing. We saw a city come together with extraordinary unity, a city that mourned, deeply and genuinely, the lives lost. We saw drama: a manhunt and the lockdown, an episode of “Homeland’’ in our backyards. There was more death, firefights, an overwhelming show of force, seeming failure, and then, by the luckiest of chances, capture.

There remain so many questions. How could such terror be unleashed, allegedly by two loners with (it appears) little money and no backing? How could two men with such promise have become so utterly twisted? How had they been able to shed their humanity to such a degree that they could place their bags on the street, look directly into the eyes of their victims, and still trigger the blasts?

Boston has endured and survived. A year from now, we’ll undoubtedly mark the anniversary in some special and somber way. But we need something more than that, something more than video clips, more than Wikipedia entries, more than plaques placed on building walls. We need something permanent, a memorial, something physical and significant built right in the heart of the Back Bay that honors victims, recognizes those affected, tells a story, and, most importantly, helps us understand. It’s the next task before us. Even as we forget, we must make sure we’ll always remember.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Sunday Globe on April 28, 2013.

Surveillance and privacy

Cameras aren’t the simple solution they might seem to be

It was cameras on the street that led to the rapid identification of the Brothers Tsarnaev and it was cameras on the street that likely stopped them from killing even more. The effective use of surveillance in the Marathon bombings seems to make a compelling case for installing even more cameras.

Except that next time around, the terrorists might wear wigs, mustaches, and thick-framed glasses.

Or perhaps they’ll do their deeds in the dark.

Surveillance cameras seem like such a simple solution to crime and terrorism. Technology has advanced so that cost and data-storage issues are no longer a big deal. The cameras are easy to use and deliver clear, high-quality images. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg predicts that soon “there’ll be cameras everyplace.” Boston has quite a few already, including hundreds on subways and buses. So too do many other major American cities. The United Kingdom is held out as the most advanced example of their use, with at least 1.85 million surveillance cameras in place: one camera for every 34 citizens.

Yet there is scant evidence they do much to improve public safety.

The UK experience has been much studied and the overall conclusion (from 2002 and 2005 analyses of dozens of studies) is that the ubiquitous cameras have little impact on crime rates. There are many reasons why. Much crime is impulsive; people often aren’t thinking about cameras when they steal, hit, stab, or shoot. Then again, if potential criminals are aware that cameras are around, they’ll look for other times and places, or just figure out how to avoid being recognized.

All that notwithstanding, at times the cameras can help immensely — as the quick capture of the alleged Marathon bombers proved. Demands for more such cameras will be hard to resist. And in any event, public surveillance is expanding no matter what local officials do. Private businesses increasingly use cameras; the front desks of many apartment buildings, for instance, are constantly monitoring their grounds and even elevators. Then too, almost all of us have smartphones able to take stills and video at a moment’s notice.

In other words, cameras are inevitable. The real issue isn’t resisting their presence, but rather figuring out the rules for their use. How do we preserve privacy while still letting law enforcement do its job?

Two thoughts. First, even if the images are taken by government agencies, do not make them accessible to the public. Beginning in the 1960s, governments at all levels adopted various freedom of information rules that were intended to make the inner workings of politics and the bureaucracy visible to all.

The goal was worthy, but too often those rules have been perverted so that information the government collects about us is now public as well.

Every 911 call, for instance, is a public document. So too are the names of holders of some gun permits (something that prompted shock when a New York newspaper then took that data and published maps for all to see) and, for that matter, households that have security systems installed, meaning those without security systems are known as well. Laws need to be strengthened to make certain that surveillance data are confidential; with rare exceptions, government videos of a street scene, for instance, should be off-limits to the press or ordinary citizens.

Second, we need to put in place clear guidelines about when and how courts, law enforcement, and other government agencies can access the images and video they are collecting. Most of us would probably acknowledge that law enforcement should be able to use surveillance data in cases of terrorism or violent crimes. But how about minor incidents (such as casual drug use) or civil actions (a divorce suit, for instance)? That is where we should draw the line: Those should be off-limits. Off-limits as well should be the use of cameras for trolling — following someone around simply to see what they’re up to.

Cameras are here to stay. On occasion they may prove a boon to public safety. But even when we are in public, we should be able to expect that our private actions will, for the most part, remain private.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Globe on April 23, 2013.

Touching the third rail of politics

Democrats balk at a new formula for calculating Social Security

Tea Partiers are accused of being the intransigent face of the right, the brook-no-compromise folks who’d rather accomplish nothing than give an inch on their principles. But the current dustup over President Obama’s new 2014 budget suggests the Tea Partiers have more than their fair share of counterparts on the left — with the Massachusetts congressional delegation prominent among them.

At issue is the president’s proposal to change the formula for calculating Social Security’s cost-of-living adjustments. Most of us are familiar with the Consumer Price Index — the CPI — which measures the price inflation of a “basket” of goods and services that people typically buy. The CPI is flawed, however. In the real world, it should be based not only on how much prices inflate but also on how we, as consumers, respond to that inflation. Thus, if the price of oranges goes up, I may decide to buy less expensive apples instead.

That “substitution” effect is poorly captured by the traditional CPI, and the feds have developed an alternative — called “chained CPI” — they think is better. Under chained CPI, cost-of-living increases are generally lower than under the traditional CPI. That makes sense. In that switch to cheaper apples as the price of oranges rises, I’m still getting my federally recommended servings of fruit per day. But my overall cost of fruit wouldn’t increase.

The Obama administration argues that chained CPI is “more accurate,” and so the budget uses it instead of conventional CPI to figure future increases to Social Security. You might think this is common sense. Yet that change has provoked a political firestorm.

Obama and Republicans like chained CPI because, since it shows a slower rise in the cost of living, it will save money over time. But for Democrats and advocates like AARP, the inaccuracy of the conventional CPI is, in fact, its virtue. Because the CPI overstates the effect of inflation, each year’s cost-of-living adjustment is a real (that is, noninflationary) increase in benefits. The president now threatens to take that goodie away.

Doctrinaire progressives such as the Daily Kos, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, and MoveOn.org are howling with anger. So too are Democrats in Congress. It’s “the first proposal by a Democratic president to start undoing the New Deal” says New York Representative Jerrold Nadler. “Chained CPI will pull people down,” adds Iowa Senator Tom Harkin.

The two Bay State Democrats battling to succeed John Kerry are also loudly opposed, portraying Obama as some hapless, witless tool of the right. “Tea Party Republicans may have pushed the president into many of these difficult decisions,” speculates Representative Edward Markey. Representative Stephen Lynch laments that “negotiations over taxes with the Republicans have forced [Obama] into a bad deal.” Meanwhile, in a posting on her website, Senator Elizabeth Warren says she “was shocked to hear that the president’s newest budget proposal would cut $100 billion in Social Security benefits.”

Overheated rhetoric notwithstanding, chained CPI doesn’t “cut” anyone’s Social Security. It just reduces future increases. Indeed, one would have thought Obama’s proposal far less draconian than other ideas, such as increasing the retirement age or means-testing Social Security. But those too, Democrats say, are off-limits: “We will vote against any and every cut to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security benefits” reads an open letter to Obama signed by more than 36 House Democrats. That raises the question: If not Social Security, then where do any future savings come from? The answers offered up are the usual nostrums: undefined “common-sense reforms” and requiring “the rich and giant corporations to pay their fair share.” In other words, from nowhere.

“If we’re serious about deficit reduction, then these reforms have to go hand in hand with reforming our tax code,” Obama told NPR. But Social Security has always been the so-called “third rail” of politics, and Democrats (and a fair number of Republicans) have pandered to crowds for years at the slightest hint of belt-tightening. That’s what makes Obama’s genuine leadership on the issue particularly courageous, while the behavior of progressives and Democrats particularly embarrassing.

The left delights in ripping into Tea Partiers for refusing to negotiate, claiming they’re betraying the nation by making America ungovernable. Et tu, Democrats?

This column originally appeared in The Boston Sunday Globe on April 21, 2013.

E-tailers, meet the tax code

Greed is the motive behind government officials’ desire to tax Internet transactions. Fairness is the reason that causes many others — including me — to come to the same conclusion: We should treat online retail purchases the same way we treat those made from the corner store.

Internet sales aren’t subject to the sales tax because the legal world hasn’t caught up with the real one. In trying to figure out when a company might be subject to local tax rules, courts long ago decided the test would be whether the business had a “physical presence” in the state. That test created an exemption for mail-order companies and the like, but they were a trivial part of overall retail sales, so few cared. But then the Internet came along and, suddenly, a small exception became a giant loophole.

Nevertheless, those were the rules: no sales tax on items purchased from e-tailers. Or so we all seem to believe. In fact, we really are supposed to pay a tax. It’s called a “use” tax, and it looks and smells just like a sales tax — and, at 6.25 percent, it’s exactly the same rate. But rather than a retailer collecting the money and sending it to the state, you, the consumer, are supposed to send it off yourself.

Hands up if you’ve ever done that? I thought not. Me neither. The Department of Revenue doesn’t enforce the use tax. It’s far easier to go after a relative handful of retailers for a sales tax than it is to send out inspectors to track all of those UPS packages being delivered door-to-door. (Still, I half expect this admission means the next sound I hear is a DOR agent ringing the bell.)

So it’s been a pretty good life for us consumers and an even better one for Internet retailers, who have seen sales soar for all of the reasons they tout — convenience, product selection, accessibility — and the one they don’t: a built-in tax discount. Buy a television online for $2,000 and a Bay State resident saves $125 in tax. Eventually, as they say, it adds up to real money.

The good life is about to end.

Legislative proposals are now making their way through Congress that would set up a new system of rules for Internet sales. Last month, New York’s highest state court broadened the “physical presence” rule to include many online operations. Meanwhile, Amazon recently opened offices in Reading and Cambridge. That was just the hook the Commonwealth needed and indeed, come November and the start of the holiday season, Bay State residents buying from Amazon will now be paying a sales tax.

That’s the way it should be.

Local officials will sing the praises of retailers, and for good reason. Thriving stores make for thriving communities. They create jobs, especially entry-level positions that cater to the young and less-skilled. Strong retail districts bring in residents and drive out crime.

But praise is easy; retailing is tough. Rents are high, “shrinkage” is rampant, unpredictable weather and increasing gas prices play havoc, and local regulations can be crushing. Look at the saga of Restoration Hardware, which spent millions to renovate the historic but crumbling New England Museum of Natural History. The reward for its effort, from my perspective, was harassment from city inspectors who delayed its opening by weeks. Or how about the everyday annoyances: meter maids aggressively ticketing customers, special city permits to use a dumpster, neighborhood nabobs demanding signage no one can see.

Still, the worst insult is the unfair competition from the Internet. Shoppers roam retailers’ aisles, play with the goods, and then use their smartphones to order them online. I don’t blame the customers — they’re acting rationally to save a buck — but I do blame a crazy tax system.

Here’s a solution that’s fair to all: Broaden the sales tax to cover everyone — online and on the street — while at the same time cutting the rate across the board (by my reckoning, to somewhat under 6 percent). It’s a three-way win: the state ends up with the same (or slightly more) money in its coffers, consumers benefit from a lower tax rate, and, most importantly, the brick-and-mortar stores that invest in our communities get a fighting chance.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Sunday Globe on April 14, 2013.

Term limits would weaken Boston’s mayor

Tributes and encomiums followed Tom Menino’s announcement that his fifth term would be his last. But there’s been an undercurrent of discontent, too. It’s not so much over what the mayor achieved, but how some say he achieved it: by aggregating power and wielding it ruthlessly — “Boss Menino,” if you will.

There are those who fault Menino’s personality, saying he’s obsessed with score-settling, taking offense at the most minor of slights and holding grudges forever. Others look at the issue more broadly, arguing the problem is the length of the mayor’s tenure itself, which allowed him to obtain so much clout. The simple solution is term limits. What’s good enough for the president of the United States should be good enough for a mayor, right? Be wary of simple solutions however. They often have a downside.

No question, Menino dominated the town and brooked little dissent. Those who dared run against him became political outcasts. And their defeats were nearly assured; few in turn dared to contribute to a challenger’s campaign for fear they too would be outcasts. Developers and businesses out of Menino’s favor — Walmart, Niketown, Chick-fil-A, Karmaloop’s Greg Selkoe, Patriots owner Robert Kraft, parking magnate (and one-time Los Angeles Dodgers owner) Frank McCourt, to name just a few — found it hard or impossible to do business in Boston. Globe columnist Lawrence Harmon several days ago wrote about his personal experiences in that regard: A negative column about Menino got him cut off from City Hall.

Even so, the image of “Boss Menino” is exaggerated. Certainly, the mayor didn’t believe it. His near-obsessive outreach to residents (the joke was that, where two or more are gathered, Menino is in their midst) was driven by his belief that his strength came from knowing better than anyone else what they wanted — and if he was on the wrong track, he’d quickly adjust. And if Menino’s power really was so great, how then to explain his many notable failures? Look, for instance, at the multitude of plans he had for City Hall: rebuild it, put a hotel on the plaza, move it to the waterfront. All came to naught. And union negotiations? He never got what he wanted.

Still, he did get stuff done. By most measures, Boston has improved dramatically under Menino. It looks better, racial tensions have fallen, crime is down, the local economy is stronger, and urban flight has reversed. All of this didn’t happen solely because of Menino, but much credit is his. Would he have been able to accomplish all that if term limits were in place?

Probably not. Term limits come at a price: They weaken politicians.

Part of that is the “lame duck” problem.

Now in his second and final term, Barack Obama is feeling it; he’s finding it hard to persuade even Democrats to support tough gun control legislation. The same would happen at the city level.

Effectiveness in politics comes through the ability to lead and impose one’s will. While we might hope that would happen merely through the brilliance of one’s ideas, all too often it’s a fear of consequences that really get results. Yet a politician who’s headed out the door can’t offer up much in the way of consequences. Opponents would figure they could just wait him out. If Menino had been a lame duck, then unions, city councilors, neighborhood activists, and a host of others would have had a far easier time of stopping change.

Think NIMBYism has been bad during the Menino era? It would have been far worse with term limits. Indeed, Menino’s already finding that the case. He may have over eight months left in his term, but it’s now looking more like a nostalgic farewell tour than a time of bold initiatives.

Then, too, term limits can cut down politicians just as they are hitting their stride. It takes time to become versed in any job, especially one as complex as mayor. Menino’s later years were stronger than his earlier because he learned from mistakes, built coalitions, hired better people, and better deployed the levers of power.

Term limits would certainly avoid another imperial mayoralty. The tradeoff is the spectacular advances of the last 20 years would likely never be repeated.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Globe on April 9, 2013.

Boston's Broken Cabs

Change is coming, and it’s with smartphone apps

Driving people someplace in exchange for a fee should be the classic small business, the perfect way for ambitious and hard-working folks to become entrepreneurs. It’s a low-cost enterprise to start up — all you need is a decent vehicle — and one that doesn’t require any exceptional training. If you drive competently, know the streets, and can interact well with customers, you can make a decent living and perhaps even more.

Not in Boston, though. To own a taxicab in the city requires one more thing: over $600,000. That’s the going rate for a medallion, the license every cab needs. That cost turns what should be an entry-level business into one dominated by a privileged few.

As documented in a compelling Globe series last week, Boston’s taxicab system is dysfunctional and corrupt. But, as much as they may be welcomed, the solution is not some new mix of stronger rules and tougher regulations. Rather, the system itself needs to be blown apart.

The right thing to do would be to get rid of medallions. There are just 1,825 of them in Boston, and the result is an oligopoly that gains fabulous riches for owners while hurting consumers and drivers alike.

But it’s an easy bet that the city won’t abolish medallions outright; too many people with too much influence are invested in keeping them in place. That may not matter. Disruptive change is coming to the industry, propelled (as it has been in so many other industries) by the Internet. That change comes in the form of a variety of smartphone apps such as Uber, Sidecar, and Tickengo. All of them are innovative end runs around a broken system, perfect examples of the creativity that can be unleashed when we let free markets work. As long as we don’t quash the apps through new regulations and new prohibitions, the taxicab problem will fix itself.

The basic idea of the apps is the same. Instead of hailing a cab on the street, you hail a car by smartphone. Punch in where you are and where you’d like to go. Most of the apps will immediately tell you how far away a vehicle is, when it will show up, and what your cost will be. Payments are handled electronically, via credit card, PayPal, or direct bank debit.

Uber is the granddaddy of the new smartphone apps, and works with mostly professional drivers. Its typical car is a high-end black sedan, and the fare is usually more than a traditional taxicab. But Uber has recently broadened its offerings to include more conventional vehicles for a lesser price as well as larger SUVs. Meanwhile, Sidecar and Tickengo bill themselves as ridesharing services and are potentially even more revolutionary than Uber. Anyone can drive for either Sidecar or Tickengo, and drivers aren’t allowed to charge a fee. Instead, payment is voluntary. In the case of Sidecar, riders make a donation at the end of the ride. Tickengo is like an auction: riders post in advance the amount they wish to pay, drivers decide whether to accept it or not.

The taxicab industry claims the apps put consumers at risk. Far from it. Drivers and riders need to sign up in advance and then rate each other after each trip, creating a pool of information that in effect becomes a self-enforcing form of consumer protection — far better than that now provided by the Hackney Division, the city’s regulator. Bad drivers (or bad riders) get the boot. And the companies themselves compete fiercely with each other. If either drivers or riders are unhappy, business will go elsewhere. Customer satisfaction becomes paramount.

Medallion owners hate these new apps, and the industry has been fighting back, pushing localities to ban them outright or impose severe restrictions. These are the frantic tactics of the oligopolists trying to hold on to their power, desperately afraid of competition.

They’re right to be afraid. Let the apps flourish and the medallion system, now teetering, will fall.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Sunday Globe on April 7, 2013.

New mayor could have job for life, too

I know it doesn’t feel that way right now, but we’ll get through this. Change is stressful; every psychologist will tell you so. The great traumas of our life don’t have to be tragic to be hard. Birth, marriage, or a new job: They scare us because they are unknown, because they plunge us into uncharted waters. Add to this list of traumas: a new mayor for Boston.

How, you might ask, can anyone replace Tom Menino? Actually — and not to take anything away from the man — quite readily. There are worthy successors out there, many of them. And the good news, for those of you who abhor change, is that once the choice is made, we’re likely set for a long, long while.

I can imagine the yet-to-be-drawn editorial cartoon: Menino as a giant of a man with those who would succeed him depicted as pipsqueaks nipping at his heels. I think Menino has been a highly effective mayor. But the cartoon is inaccurate: There’s talent out there.

Merely based on resume and temperament, some are obvious. Dan Conley, who has been district attorney for the last 11 years, gets politics (he was once a city councilor), is a fiscal conservative and social liberal in the mold of Menino, and understands the key importance of public safety. So too does Andrea Cabral, formerly sheriff of Suffolk County, newly appointed Massachusetts secretary of public safety. James Rooney, head of the Convention Center Authority, knows the intricacies of running complex organizations. And John Connolly, the city councilor with the temerity to take on Menino, is passionate about everyday concerns, especially education.

To name these four is not intended to exclude others. At least seven other current or former city councilors are floating their names, as are a number of state reps and senators. Many have the capacity to govern the city. Then there are the wild cards. Should he lose the Senate primary, for instance, Congressman Stephen Lynch would still have name recognition and a strong Boston-based organization. Developer John Drew would be a favorite of the business community.

Pipsqueaks? In the sense they’ve never been mayor, perhaps. But that doesn’t mean they’re not up for the task. I don’t know who’s best — that, of course, is the purpose of a campaign. But I suspect the result will be all right. And once it’s over, we likely won’t have to worry about it for another generation or so.

Really. Everyone looks at Menino’s tenure and marvels that the man must be a political genius. How else could have held on so long? But in truth, while getting elected is tough, the position — done well — is a sinecure.

Managing a city the size of Boston doesn’t require some superhuman collection of talents. Rather, it takes a clear vision, an ability to execute, and a willingness to reach out and listen to residents. In effect, you’re the city’s CEO. No one cares if you’re right-wing or left-wing as long as crime is low, streets are paved, parks are well-kept, and all the other details of urban living are attended to. Menino — billed as the “urban mechanic” by Mike Barnicle, a long-time Globe columnist — got that. He also knew that much of governance is balancing interests and being inclusive. Favoring one group over another is a sure way to create opposition. Keeping people happy is a sure way to stay in office.

Menino wasn’t alone in figuring this out. Kevin White, mayor for 16 years (1968 to 1984), could have run for a fifth term and, despite scandals and federal investigations, probably would have won. Ray Flynn (1984 to 1993) followed him and was comfortably in his third term when he jumped ship to become ambassador to the Vatican. Had he not forsaken Boston for Rome, he too could have held on.

It can be a job for life, which is why the field will be jam-packed. Everyone who might aspire to be mayor appreciates this election is probably their only shot ever. After that, it wouldn’t surprise me to see a new crop of frustrated wannabes impatiently waiting another 20 or more years for their next chance.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Globe on April 2, 2013.