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Report: Flynn won't run for mayor

By adamg on Sun, 01/12/2025 - 9:28am

The Herald reports Councilor Ed Flynn has concluded he can't raise enough money to take on incumbent Michelle Wu, so will instead run for re-election this year.

Neighborhoods: 
Boston
Topics: 
Politics
Free tagging: 
Ed Flynn
City Council
mayor
2025 elections


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Comments

By deselby on Sun, 01/12/2025 - 9:48am.

Registrar of Deeds whenever Murph decides to retire.

By 02132 on Sun, 01/12/2025 - 11:49am.

She lost the election.

By anon on Sun, 01/12/2025 - 12:40pm.

another former Boston City Councilor, who was swept into office by the resignation of another councilor, after placing fifth in the election. Despite having stellar hack credentials, Murph has run the Registry quite well, and if he stays to age 90, he will have the support of the professionals who use the Registry. Murph's performance is a stark contrast to the Arroyo crime family's destruction of the Probate Registry upstairs. The long term employees of those government/court administrative offices typically have real mastery of their subject matter, and things work best when their knowledge and opinions are consulted and valued.

By deselby on Mon, 01/13/2025 - 8:41am.

unlike Ed Flynn. Or Ray Flynn for that matter.

It just wasn't in the stars for Steve though. So much of Boston municipal politics is luck.

By eddie van halen on Sun, 01/12/2025 - 10:21am.

Disappointing

By SwirlyGrrl on Sun, 01/12/2025 - 2:44pm.

Would have been great fun to see Wu hand him his ass.

By Anon on Sun, 01/12/2025 - 4:17pm.

It would have been nice to have someone at least make her work for it and answer questions regarding her vision and policy. He most likely would have been demolished but for as much of a meatball he is, he was spot on regarding the property tax issue and white stadium. He would have e made her work to be reelected and that is never a bag thing.

By eddie van halen on Sun, 01/12/2025 - 4:26pm.

Whatever pleases Boston's adult children. But something tells me most of you don't even live within the city boundaries.

By CopleyScott17 on Sun, 01/12/2025 - 10:43am.

...big money has decided Mayor Wu is unbeatable or he is unelectable. Unless they're holding out for Althea.

By dan r on Sun, 01/12/2025 - 11:03am.

Please

By Anon on Sun, 01/12/2025 - 11:06am.

Flynn can’t attract enough donors even as a political nepobaby because “let’s go back to the 50s” isn’t resonating with a lot of Boston.

By anon on Sun, 01/12/2025 - 11:32am.

“Go back to the 50s” ?

And what does that even mean

By Section77 on Sun, 01/12/2025 - 11:39am.

He can pen him-self in as councillor at large for the next ten years.

By SwirlyGrrl on Sun, 01/12/2025 - 2:46pm.

The provincial olds still think they own the city but are an extremely vocal minority. They mistake the Greek Chorus noises made by their friends who moved to Wilmington or Marshfield long ago with having actual political relevance.

They can't even do math well enough to understand their relegation to entertainment.

By John Costello on Sun, 01/12/2025 - 4:15pm.

Like those people who think they live in Boston?

By eddie van halen on Sun, 01/12/2025 - 9:02pm.

Provincial old so-called "progressives" who live outside the city.

By SwirlyGrrl on Sun, 01/12/2025 - 9:34pm.

The Man from Marshfield has entered the chat ...

Medford is going through the same thing - one city councilor representing the "old towne" and pretending to be persecuted/claiming voter fraud despite a nonpartisan recount, with some very noisy social media supporters (including expat neoplandords) who claim to represent far more people than have bothered to vote for their candidates. They predicted a landslide "now that people are paying attention", but failed to muster sufficient votes against the prop 2.5 overrides.

It qualifies as circus entertainment wherever it happens.

I live closer to Boston City Hall than many in Boston do - and also spend a fair amount of time in Boston proper. What goes on in Boston does impact my quality of life.

By John Costello on Mon, 01/13/2025 - 9:57am.

He died at a too young an age from cancer.

He once said he lived "Near Duxbury". I told him that mean he lived in Pembroke.

Saying you live close to Boston City Hall is than many other Bostonians doesn't matter. You live in Meffa. Not the City of Boston.

I too spend a lot of time in Boston and unlike your trailer park raised self actually lived in Boston from birth until I was in my 30's. I still work in Boston and have had a job downtown since I was 16. I've lived in Dot, Southie, and the South End.

I also went to BPS. My Mom still lives in the City of Boston. Not Medford.

What goes on in Boston does impact my quality of life.

If you want to keep one upping, I can go all day honey. Just remember, you are from Oregon, not Boston.

By MyManMyMelo on Sun, 01/12/2025 - 12:37pm.

Its 2025 and nobody gives a damn about “a Flynn”

By CopleyScott17 on Sun, 01/12/2025 - 12:58pm.

Which is pretty remarkable progress.

By MyManMyMelo on Sun, 01/12/2025 - 9:24pm.

I never knew the Boston Garden.

I never watched cheers.

I never saw Larry Bird play.

I never knew the Patriots as a joke.

My first year watching baseball, the Red Sox won the World Series.

honestly? very unremarkable to me.

And many born in the 1990s and 2000s.

By SwirlyGrrl on Sun, 01/12/2025 - 9:39pm.

The median age of Boston residents is 32.6 years old (2020).

The shifting age structure of the city - and increased voting among younger people - explains a lot about the shifting political scene.

SOURCE

ETA: I checked ACS data for 2024 and this median is still about right

By MyManMyMelo on Mon, 01/13/2025 - 1:27pm.

Yep.

Median Age in 2023 was 33.7 So 1989/1990 birth. These are people who do not remember the things I wasn't born for. Granted, I'm sure the median age of a voter is 40-45. But a lot of what older folks see as revolutionary change I just kind of assumed would happen by looking around at my peers or took for granted. Its a good thing.

Source: https://data.census.gov/table/ACSST1Y2023.S0101?q=Boston%20city,%20Massa...

By Rob on Mon, 01/13/2025 - 8:49am.

I never knew the Patriots as a joke.

They're making up for lost time these past few years.

By Allstonpete on Mon, 01/13/2025 - 12:15pm.

" In Rod we Rust"

By Frelmont on Sun, 01/12/2025 - 11:42am.

Of course there’s no money for Flynn. The Democratic Party has an identity crisis. We Democrats need to get our house in order. We need to get back to the basics of leveling the playing field by fully supporting unions and end the self-denying pandering to far-left socialist third parties.

Big money is happy to give to the Democratic Party so that they may break it. The Party is divided and conquered. There’s a continuum of views in the Democratic Party from left to right, but it is a proven folly that we can gain electoral margins by straining the seams of our tent by harboring and co-opting Social Democrats and other Socialists where the majority of Democrats suppress the motivated self-interest - chiefly economic interests, but also the existential interests eg.: good stewardship of growth - and herein lies the impasse: are we Democrats, or Socialists (always, inexorably, proto-communists?)

The scales have fallen, the spell is broken and America has spoken, let’s get our house back in order so we may hold on to the wealth we work so hard to generate and let the Socialist-Progressives take care of their own Party.

By SwirlyGrrl on Sun, 01/12/2025 - 2:51pm.

AI comment detected.

By Frelmont on Sun, 01/12/2025 - 5:44pm.

“I am not an animal! I am a human being! I am a man!” -Treves, or De Vore, or Bergren

I am too unhip to understand if calling people “AI” is a slur, an ad hominem, or jocularity. If you prick me…I bleed.

Great! Now I need to look up “bedbug” in this context.

By necturus on Sun, 01/12/2025 - 3:26pm.

There is no left in this country, and that's part of the problem. People put labels like "socialist" on CULTURAL ideas they don't like, but real socialism is the idea that the interests of the community should take precedence over the interests of rich individuals or private corporations.

And that's exactly what Democrats should stand for. They can't though, because they depend on rich people's money to win elections.

As I said elsewhere, politics in this country are profoundly corrupt, perhaps irredeemably so.

By eddie van halen on Sun, 01/12/2025 - 4:30pm.

like Biden, and the millionaire "socialists" who live in Boston, require corporations and capitalism to maintain their lifestyles.

By Pete X on Sun, 01/12/2025 - 5:57pm.

Corporations and capitalism require "socialists" in government to keep the market fair and to keep the country educated and safe enough to provide a fertile ground for "capitalism".

Otherwise you get the criminal autocracy we're headed for, where a few billionaires like Elon Musk buy Republican Pols, who wreck our education, health and social support system and lead the country down the road to economic ruin and violent division.

By eddie van halen on Sun, 01/12/2025 - 7:41pm.

subscribe to education, government services and ethical behavior. False and laughable. In case you haven't noticed, we're already being controlled by a globalist autocracy and technocracy. We're not "heading" there. They aren't all pure capitalists, and they don't just buy Republicans. But by all means, enjoy that binary worldview.

By dan r on Mon, 01/13/2025 - 9:02am.

Go ahead

By eddie van halen on Wed, 01/15/2025 - 9:57pm.

I don't NAME random people on a blog. But, to start with, almost anyone who owns ANY type of real estate bigger than a 1-2 BR condo in most Boston neighborhoods is a millionaire by default, based on the value of said real estate. MANY of them are socialists. JP alone is filled with millionaire socialists. Some of them even rent said property at top dollar market rate rents. Those are just the people whose assets are obvious based on what they openly own. It's pretty comical that that needs to be explained to you.

By Pete X on Thu, 01/16/2025 - 9:25am.

It's pretty comical that that needs to be explained to you

By eddie van halen on Thu, 01/16/2025 - 3:52pm.

they are the property owners renting to tenants at top dollar. I said property owners renting SAID property. And yes, many are socialists in ideology. Bernie Sanders is a socialist. Boston has many wealthy people who advocate socialism. If you haven't met any of them you need to get out more.

By Pete X on Fri, 01/17/2025 - 8:54am.

No matter what label they apply to themselves, they're capitalists. Just like MAGAs who call themselves "conservatives" are not conservative, they're radical nazis.

By eddie van halen on Fri, 01/17/2025 - 12:30pm.

you don't define their political ideology, what they support, and who they vote for. They do. Using your logic only people who live under socialism and live a purely socialist life can be socialists. Only those who are active in the Democratic party can be Democrats-- all nonsense.

Furthermore, MAGA isn't a universally defined term nor do they all support Nazism, so that's just something else you fabricated. Just admit you're as hypocritical as the self-identified socialists who got wealthy from capitalism and now advocate socialism and move on. There's no way you back peddle on your absurdity at this point, although I'm sure you'll make another pathetic attempt at it. smh

By Pete X on Fri, 01/17/2025 - 1:04pm.

that add up to nothing.

Voting for one candidate one time that calls himself a socialist (Sanders- who still believes in well-regulated capitalism) does not make you a socialist, sorry Eddie.

Supporting a fascist makes you a fascist, though, that one's a no-brainer.

Sorry, Eddie.

By eddie van halen on Fri, 01/17/2025 - 1:08pm.

another (really) pathetic attempt. I had high hopes that you'd do a little better than that. Never said anything about a socialist being a person who voted one time for a socialist - that you claim isn't one. Bernie is a self described democratic socialist who is wealthy. Who voted for him, specifically, is irrelevant to my point. One can be wealthy and still advocate socialism. This town is filled with them. Good day, strawman. I'll keep my eyes out for your regular banal contributions to this blog.

roflmfao

By BostonDog on Sun, 01/12/2025 - 11:49am.

Wu is generally well liked and the sitting mayor isn't going to be unseated without some major scandal that is squarely her fault. (White stadium isn't a scandal.)

She's moderated her positions so she's neither too liberal nor too conservative for all but the people on the edges of the political spectrum. These groups are far from the majority of voters.

By Frelmont on Sun, 01/12/2025 - 5:49pm.

Semi-liked.

By Kathode on Sun, 01/12/2025 - 6:09pm.

from actual voters registered in Boston: https://commonwealthbeacon.org/by-the-numbers/wu-gets-high-marks-from-vo...

By lbb on Tue, 01/14/2025 - 9:36am.

...you don't like her, but the mouse in your pocket does.

Yeah I think I know where you get your "data".

By necturus on Sun, 01/12/2025 - 3:20pm.

...it shouldn't be money that decides who the mayor of Boston will be.

Our politics in this country are profoundly corrupt, perhaps irredeemably so.

By BostonDog on Sun, 01/12/2025 - 5:52pm.

I agree with the sentiment but in this case Flynn is mostly admitting that if he couldn't even line up a few donors, he was just going to embarrass himself to continue further.

Some politicians can bank on grassroots support and don't need much cash to stand a chance. But Flynn had neither.

By eddie van halen on Sun, 01/12/2025 - 8:52pm.

won with grassroots support against a sitting Mayor with a hefty war chest - not to mention the many donors she had from outside the state during her first run?

She raised over a million just for her inauguration in 22.
https://www.wbur.org/news/2022/06/30/boston-mayor-wu-inauguration-fund

By BostonDog on Sun, 01/12/2025 - 9:03pm.

No incumbent mayor has been defeated in decades. You have to go back to 1950 when Curley was defeated. And Curley had spent time in jail during his last term. (Ignoring Janey since she was acting and only Mayor for a few months.)

Before the Mayorship was extended to 4 years from 2, turnover was more common. But that's more than 100 years ago.

If Kraft runs he'll have unlimited money so you can test the theory it's only money keeping Wu in office.

By eddie van halen on Sun, 01/12/2025 - 9:50pm.

is not my theory. But grassroots support won't be giving anyone a chance here.

By tachometer on Mon, 01/13/2025 - 6:00pm.

IIRC that wouldn't have even happened if Curley didn't make some denigrating wise-crack about Hynes who temporarily held the office when he was incarcerated. It basically pissed him off and the very motivated candidate managed to unseat the one with the criminal history.

By BostonDog on Mon, 01/13/2025 - 8:01am.

Ayanna Pressley is a example of someone who lacked the cash and connections of their opponent but managed to unseat a 20 year incumbent largely from grassroots support. So yes, it happens even in Boston.

But Flynn has none of the charisma of Pressley and Wu has none of the vulnerabilities of Capuano.

By eddie van halen on Mon, 01/13/2025 - 8:09am.

I know it happens...but we're talking about the Boston Mayor's race, and that rarely happens, so the fact that Flynn bowed out is not significant in that sense. And while Ed is very similar to his father in some ways, he's not the animated populist that his father was. Capuano was ousted because he got politically complacent and the fact that he's an older white male was enough to finish the job. He's also too traditionally liberal in a district where a lot of voters are illiberal.

By Friartuck on Sun, 01/12/2025 - 6:12pm.

And I'm not religious

By Darryll J Fernald on Sun, 01/12/2025 - 6:32pm.

No mention of bike lanes so far!?

By MC Slim JB on Mon, 01/13/2025 - 6:21am.

not to run. Guess he's not as dim as he looks. And sounds. And acts.

By eddie van halen on Mon, 01/13/2025 - 6:29am.

that you're a prejudiced bigot who judges people by their appearance.

By MC Slim JB on Mon, 01/13/2025 - 6:47am.

photographer that took that photo of him (see story originally cited by Adam above) looking like he'd been hit on the head multiple times by a high fly ball and didn't have the sense to readjust his cap.

By eddie van halen on Mon, 01/13/2025 - 7:02am.

Cool story. I'm sure the Herald appreciates your business.

By MC Slim JB on Mon, 01/13/2025 - 7:29am.

ran a photo of Ed in which he looks like he's baffled by the letters H and C on a basin tap sink.

By eddie van halen on Mon, 01/13/2025 - 8:43am.

deep. #irony

By MC Slim JB on Mon, 01/13/2025 - 9:13am.

looking for is #sarcasm. Using #irony properly would require you to be smarter than Ed Flynn.

By eddie van halen on Mon, 01/13/2025 - 9:18am.

that's the hash tag you're looking for. Irony was quite appropriate there.

#thanksforthechuckle

By MC Slim JB on Mon, 01/13/2025 - 10:23am.

your fumbling of the word irony while attempting to defend Ed against photographic evidence that he looks he moves his lips when he reads.

By eddie van halen on Mon, 01/13/2025 - 11:14am.

the moron, in a manner that demonstrates that you are.

By MC Slim JB on Mon, 01/13/2025 - 11:40am.

of irony: your switching from accusations of bigotry to witless ad hominems while never addressing that fact that in photos, Ed looks like he has to label his shoes with "Socks go on first!" reminders.

By eddie van halen on Mon, 01/13/2025 - 12:25pm.

subjective critiques about the "appearance" of people that someone is pushing as "fact." Especially as they are seen through the eyes of troglodytes. But it's good to know you have issues with ad homs.

By MC Slim JB on Mon, 01/13/2025 - 1:31pm.

why you're so pissy about this. The whole time I was complimenting Ed on that fact that, while he may *look* dumb enough to eat the dessicant capsule that comes with his Flintstone vitamins, the fact that he opted not to take on Mayor Wu suggests that maybe, just maybe, he's not that dumb.

By eddie van halen on Mon, 01/13/2025 - 1:39pm.

I still don't see why you're so pissy about this.

Oh, probably because I'm not.

Had I known you've been struggling with this, I could have relieved you from your self-imposed burden long ago. lmfao

By MC Slim JB on Mon, 01/13/2025 - 2:46pm.

is yours to admit that most photos of Ed make him look like a dog trying to do integral calculus. Not that I'm saying he's as dumb as a dog! I think I've been pretty clear that he's probably well above that.

By Kaz on Mon, 01/13/2025 - 10:47pm.

So, if Flynn runs again then that means that MAGA dipshit who keeps getting his Trump flag that intentionally blocks the sidewalk ripped down and who picked a fight at the BK and lost badly is now still just a loser and not going to be a city councilor.