2013 Boston Mayoral Race - Track the Candidates

Below is a roundup of website and social network links for all mayoral candidates appearing on Boston's 2013 preliminary ballot on September 24.

Felix Arroyo - website / facebook / twitter
John Barros - website / facebook / twitter
Charles Clemons - website / facebook / twitter
Daniel Conley - website / facebook / twitter
John Connolly - website / facebook / twitter
Rob Consalvo - website / facebook / twitter
Charlotte Golar Richie - website / facebook / twitter
Michael Ross - website / facebook / twitter
Bill Walczak - website / facebook / twitter
Marty Walsh - website / facebook / twitter
David James Wyatt - No online presence found.
Charles Yancey - website / facebook / twitter

I mean, come on. Who wouldn't want to work here.

As you can see, David Wyatt's campaign doesn't really have an online presence. Charles Yancey's online presence exists, but his campaign page hasn't been updated since his last bid for D4 Councillor. The rest are on top of it, and I recommend reading/liking/following all of them to stay as informed as possible about the upcoming Boston mayoral race. This is not a particularly exciting election, but whoever wins gets to shape Boston's post-Menino legacy. That's kind of a big deal.

If you don't know where to vote, you can find out here. If you're not voting, no big deal. It's only one of the three things you're absolutely responsible for in the republic and will take maybe fifteen minutes. But by all means, skip it and say something clever like "they're all corrupt!"

(Updated 9:28am 8/2/13 because I initially forgot Marty Walsh. Sorry about that.)

Mayoral candidates have exact same opinion on T service

As previously mentioned, I’m a bit dissatisfied with the current crop of Mayoral candidates. That said, I’m willing to hear what they have to say, and will inevitably vote for one who loses in the run-off (looking at you, Arroyo) before being forced to choose between a corporate shill and a union hack.

But okay, currently there are a lot of candidates. I wasn’t excited to have to wade through all of their platforms, but luckily on the issue of late-night transportation, they’ve saved me the trouble by all having virtually the same position![i] And what’s that position? According to a Boston.com “Meet the Mayoral Candidates” piece, it’s that Boston should be open later.

City Councillor John Connolly. Get used to this face.
He's probably your next mayor.

So every candidate agrees we should be open later. Then how do they separate themselves from each other and help us separate the almost nonexistent wheat from this ever-growing pile of chaff? Let’s read more closely and find out!

Both Felix Arroyo and John Connolly manage to use the term “24/7,” while Bill Walczak suggests we become a “24-hour city.” Mike Ross, John Barros, and Walczak all hoped for “late-night” service, while Charlotte Golar-Richie couched her position by saying she’d “strongly encourage the MBTA to make improvements to the system.” That’s lovely, candidates. Very innovative. But what are you actually planning to do?

As far as tangible ideas and proposals, John Barros came out swinging. He mentioned working with the Governor (which, to fix the T, you’d need to do) to get system the funding it needs, and proposed a student discount pass for university students, which is a really good idea given how expensive being a student in Boston is.