Ayanna Pressley for City Council? Interesting
Politicker has been doing its typical yeoman work tracking down the various contenders for City Council seats in 2009. If Michael Flaherty and Sam Yoon run against Mayor Tom Menino, two coveted at-large seats on City Council would be open and the line starts at the left:
Felix Arroyo Jr., Doug Bennett, Jean-Claude Sanon, Bob Terrell and Marty Hogan have all said they are running. Former aide to Councilor Michael Flaherty Andrew Kenneally is also considering it, as is Tomas Gonzalez, a former aide to Mayor Tom Menino.
But today brings speculation from Politicker that Ayanna Pressley, John Kerry’s Political Director, may be considering a run, which could be a game-changer, as the pundits like to say.
Pressley is a much-lauded member of Kerry’s staff who has extensive contacts in Boston thanks to her work with the Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus and other grassroots organizations. She played coy in her comments to Politicker:
“I haven’t thought about it,” Pressley told PolitickerMA.com Tuesday morning. “I am really humbled and honored that my name has been mentioned in any conversation.”
Pressley wouldn’t completely shut the door on the possibility, though, and said that several in the community have called to encourage her to run.
“It is a serious job,” she said. “It’s a serious decision and I don’t think it is something to be considered lightly.”
As our friend Paul McMorrow once wrote, “that was a lot of words and none of them was ‘no.’” It’s also worth noting that a time when the black political leadership in Boston is desperate for new voices, Pressley’s could be a dynamic one.
December 11th, 2008 at 5:40 am
Ayanna Pressley would make a terrible choice for City Council or any other leadership position—period! I’ve worked in some of the same inner circles as her and, besides having an artificial personality, she has been nothing but a John Kerry lapdog for the last several years.
December 11th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
I agree. We need freshblood like that guy Bennett. Bennett has been going door to door accross the city since May and I hear he has gone to 30,000 houses already. He came to my neighbor’s house the other day. I like Bennett because he’s an outsider. Pressley is Kerry’s puppet… more of the same… just another insider!
December 15th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
On the contrary, Pressley is an insider in the right way. She’s a consensus builder who knows how to work with Boston’s diverse communities.
January 5th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
I agree with Alex. Ayanna is a consensus builder. We need people that know how to put people together with ideas – she has done that for years. As for her Kerry linkage, it seems to me that she would be more helpful by continuing to influence Kerry from her current vantage point than in making a move to the Boston Council. Going from being a member of the captain’s crew on a battleship to the captain of a rowboat doesn’t seem like a good move to me.
February 17th, 2009 at 2:37 am
I 100% will support Ayanna Pressley for the Boston City Council should she run. She is very smart, well spoken, very experienced in constituent services which is 90% of the job as a city councilor, and very much down to Earth. A lot of folks are very full of themselves and carry themselves out as elected officials with over inflated egos, Ayanna is not like that at all. When I read her name in the Globe for Monday, Feb. 16th, I was very pleased and hope she does run.
May 8th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Ayanna would make a fantastic pick for Boston City Council. A Kerry lapdog? You obviously don’t know her. Ayanna tells it like it is and it’s time the people of Boston had a pick with her determination and thoughtfulness.