By JOSH RESNEK
Early on, the mayor is motivated to run for another term and to win.
He is out early in the game setting up a headquarters on Main Street, capturing a key endorsement from former mayor David Ragucci (who no longer lives here), and lining up a public relation, social media, print advertising platform.
With more than $100,000 in his campaign account and much more to be raised, the mayor is the man to beat.
The big question: can he be beaten?
On paper, he looks unbeatable.
He’s got the city locked down and tied up into his personal political game almost entirely.
Underneath the belief he is unbeatable, however, comes the understanding, and the mayor understands this better than most, that he could be beaten through no fault of his own.
How does this work? What does that mean?
There are times in a long political life as mayor – and the mayor’s political life has been longer than nearly everyone who has come before in this city – when no matter what he does, how much he spends, how many hands he shakes, how many doors he knocks on that he cannot win.
When a win isn’t in the cards, there is no way for a politician to buy a win, to exploit past heroics, and to regain what has been lost over 12 years.
In other words, as God writes peoples’ names into the Book of Life from the year thus guaranteeing them life for another year, God also goes the other way and doesn’t write your name into the Book of Life.
When this happens, you don’t end up getting re-elected.
You end up on the obituary page or the losing end of a mayoral campaign.
Enter Councilor Gerly Adrien.
The old liner Everett supporters of the mayor say everyone hates her.
But everyone doesn’t hate her.
In fact, she is the most often mentioned politician offered up as being able to take on the mayor and to beat him.
No one has challenged the mayor’s “dictatorship” more than Adrien during the past two years.
The mayor knows that Adrien can bring in a huge roll of sup- port from outside the city to campaign for her, to donate to her campaign fund, to rally minorities, and to organize them to vote for her on election day and on and on.
What would it take for this type of opposition to the mayor to be unleashed?
Adrien must decide to run.
This is a decision she is finding it hard to make.
Her inner voice tells her to wait four years, to get stronger, to consolidate power for herself.
Time waits for no one.
Adrien will not be better able to win the mayor’s office in four years than she is today.
If she doesn’t run this time around and put everything she has into it, she will likely have more of a problem being re-elected to her councilor’s seat than to the mayor’s office.
She doesn’t want to run and lose. But who does?
There are no guarantees in the Everett political arena.
This applies to the mayor and he knows it.
Bottom line, Adrien should announce her candidacy and go for it with her heart and soul. Why?
Because there is a better than even chance the mayor’s time has come. His terms as mayor have been exhausted. He isn’t going to get another victory no matter what he does.
An analyst would say to this that Adrien would be crazy to run – but then – when the mayor was starting out, everyone said he was crazy to run the first time out.
We know the mayor is more fearful of Adrien than he is of Fred Capone.
And with good reason.
He thinks he can kick Capone all over the parking lot and that Capone will just say “thank you” instead of getting down into the gutter and fighting with the mayor about his racism, quid pro quo, misogyny, immorality, and about his basic lack of honesty and loyalty.
The mayor has a point about that.
Capone can take advantage of the unknown, that it is unknown whether or not the mayor is going to be elected to another term or be rejected roundly because it is written in the stars that he cannot win.
There isn’t a poll that can be taken that can show that.
Capone would make for an honest candidate, which is an unusual candidate for an Everett mayor’s race.
Adrien and Capone running in a September primary against the mayor is a contest and the mayor’s worst nightmare.
Let’s see what happens.