Candidates strategies differ as they vie for corner office
By JOSH RESNEK
As May transits to June, the mayoral hopefuls are all showing their hands, and their strategies to get themselves elected mayor.
All three races are especially transparent as to what each candidate is doing or not doing at this early moment in a race that will end with a primary during the first week in September.
Gerly Adrien and Fred Capone have both been campaigning door to door and with noticeable early morning visibilities every day.
In what must be considered a first, Adrien has already filed her signatures following an organized, early signature campaign.
Filing signatures after only a week since the nomination papers were issued is fairly extraordinary.
The mayor appeared to be giving away an early start to his two opponents.
Not really.
The mayor was seen going door to door in the Belmont Street neighborhood near the park over the weekend!
In reality, the mayor has been campaigning for months to get himself re-elected.
His campaign effort is a combination of using city resources like his $1.5 million mayoral staff including lawyers and media mavens to project his preferred image as the leader of the city who cannot be beaten.
His staff understands the conflict-of-interest laws. They perform just under the state’s conflict of interest radar site to provide the mayor with a variety of publicity that is paid for by the city.
This includes the mayor’s newsletter distributed and mailed all over the city at taxpayer’s cost of about $4,000 a month, and clever devices like the banner that hangs high over Broadway advertising the city’s 311 service – with the mayor’s name prominently displayed for all those who look up at it as they drive up and down Broadway.
Also, the mayor’s staff is making use of video programming for his social media platform with cute biographies of some of those working for the city as well as cameos of the mayor sipping coffee or waxing eloquent.
Adrien and Capone have so far been forthright and sometimes contentious at city council meetings.
City council meetings give Adrien and Capone a slight advantage over the mayor although the mayor’s supporters on the council try to do his bidding.
However, Adrien’s constant challenges of the councilors cause them to have to answer.
When they are made to answer they lose. They either look and sound foolish or refuse to answer. This proves their blind support for the mayor becomes untenable when they are being called upon publicly to explain their positions by Adrien and Capone.
Unless we are dreaming, we do not believe the mayor will appear before the council until the September primary.
The Leader Herald has been told by Adrien and Capone that they are both willing to debate the mayor.
The mayor does not answer questions from the Leader Herald.
He has nothing to gain from a debate. He has everything to lose.
Yet whether or not he debates will matter to many Everett voters who are not part of the city government or the city workforce.
The mayor’s political supporters believe he cannot lose.
They claim Adrien has no support, that she will be deserted by the Haitian community.
If you can believe this, you can believe anything.
Capone is not going to split the Italian vote with the mayor.
Capone will take as much as 30% or more of that vote out of the mayor’s column. If the mayor’s time has come, Capone’s Italian vote could be surprisingly large.
Adrien and Capone have put their noses to the grindstone and are out early and often trying to dispel the notion they cannot win.
Their only viable option is to campaign hard to win.
All three mayoral candidates have not yet spent major money on their strategies
The mayor believes he cannot lose.
While he is at his friendliest best to friends and foes alike right now, the mayor cannot, at this point, hide who he is and what he does to maintain his grip on the city.