The first competitive race to run Boston in two decades has become a union-funded fight over identity politics
By Paul McMorrow
John Connolly sat in an SUV littered with the detritus of a long political campaign — old coffee cups, empty doughnut bags, campaign fliers printed in English and Chinese, a bruised banana, a tub of hand sanitizer — and tried to make sense of the wringer he’s squeezing through. Not long ago, Connolly, a 40-year old Harvard-educated city councilor, had looked like the favorite to become Boston’s next mayor. The weeks since September’s preliminary election have not been kind.