What Donnelly's Doing Right

(First, I knew I had forgotten something in yesterday's wrapup post: The Globe's story on Jane Swift on Sunday. Why do we care? A lot of people think Swift will run for Congress when John Olver finally hangs 'em up. Swift has been notoriously media-shy since she left office in 2003, and now she agrees to a front-pager in El Globo? You have to wonder what her motivation is, and what's up with Olver. He's on the Appropriations Committee, so you'd think he'd want to stay. But the "Why now?" question on this story shouldn't be forgotten.)

A few caveats, which will likely take away from the rest of this post:

The Globe story yesterday on the mayor's race (well, Lisa Wong), is getting excellent traction for Wong. Boston Magazine's Boston Daily Blog checks in on the race through El Globo, and focuses on wine bars for some reason. Huh. Also, and perhaps more amazingly, the Wong story is run in the International Herald Tribune (it's a reprint of the Globe article, but if you need to see it, it's here). Um, the International Herald Tribune? Holy cow. I wish Donnelly had been a little more positive about the city for a world-wide audience. But who knew?

In short, Wong's candidacy has broadened the city's scope. Suddenly, the Boston Globe cares -- at least a little bit. The story is interesting enough to grab those self-proclaimed smarties at Boston Maggie, and the IHT picks up the story. Can she do the same as mayor if elected?

OK, on with the show:

I'm not sure Tom Donnelly's moves over the last week will gain him a ton of votes, and they certainly aren't overwhelmingly damning evidence that Lisa Wong is in over her head if elected, but maybe it was the right thing to do -- particularly in the long term.

Consider:

• Donnelly has owned the tenor and message of the campaign over the last week. He has gotten two hits out of the dailies and reframed the campaign into a debate about experience. Is it a winning play? I don't know, but you'd have to think this is the ground where the Donnelly campaign -- for better or worse -- thinks it has an advantage.
• They threw at least a small curveball into the otherwise batting-practice fastball that was the Globe story. While Camp Wong should be head-over-heels with that one, if Donnelly had taken a higher or less-combative road, it would have been even more glowing of Wong.
• Wong's distracted. At least when she's dealing with the media, Wong isn't talking vision, the future and better days ahead. She's explaining her work and defending her past. She says she's happy to do it because she's proud of her record, but she's off message. Remember, the Telegram story came out last Friday, so Wong was interviewed no later than Thursday. It's been almost a week. She's done a good job talking about this, but it's a distraction.

None of the last week will win Donnelly the election. Let's say, generously, this whole thing gains Donnelly 200 votes. Hell, let's be very generous and give him 500 votes -- and that's a Christmas and birthday present combined. That means he still needs to find 1,700 votes. It's still an uphill effort for him.

So, short-term, the benefits might be marginal. But perhaps this has created opportunity for Donnelly. Considering Wong's relatively short work history and zero political history, there isn't fertile ground for digging more dirt like this. So it's Donnelly to step into the sliver of daylight he's created and find a way to build on this. A very tall task.

Donnelly has moved the campaign to his preferred area, he has Wong distracted and maybe a bit off-balance. But he needs to build off this, and do it soon. He needs to come up with Act II right now, in order to take advantage of whatever opportunity this has created.

This issue is a lot more jab than knockout punch, but it has been a decent jab. Now, Donnelly needs to find a combination that works to get Wong on the ropes. Can he do it is the question, and it's the question of now, not next week. He can't let whatever momentum he's generated peter out.

What's next? Who knows. He needs to find another good media hit. His Sentinel feature on Sunday kind of got lost in the noise. The "majority of councilors support Donnelly" on Monday doesn't exactly bolster his image as a change candidate, considering the councilors supporting him. Can he go more negative? It hasn't worked too well for him so far, partly because he usually comes off as condescending and arrogant when he does, and partly because voters don't appear to want to hear it.

Donnelly has spent the two weeks since the preliminary painting a picture of the city on the verge of final financial doom and positioning himself as the person to handle the daunting problems. Maybe he's thinking Wong's support isn't very strong, and voters will have second thoughts between now and Nov. 6. If so, he's at least given them something to think about in the next four weeks, but it wasn't a silver bullet, and if he's going to turn those second thoughts his way, he'll need to come back with something to advance whatever ground he's gained in the last week.