Who Waits This Long?

I was fascinated to see that Tom Menino just had a banner fortnight of fundraising, reporting $160,000 in campaign contributions between October 1 and 15 -- the bulk of it coming, by my count, from 269 people ponying up the legal maximum of $500. Fascinated, because I'm thinking: if you're going to pay fealty to the mayor, why wait this long to do it? Doesn't it kind of make you look like you were waiting, maybe hoping for a Flaherty win, until the September preliminary convinced you that you'd better play ball with now and future mayor Menino?

Hmmmmmm....

Most of this batch of contributors work for or own construction-related companies. So, for example, we have 13 Tishman Construction employees, giving a total of $6150 in early October. (Tishman, based in New York, has a Boston office and works on some large projects here.) Of those 13, only 5 had previously donated to Menino, according to my OCPF searching -- mostly not since 2005, the last mayoral election year. By contrast, nine of those 13 had previously given to Michael Flaherty -- four of them earlier this year, when Flaherty was already a declared candidate against the man they are now writing checks for.

A change of heart, I suppose.

Six folks from NER Construction, and another six from Titan Roofing, each gave the max, although none had ever given to Menino before this month; in fact, NER company VP Frank LoConte and Titan project manager Raymond Lucci had both maxed out for Flaherty each of the last three years -- including $500 contributions this June -- but have now made their offerings to Menino. Nine folks from Walsh Brothers contributed to Menino (totalling $4250), only one of whom had ever done so before.

Some others have given to Menino before -- like some of the eight max-contributors from Capital Waste, or the 13 $250+ givers from Boston Properties (and some of their spouses). But still one wonders: why did they just get around to this show of support now? Had they not heard that their friend the mayor was running this year?

I wonder whether the next report will reveal another rush of contributions to Menino after the Boston Globe ran its recent poll showing a 20-point lead for the incumbent -- and what the mayor thinks about these late converts to his cause.