Q&A #3: Menino-LaMattina Power Play?

Ask Me Anything Day is gaining momentum!!! "Joe Belino" asks:

Because of Sal LaMattina being named Boston City Council Vice President do you think that the Mayor will run for re-election and at that time LaMattina will be President of the council?

Joe, clearly a devious fellow, calculates that Menino will set it up to run and win re-election in 2013, and then resign soon after -- making the council president acting mayor, hence the notion of setting fellow Italian-American LaMattina up for that position.

Note that the City Council selects a new president every year, but now limits councilors to two consecutive terms in that seat. Steve Murphy presumably presides for 2011-'12, so the next one getting the gavel would likely have it for 2013 and '14.

It's a clever plan, Joe. The conundrum is, the more you think it makes sense, the less likely it is to happen -- because if it makes sense, then the other city councilors will believe it, and if they believe it, they won't vote for LaMattina for president.

Anyway, that's a long way off. I don't even have a prediction for whether Menino will run again -- and if he does, who will run against him, and whether he'll win. Also, this otherwise brilliant theory has one potentially fatal flaw: it suggests that Tom Menino would ever willingly walk away from City Hall, while still capable of drawing breath. In fact, as you'll see on the new cover of the Boston Phoenix, we expect him to be running the city well beyond that point.