Two highly effective political forces – Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and South Boston state Sen. Nick Collins – may very well be on a collision course, with hypothesis swirling that she wish to goal Collins in subsequent 12 months’s election.
After crushing her opponents this 12 months, together with defeating conservative council candidate Frank Baker, Wu might flip to taking out Collins as her subsequent huge political mission.
And given Wu’s rising political energy and her penchant for aggressively difficult her opponents, Collins is paying consideration.
“Would she like to get him out of there? Probably,” one plugged in metropolis insider stated.
“She wants to defeat him,” one other political insider with information of the spat stated.
Collins was accountable for Wu’s largest and solely political lack of her first time period, the defeat of the mayor’s business tax hike plan, which stalled within the state Senate.
Collins additionally notably didn’t endorse Wu for reelection, and was seen by Wu supporters as backing her opponent Josh Kraft, although Collins by no means endorsed him.
So it might make sense that the politically formidable Wu wish to get just a little Boston-style revenge for Collins blocking her tax enterprise, which resulted in her having to hike taxes on Boston residents.
After Collins blocked Wu’s tax proposal, the Globe did a weak hit piece on him taking hundreds of {dollars} in donations from the true property trade. Wu herself has additionally accepted huge cash donations from the identical actual property pursuits.
Collins additionally lately not directly criticized Wu’s actions or lack of motion round Mass and Cass, writing in a Boston Herald editorial in help of his invoice to handle the disaster.
“This one intersection has become the epicenter of a public health and public safety emergency,” Collins wrote. “Let’s stop waiting for headlines to force our hand. Let’s act now, pass this bill, and prove that we can meet this crisis with the urgency and humanity it demands.”
Collins additionally expressed considerations about transportation points round Wu’s plan to rebuild White Stadium for the Boston girls’s skilled soccer group, asking the MBTA to evaluation the stadium’s environmental affect.
Taking down Collins or discovering an opponent to beat him may very well be harder than Wu imagines. He was overwhelmingly reelected final time, although he’s by no means actually had a severe opponent.
An inventory of highly effective pols sponsoring Collins’s vacation reception fundraiser consists of U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch, Lawyer Normal Andrea Campbell, District Lawyer Kevin Hayden, Clerk John Powers, and state Reps. Aaron Michlewitz, Russell Holmes, Chynah Tyler and Chris Worrell. Different sponsors embody Metropolis Councilors John Fitzgerald, Ed Flynn, Erin Murphy, Brian Worrell, and Councilor-elect Miniard Culpepper.
However that received’t cease Wu from looking for a candidate to leap within the race. Prior to now she has recruited from inside Metropolis Corridor so it wouldn’t be stunning to see certainly one of her aides make the leap in opposition to Collins.
However whereas Collins, who represents not simply South Boston however Dorchester and Chinatown, appears powerful to beat, he might take some shrapnel from a Boston Globe story Wednesday about his twin brother, Andrew’s actual property tasks.
The headline on the story was: “A sprawling Southie real estate project, a state senator’s brother, and $143 million in lawsuits.”
Describing Andrew Collins within the second paragraph, the story stated, “He was charismatic, persuasive, and – left unsaid — the identical twin brother of state Senator Nick Collins.”
Within the story, Senator Collins and his brother stated the senator had nothing to do with the true property enterprise.
Collins and Wu weren’t at all times enemies, the truth is that they had a very good working relationship when Wu was on the Metropolis Council, based on individuals with information of their relationship. However that has clearly grow to be strained during the last 12 months.
The rising rivalry and potential for Wu to recruit an opponent might grow to be open warfare on the St. Patrick’s Day breakfast, which is hosted by Collins. Wu typically goes to the breakfast and is a featured speaker, and her absence would sign a rift between her and Collins.
