The death of former Boston Mayor Thomas Menino has reverberated across the political landscape in Massachusetts.
The candidates for governor in next week’s election suspended their public campaign appearances Thursday out of respect for the man who was elected five times as Boston’s mayor. Springfield-based political consultant Tony Cignoli said the secret to Menino’s success was his tenacity and his love for Boston.
" As Tom Menino himself often said ' I didn't go to Harvard, I'm not a Rhodes Scholar, but what I do have is a degree in street university politics'," said Cignoli. " He understood the communities."
A Boston Globe poll in 2008 found an astonishing fifty-percent of Bostonians said they had met Menino personally. Menino died at age 71 after a battle with cancer.
