Boston Herald: Margery
Eagan
March 17, 2005
Tom
Finneran held this Suffolk County rep's seat for 26 years.
On
Tuesday 31-year-old Linda Dorcena Forry, daughter of Haitian immigrants, raised
in Dorchester, Monsignor Ryan High, beat out four others to win it big.
In
fluent Creole French at her tiny Adams Street headquarters yesterday, Forry
exulted to a radio reporter from her parents' native land. Her Irish husband
Bill Forry, of the everybody-knows-them Dorchester Forrys (founders of the
Dorchester Reporter), did his own interviews with 16-month-old biracial John
Patrick both smiling and squirming in his arms.
Meanwhile,
campaign manager Stuart Rosenberg, once in Wisconsin for Kerry, credited
Dot.Out - as in gay and out in Dorchester - with helping Forry. Nasty flyers
circulated after neighborhood Masses - one showing a mixed-race gay couple
kissing - apparently dissuaded few.
And
over at MassEquality - the increasingly powerful group pushing to keep gay
marriage legal - political director Marc Solomon talked about dozens of
volunteers making 3,000 phone calls and scores of poll volunteers who turned
out to help their candidates. On Tuesday they gained three more pro-gay
marriage reps on Beacon Hill, including Linda Forry.
This
is what some call "The New Boston." Black, white, straight, gay.
Soccer moms in Volvos and investment types on commuter trains heading downtown
from Charles Street Lite, also known as Roslindale Square, home of Village
Sushi, Birch Street Bistro, brick sidewalks and gas lights.
"The
New Boston" supposedly swept Andrea Cabral to victory as Suffolk sheriff.
She crushed Boston City Councilor Stephen Murphy in last fall's primary.
But
"The New Boston" in Forry's case leaves out Milton, home of the shamrock
shutter and randy Milton Academy. And Milton - affluent, suburban, and mostly
white - went big for Linda Forry as well.
So
her campaign talks about "the new partnership" instead, leaving other
analysts to speak of Boston's racial, ethnic and to some degree class barriers
shifting, or even coming down - especially when offered a candidate of Forry's
exuberance and political charm.
The
candidate herself? A City Hall aide, she talks about a great "grassroots
effort" and "six and seven hours a day" knocking on doors all
over Dorchester, Milton and Mattapan. "It was cold . . . I lost 15
pounds." Is she happy? "Very."
Said
former House Speaker Tom Finneran of his successor, "I'll give you the
gist of the message I left for (Linda) at 7 this morning. How happy I am for
her, how proud I am of her campaign . . . how thrilled I am to pass the baton
to someone of her stature. . . . She is going to be a great state
representative."
Some
things never change around here. Take, for example, the politically corrupt Big
Dig, aka "Apocalypse Now."
But
now Italians and a muscular gay lobby - not Irishmen and a sacred church lobby
- are in ascendance on Beacon Hill. Now women run state correction and the
Boston police. Cabral is sheriff. Forry will join another Haitian, the
ever-more-powerful Marie St. Fleur, at the State House.
Now
gays and lesbians have moved from the South End and Jamaica Plain to Roslindale
and Dorchester, driving up property values all around Forry's headquarters by
the Erie Pub. Now Patricia White, daughter of the Mayor of America, is
struggling in politics and City Councilor Maura Hennigan (God love her) is
struggling futilely (God only knows why) to unseat Mayor Menino, who's grown on
us.
As
Suffolk County Clerk of Courts John Nucci put it after Cabral's mega-win last
fall, "This is not your grandfather's Boston anymore." Or your
grandfather's Milton, or Beacon Hill, either.
Caption:
THE CHAMP: Dorchester's Linda Dorcena Forry chats with a fellow state
representative after winning former House Speaker Tom Finneran's seat in
Tuesday's special election.