My father bellowed out these words from our front door and they rang in my ears as I strolled somewhat apprehensively down the street I grew up on, armed with a clipboard, two pens and several sheets of officially headed paper from the town clerk’s office.
Although Dad never sugar-coated what any political candidacy entailed, I had shrugged it off as no big deal beforehand. Like many children, sons in particular, I should have listened more carefully to my father. Dad had more experience than almost anyone in this regard. His mother’s side of the family had been involved in electoral politics in the city of Boston and the state of Massachusetts since emigrating from the west of Ireland around the start of the 20th century.
In the next generation, Dad’s younger brother, Brian Donnelly, my godfather, spent three terms in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, seven terms in the United States House of Representatives and subsequently worked closely with Ambassador Madeline Albright at the United Nations, prior to being appointed United States Ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago by President Bill Clinton.
Notwithstanding his own grievances with the mother ship, Dad deemed this an act of both unfathomable apostasy and colossal stupidity, given our family history and my desire to continue it. The path to a career in elected politics for a Republican in Massachusetts was then, and remains today, an exceedingly narrow one.
Slowly but surely, many Boston Irish settled there, displaced most of their Brahmin predecessors and assumed the town’s political leadership. Until very recently, it was the ‘most Irish’ city or town in the United States and is still near the top of a list which is dominated by Boston suburbs. I spent the entire afternoon at it. Some houses were empty; others were clearly occupied but my knocks and doorbell rings were ignored. The reactions from those who were good enough to open the doors ran the gamut. Several elderly people commented that it was nice to see a young person take an interest in the community and not only signed my nomination papers, but pledged to vote for me on polling day.
I drafted a press release — in hindsight, it was too long and too boastful — that was printed in the local newspapers, and photocopied hundreds of half-page fliers saying: ‘ELECT LAWRENCE P. DONNELLY – TOWN MEETING MEMBER — PRECINCT 6.’ My father and I pushed them through the letter boxes of registered voters in our neighbourhood. I also attended pre-election forums and showed up anywhere else voters were likely to be in decent numbers.