Mayor Wu and shifting politics and priorities in liberal Boston – The Boston Globe

Earlier this month, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu very carefully and deliberately changed the public conversation around the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard, an area where a large tent encampment and open drug use have long created a troubling environment for surrounding businesses and residents. A “new level of public safety alarm” required a different response from what the city had tried before, the mayor said, when she took more of a public health approach toward helping a vulnerable population.

Now come reports that the city is brainstorming new ways to combat crime in the area and that the Wu administration is drafting an ordinance that would give law enforcement clear legal authority to remove tents from Mass. and Cass — a sign of shifting politics and priorities even in liberal Boston. CommonWealth Magazine called it a “Wu turn” for a mayor who has been lovingly embraced as a progressive champion by the national media. If so, it’s a familiar turn for Wu, who from the start of her political career has shown a talent for moving ever so delicately right and center when it helps her politically. In January 2014, as a newly elected member of the Boston City Council, Wu famously cast a vote for Bill Linehan, an old-school, more conservative pol from South Boston. That choice outraged progressives who helped her make history as the first Asian American woman to win a council seat. But it helped Wu eventually win election herself as city council president and to ultimately run for mayor.

With the tent encampment, Wu is also following the lead of Democrats in other traditionally blue strongholds who have concluded the public has limited sympathy for people who take up residence on city streets, leave behind needles and other drug paraphernalia, and sometimes engage in violent behavior. As The New York Times recently reported, “In California, Democratic leaders who previously tolerated homeless camps have lost their patience for the tent villages and blocks of trailers that proliferated.”

Wu is no doubt also reading local political tea leaves after she was put on notice about an effort by Boston PR executive George Regan to launch a “save our city” campaign from “the negative impacts of the ultra-progressive policies” of “the current City Council and current administration of Boston City Hall.” While many of the politicians listed as attendees for the event sponsored by Regan said they were not part of any official campaign, Regan did not back down from his contention that the city “is on the verge of collapse.” Evidence he cited included “the human tragedy ongoing at Mass. and Cass.”

Other longtime observers of Boston politics believe the progressive movement in general, especially as it relates to the Boston City Council, is on the wane. “No message, no leadership, and burned trails along their short-lived life. They are in the political ICU,” Jeffrey Sánchez, a senior adviser at Rasky Partners, told me recently. In 2018, Sanchez lost his House seat, and with it the powerful post of House Ways and Means chair, to a progressive challenger, so his thinking on the topic is not exactly objective. But when it comes to city politics, he offers some specific examples to back it up. As he sees it, the push for an elected School Committee is dead. So, too, is any move to defund the police. Meanwhile, rent control is “in limbo,” he said.

It hasn’t helped that two of the most progressive members of the council who are up for reelection — Kendra Lara and Ricardo Arroyo — are also facing personal scandals. Wu has separated herself from both Lara and Arroyo, saying their personal problems undercut their credibility. And as first reported by Politico, the mayor is endorsing Enrique Pepén, her former neighborhood services director, over Arroyo.

Knowing when to shift toward the center — whether it involves rejecting efforts by progressive city councilors to reduce the annual police budget, offering up a watered-down rent control proposal, or getting tougher on the population at Mass. and Cass — is part of Wu’s political story. As Liam Kerr, founder of Priorities for Progress, which promotes centrist Democratic policies, recently wrote, “Wu has been straddling the line between progressive superstar and pragmatic leader since her first campaign — and first action as a councilor.” To Kerr, finding the center is the sweet spot for Wu. As evidence, he cites a MassINC mayoral poll that found that Wu voters also liked Republican Charlie Baker.

But now she’s mayor. Reading the politics and shifting rhetorically to the center only helps so much. How will Wu solve the problem at Mass. and Cass? It’s one that few, if any, Boston residents want to inherit in their neighborhood — no matter where they fit on the political spectrum.

Joan Vennochi is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at joan.vennochi@globe.com. Follow her @joan_vennochi.