Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory

In 1983, at the age of 30, I came within 297 votes of being elected Mayor of Attleboro, Mass.

Known at the time as the Jewelry City, it was home to Balfour, Jostens and other companies whose names would be familiar to high school and college seniors as the makers of their class rings and publishers of their yearbooks.

It was also on the cutting edge of the technology business with Texas Instruments employing hundreds of local residents at their multi building campus.

The fact that I was even a contender for the job was surprising. I had moved to Attleboro a scant eight years before. But, as the City Hall reporter/evening talk show host for the area radio station, I became familiar with many of the community’s movers and shakers.  My name recognition in the broader community increased when I began teaching at the area’s only Catholic high school.  When the City Councilor for my Ward unexpectedly announced that he was not seeking re-election, it didn’t take much to convince me to put my name on the ballot.

After all, I was an Irish Catholic kid from Boston whose grandfather and uncles had long careers on the Fire Department. My Dad was active in civic organizations in the Allston/Brighton section of the City and had been approached about running for State Representative, but declined. So it was sort of a no-brainer.

The other candidate was a  former Councilor, who was said to have a relative on every corner. Somehow I won.

After being re-elected two years later, I backed the winning candidate for City Council President.  I found myself Chair of what was considered the “powerful” Finance Committee at a time when the incumbent Mayor’s popularity was waning as he struggled to implement the budget cutting Proposition 2 ½ law, while hanging on to his dream of building Attleboro’s first free standing City Hall.  At the time, City Hall was the rented second and third floors of a downtown bank.

When the Mayor decided not to run for re-election, the field was open and I jumped in portraying myself as an expert on City finances.

I finished first in a five person preliminary getting 28% of the vote. Coming in second was the Finance Chair of the School Committee, Brenda Reed, who was completing her first term. We would go head to head in November.

The fact that I would be the City’s youngest Mayor, if elected, and Brenda would be the first woman generated a lot of interested.  We slogged from Legion Hall to Elks Lodge in a blur of candidate’s nights.  We appeared on the first ever televised debate on local cable. The Boston media – which generally ignored Attleboro -- swooped in the weekend before the vote to interview us.

Election Day brought great weather and both our teams worked hard to bring out our supporters. In the end, I came up short. The difference was razor thin, only about 150 votes, if you think about it.  (If she got 150 less, and I got 150 more…)

It was in the days and weeks following the Election that it really hit home how every vote counts.

Reviewing the voter lists in the days following Election, I easily identified 150 people we were counting on who never made it to the polls.  For example, neighbors across the street, who we had down for five votes.

When their three children, who were attending college in Boston called to say that they were taking the train home to vote, Mom told them not to bother because “Hank’s got this.”  That was the prevailing opinion in many political circles prompting a friend to turn the cliché on its head and joke that I had “snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.”  

Dad got stuck in work; Mom was only one who actually voted. So five solid votes, melted into just one. There were dozens of other examples of people who, for a variety of reasons, never voted.  

In the next few weeks we’ll be hearing from candidates, civic leaders and clergy about the importance of voting. It’s easy to snicker and be dismissive.

But take it from someone who has lived it, your vote does make a difference.

Even if you think it doesn’t.