by Sal Giarratani
Boston Post Gazette
Friday, May 22, 2009

On Sunday, May 17th, I spent the better part of my day with Andrew Kenneally, a candidate this year for Boston City Council at Large. There are two vacant seats in this year’s election, quite rare in Boston politics. Several viable candidates are running for these two seats and I believe Andy has a good chance of snagging one of them. He’s Irish and Italian. He lives in East Boston. He grew up in West Roxbury. What a great political resume.

On this Sunday, his day started out over at Shaw’s in Liberty Plaza around the corner from where he lives. He and his supporters were there collecting signatures from shoppers heading both in and out of the place. If he missed you coming, he got you going. Then it was on to the 303 Café where more signatures were collected. Then it was through the Ted Williams Tunnel, destination Mattapan Square and the Haitian Independence Day parade/celebration where he did meetings and greeting with the folks lining Blue Hill Avenue waiting for the parade to pass by.

Next stop the Irish Famine Memorial in Downtown Boston in honor of National Irish Famine Memorial Day in Massachusetts. Here dressed up in mostly green, everyone seemed to notice me first. This was where I ended my campaign trail for the day but Andrew Kenneally was far from finished. He still had the SoWa Flea Market over on Harrison Avenue in the South End before finishing the day off with collecting more signatures at yet another supermarket. This time Stop and Shop in Southie.

Running for office is actually running for office. I’ve done it a few times myself and have first hand experience. You are on the go from dawn to dusk, sleep when you can and constantly seeing support, signatures and success. Endlessly saying, “Hi, I’m Andrew Kenneally. I’m running for City Council at Large. I’d like your support.

Over and over again, I say, over and over again!