St. Elsewhere
January 13, 2006
Massachusetts State Representative Marie St. Fleur’s name is often mentioned as a possible contender for the 2009 Boston mayoral race (assuming the current Mayor, Tom Menino, pulls a Kevin White and decides not to run for a fifth term.) If she runs, she’ll be lionized by those desirous of seeing a black person (not technically an "African-American," as she was born in Haiti) become the mayor of a city long perceived as a stronghold of racial hostility. However, if she were to win, all indications are that she would push the city in a radically left-wing direction.
St. Fleur, who worked for former Attorney General Scott Harshbarger before becoming a state rep in 1998, has in recent years become the go-to person to advance any progressive pet cause. Over the past two years, she has gained notoriety as a passionate supporter of court-ordered gay marriage, promoting the notion that the creation of gay marriage merely ended discrimination against same-sex couples, and choosing to diplomatically dismiss religious concerns about the judicial redefinition of marriage. It would be one thing if someone who didn’t profess any religious views came out in support of same-sex marriage, but the fact that St. Fleur, a self-professed Catholic, could ignore church tenets and support something that can be charitably described as heresy spoke volumes about the true extent of her religious convictions.
St. Fleur has also been a champion of a rather strange cause: giving tuition breaks to illegal immigrants. She’s been the primary force behind the effort to allow illegal immigrants to qualify for tuition breaks to attend Massachusetts public colleges even if they did not attend high school in the United States. Under the initiative she supported, Massachusetts would have in essence become a "magnet" for illegal immigrants desirous of a subsidized education. How does this strike anyone as rational? How did this strike St. Fleur as rational?
St. Fleur also played the race card to the hilt last spring, when the University of Massachusetts-Boston chose a white, Irish-Catholic man to be the school’s new chancellor instead of a popular African-American man. There was no evidence that racism motivated the selection of the white candidate, but that didn’t stop St. Fleur and other liberals from spouting off. St. Fleur also couldn’t resist peddling the notion that vote fraud in Ohio caused John Kerry to lose the 2004 election.
St. Fleur got a slap on the wrist for an ethics violation a few years back, but she’s largely avoided scandal–that is, if you don’t consider her history of supporting judicial activism and benefits for lawbreakers to be a scandal. A St. Fleur mayoral bid will be heralded by the media as a sign that racial tensions have eased, despite the fact that she stirred racial tensions with her unsubstantiated charges against the University of Massachusetts.
Of course, if she does run, St. Fleur will receive fawning press coverage for non-ideological reasons: she is photogenic, charismatic, and (the UMass controversy aside) is not perceived as a moonbat racial demagogue a la Boston City Councilor Chuck "X" Turner. However, for all her positive attributes, one negative remains: she embraces the left, the whole left, and nothing but the left. If she becomes mayor in November 2009, many Bostonians will be thrilled–but for how long?
January 14th, 2006 at 7:08 am
She certainly has been out there making a name for herself, hasn’t she? And, based on the turnout I have seen in my own electoral precinct and the recent election of another Haitian-American woman to the legislature recently, St. Le Fleur may be able to marshall a strong enough coalition to not only challenge but beat the likes of Michael Flaherty, who is more like “Old Boston.” She seems to garner more respectability than a like-minded liberal like Byron Rushing, but manage to somehow leverage more respectability. And, like Diane Wilkerson, she can get away with this liberal bent with NO condemnation from some of these so-called community leaders in the black community.