'Make or Break' Time for Boston

Unlike that protracted struggle, the dispute with New Yorkers quickly blew over after pleas from a host of local minority leaders.

For Menino and others who worked to bring the event to Boston, these have been trying weeks, with bad news trickling out in a steady stream. Months before what will be the first political convention since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, organizers warned residents to prepare for a security environment unlike any this city has seen, with 40 miles of road closures and predictions of traffic jams from New Hampshire to Rhode Island.

"It's a shame they have felt it necessary to seal off half the city, when we should be inviting everybody downtown to have a good time and show off the city," said former governor Michael S. Dukakis, the 1988 Democratic presidential nominee who now teaches at Boston's Northeastern University.

Boston's renowned propensity for political in-fighting has also emerged in recent weeks. Two unions angling for a new contract for firefighters and police officers have threatened to target Menino with pickets. The mayor and Kerry fell out when the senator canceled a speech to the U.S. Conference of Mayors which was meeting in Boston, citing a police union picket.

"The impression is that this city just can't seem to get out of its own way," said Lou DiNatale, head of the center for state and local policy at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. "Bostonians tend to view the world through Boston eyes, so the presidential election becomes secondary to a labor dispute. It's part of what makes this place entertaining and fun but also why we don't get as much done as we should."

When Los Angeles hosted the Democrats four years ago, some residents said the city was so vast and the populace so blase, that an uninitiated observer might not have known that anything unusual was happening in town at all. New Yorkers have seemed to take planning next month's Republican National Convention in stride.

It will not be that way here.

"Whenever Boston and New York are compared in anything, New Yorkers are like, 'whatever' and we get obsessed with outdoing our neighbors to the south," said Jay Severin, a popular talk radio host in Boston and a former Republican political consultant. "There's so much self-doubt. Sometimes, I think, basically, we're not happy unless we're miserable."

Still, even as residents lament the chaos they expect, they also seem to believe that four days in the national political spotlight is long overdue. After all, locals point out, Massachusetts has produced four presidents -- two Adamses, a Kennedy and the first Bush (he was born in Milton in 1924) -- trailing only Virginia and Ohio, but has never hosted a political convention.

"I have a long week ahead," said Mayor Joseph A. Curatone of Somerville, a city north of Boston that will be inundated by traffic detoured from major highways. He will spend many evenings during the convention manning his city's streets, diverting cars if roadways get too clogged. "It could be a bit of a nightmare, but I'm glad it'll be our nightmare. In the end, we'll be glad we did this."