Tom Reilly

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The secret life of a Charlestown drug dealer

The next face Shane Mauss saw, though, was unmistakable. It was Johnny Hickey. A fast-talking tattooed Charlestown native with a tough brogue and checkered past, he used to sometimes work security at a comedy club Mauss used to play back in Boston
Hickey flipped for the Feds — and lived to make a movie about it
By CHRIS FARAONE | February 04, 2011

Same Old Faces

If you're wondering who the geniuses are behind the political campaigns in Massachusetts this year — the strategists, media firms, ad teams, and fundraisers — well, it's a lot of the same folks who have been behind Massachusetts campaigns for a long time
It's an outsider's year for candidates, but the consultants are old Beacon Hill mainstays. Plus, who spent what at the conventions, and Baker goes on TV first.
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | June 25, 2010

Weenie Roast!

A year ago, with scandals and embarrassments swirling around Massachusetts state politics, the Phoenix tossed some well-deserving pols on the flames in our first annual Memorial Day political roast. I'm pleased that I've been invited back.
The Phoenix 's second annual Memorial Day political roast
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | June 04, 2010

Mayor-Select Marie?

Tom Menino, just a few months into an unprecedented fifth term as Boston’s mayor, has raised eyebrows by hiring State Representative Marie St. Fleur of Dorchester to the newly created, $120,000-a-year position of chief of advocacy and strategic investmen
Some think that Tom Menino is anointing Marie St. Fleur as his successor, but he might just be serving himself
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | May 07, 2010

Tea Party Progressives?

When Democrat Peter Smulowitz celebrated his victory in the special-election primary for State Senate earlier this month in the back room of Masala Art restaurant in Needham, no bigwigs from his party were in attendance.
Outsiders are trying to crash the gates of the state’s Democratic establishment — and are starting to succeed
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | April 30, 2010

GOP’s state convention delivers the bland brand

Massachusetts Republican candidates for office this November might be well-advised to legally change their names and appear on the ballot as “Someone Else,” “Another Option,” or “Available Alternative.”
Dull and Duller Dept.
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | April 23, 2010

The Curse of the Big Dig

Call it the Curse of the Big Dig: virtually every politician with statewide significance who has over the years become intertwined with the Central Artery Project (as it is officially known) has seen his or her dreams of higher office dashed.
Tthe mere mention of the Central Artery Project can derail one's hopes for higher office. Charlie Baker is finding that out now.
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | March 19, 2010

Tea-bagger Brown triumphs

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley may be a good person and a dedicated public servant, but thanks to her gut-wrenching loss to tea-bagging Republican Scott Brown in the race for the US Senate seat held by the late Ted Kennedy, Coakley is now
Obama must rally independents
By EDITORIAL | January 22, 2010

Chaos Theory

In less than two weeks, when Massachusetts voters elect Martha Coakley to the US Senate — let's not pretend that Republican state senator Scott Brown has any chance of pulling off the monumental upset — they will trigger a massive domino effect that has
2010 might be the year Massachusetts politics undergoes an unprecedented reshuffling.
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | January 08, 2010

Coakley cashes in at the bar

It's no surprise that Martha Coakley has raised much of her money for her US Senate campaign from lawyers — that has been her professional and social circle for pretty much her entire adult life.
Lawyering Up
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | December 04, 2009

Wizards and masterpieces

At “Harry Potter: The Exhibition” at the Museum of Science, when a robed attendant places the sorting hat on a visitor’s head and soon after a door whooshes open to reveal the Hogwarts Express, you find yourself filled with the kind of giddy expectation
Harry Potter at the Museum of Science, and another look at the Rose
By GREG COOK | November 06, 2009

Why the Banner didn't endorse for mayor

Back in July, when Boston Mayor Tom Menino arranged a $200,000 loan that allowed the endangered Bay State Banner to resume publication, Globe columnist Adrian...
By Adam Reilly | September 29, 2009

Six for the seat

Over the next few months, as candidates for the US Senate travel the state, you're likely to hear them say again and again that nobody can ever truly replace Ted Kennedy. That's the truth. But what does the state want next, after such a legendary, la
After a tumultuous week, these half dozen are still in the mix for Kennedy's seat.
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | September 18, 2009

After Ted

The death of Senator Edward M. Kennedy early Wednesday morning brings to a close the life and legendary career of one of Massachusetts's greatest political figures.
Kennedy’s death came amid renewed speculation about his succession, his family, and potential candidates for his job
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | August 28, 2009

Yoon or Flaherty

Boston voters will go to the polls in less than seven weeks to choose two candidates, out of the four now running, to face off against each other in November's mayoral election.
Who will win the chance to challenge Menino?
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | August 14, 2009

The punch that took two lives

What started out as a lazy late-summer school day for Joe Donovan and Yngve Raustein ended in the murder of the latter. Below, we trace Donovan's steps, from the point he first hooked up with the duo who would end up his cohorts in crime to the spot wh
Nearly 17 years ago, Joe Donovan initiated a tragic chain of events with a brutish act of machismo. But should he be in jail for life?
By CHRIS FARAONE | August 07, 2009

Can Sam Yoon win?

Recent elections, as you may have heard, have been about change.
An Obama loving city counselor aims to be mayor of Boston
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | February 11, 2009

The PTech connection?

Between late 2002 and early 2003, the now defunct Fleet Bank in Boston attracted the attention of federal anti-terrorist investigators.
Banking with terrorists
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | November 19, 2008

Racial healing

To be sure, racism still exists. But the distance our culture has come in 50 years — from blacks fighting for basic civil rights to a black man running for the White House — is remarkable.
Former mayoral opponents Ray Flynn and Mel King discuss how far their city’s come, and how far it hasn’t, since 1983
By ADAM REILLY | November 05, 2008

Women on the verge

At next week’s Democratic National Convention in Denver, Hillary Clinton’s delegates will get just about everything they’ve wanted — aside from the nomination of their candidate, of course.
Clinton die-hards have created a new-girls’ network bent on remedying decades of sexism by putting women in elected office
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | August 20, 2008

Our championship season

This year’s New England Press Association annual awards dinner forsook the Park Plaza’s rubber chicken for the upper-scale poultry fare at the Marriott Copley Place. And the food’s not the only reason we’re glad we went.
Brilliant us
By CLIF GARBODEN | February 13, 2008

Framed?

The Boston Phoenix has uncovered substantial new information about the Cowans case.
The Boston Police investigation of Stephan Cowans led to a wrongful conviction. Was it incompetent — or corrupt?
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | February 07, 2008

Righting a staggering wrong

US Attorney Michael J. Sullivan should launch an investigation into how that department managed to help convict the wrong man in the 1997 shooting of a Boston cop.
It is time for the US Attorney to investigate how and why the Boston police wrongfully convicted Stephan Cowans
By EDITORIAL | February 06, 2008

Can Obama lasso the Bay State?

Nobody around here forgets that Deval Patrick swiped the gubernatorial nomination from the establishment-backed Tom Reilly.
Once considered sure Clinton country, the Massachusetts primary is now a shootout
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | January 23, 2008

Menino’s hit list

At a recent political event, Boston mayor Thomas M. Menino asked Robert Crane, the former long-time state treasurer, how many years he had held that office.
40 potential candidates for the 2009 election who could take on the mayor — if they have the courage.
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | November 28, 2007

Deadbeat universities

No college should be allowed to cry poverty to get out of PILOT anymore.
It’s time for higher education to pay its fair share of city costs. Plus, how to improve the Boston City Council.
By EDITORIAL | November 14, 2007

The million-dollar widow

The powerhouses of Massachusetts’s Democratic Party have rallied behind Niki Tsongas’s bid to succeed Fifth District US Congressman Marty Meehan.
Why is the Niki Tsongas juggernaut heading backward? Plus, ignoring global warming close to home.
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | July 26, 2007

Power hungry?

It’s remarkable how dramatically the state’s political leadership has changed since the most recent Constitutional Convention.
The most powerful people on Beacon Hill want to stop the gay-marriage ban, but don’t have the votes
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | June 07, 2007

Martha’s quick start

Martha Coakley told opponents of same-sex marriage this past week she would use the full force of her new office to fight their efforts.
In her first four months as attorney general, Martha Coakley has shown political deftness — and a desire to play a major role in state policy
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | May 16, 2007

Death by handguns

The only difference between the carnage wrought on the Virginia Tech campus and the ongoing plague of murders bloodying Boston’s streets is one of intensity.
What the murders at Virginia Tech and on Boston’s streets have in common
By EDITORIAL | April 25, 2007

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