Forget White Stadium.
Yes, it is an important issue and Boston mayoral candidate Josh Kraft is right to question its ballooning rehab costs.
But if Kraft really wants to beat Mayor Michelle Wu, he’d get arrested just like other red blooded progressive Democrats are doing.
It has become politically fashionable to do so, whether staged or not.
To pull it off Kraft must be willing to find a venue where he can, without getting hurt, attempt to wrestle an illegal immigrant out of the hands of ICE agents and then get arrested and cuffed for doing it
You not only get tons of free publicity, like the previously unknown Democrat U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla of California for “standing up” to the man—President Donald Trump and his deportation policy— you can also use it as a fundraising gimmick.
Only in Padilla’s case the man was a woman, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Noem was conducting a press conference in Los Angeles a week ago when the burly Padilla, unannounced, barged toward her attempting to ask a question about ICE operations.
Padilla was quickly set upon and hustled out of the room by federal agents before he could convince them of who he was. He was arrested, floored and cuffed, only later to be let go.
Why the six-foot, three-inch-tall Padilla allowed the smaller ICE agents to push him around without putting up a fight remains a mystery, unless you figure that it was all part of a plan to get a self-serving video out of it along with massive publicity, which is what happened.
He even got to make a teary-eyed speech in the Senate about it.
Suddenly the nobody was somebody.
This was not lost on New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, one of eleven Democrats running for mayor.
Once lost in the pack, Lander broke out spectacularly last week—with early voting already underway— when he “pulled a Padilla” by getting arrested by ICE agents in Manhattan after he attempted to thwart ICE agents from detaining an illegal immigrant.
Videos of Lander struggling with the federal agents showed the agents perp walking him out of the facility in handcuffs while Lander shouted about warrants and due process.
Like Padilla, Lander was released with no charges being filed. However, New York media outlets fell all over one another showering him with free publicity that he could not dream of buying and which shot him to the front of pack. The primary is tomorrow.
Even former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, considered the shaky front runner, condemned the federal agents.
Cuomo, who knows a bit about thuggery, said Lander’s arrest “is the latest example of the extreme thuggery of Trump’s ICE out of control. One can only imagine the fear families across the country feel when confronted with ICE.”
Lander’s performance was similar to that of Newark, New Jersey Democrat Mayor Ras Baraka, a month earlier. Baraka, who was running for governor, was arrested outside a federal illegal immigrant ICE detention facility after a hassle with federal agents. The charges, naturally, were later dropped.
Fellow New Jersey Democrat Rep. LaMonica McIver, acting out at the same scrum, was also arrested and charged with assaulting and impeding federal agents. Unlike Baraka, McIver was indicted and presumably will stand trial.
Impeding ICE deportation actions has almost become an adopted campaign technique and publicity booster among Democrats.
You show up unannounced at an ICE deportation event, cause a stir, side with the illegal immigrants, mix it up with ICE agents, and then get arrested and cuffed in front of the crew you brought along to video the event.
The anti-Trump television media endlessly runs the video, and you become famous.
Kraft should give it a shot. Unless Michelle Wu thinks of it first.
Veteran political reporter Peter Lucas can be reached at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com
