Bob Cappucci wants you to know that you don’t have to vote for a pro-abortion liberal Democrat for mayor of Boston.
The lifelong East Boston resident is a candidate on the ballot in the Tuesday, September 14 preliminary election — even though he’s not getting much media attention.
The 76-year-old, who served in the Boston Police Department from 1996 to 2010, describes himself as a conservative Democrat and a union Democrat. He is passionately pro-life, opposes sanctuary cities, supports the police, and wants to keep Boston’s exam school system in place.
He comes into the race with political experience. He served as an elected member of the Boston School Committee from 1988 to 1992, before then-mayor Raymond Flynn led a successful effort to make school committee member an appointed position. He sought the Democratic nomination for state representative in the First Suffolk District twice (1978 and 1980) and the Democratic nomination in the Eighth Congressional District three times (1982, 1984, and 1986). He has run for city council and was a candidate for mayor in 2013 and 2017. While he didn’t make the ballot in 2013, he did in 2017 but came in third place to then-incumbent Marty Walsh and then-city councilor Tito Jackson. Walsh got 62.52 percent of the vote, Jackson got 29.07 percent, and Cappucci got 6.7 percent.
“It’s something I’ve always done. It’s in the family,” Cappucci told NewBostonPost in a telephone interview on Sunday. “My father gave me an interest in it. Plus, there’s my Catholic religion. I’ve been going to Mass every day since I was 16 years old. I have a strong belief in trying to do the best I can with my one life to please God. I’ve talked with priests before about it before. It’s a fight. I don’t want to waste my one life. I want to do something good and it always seems to be drawing me into running for office. I’d like to win, but God’s will comes first.”
Cappucci identified schools, abortion, and police as among the most important issues facing the city.
“I’m very concerned about making sure Boston public schools have a better education system than they have and about preventing any kind of abortion from taking place in the city of Boston,” Cappucci said. “I will fully fund the police department and bring back the mounted units and we’re gonna keep the harbor unit.”
Cappucci’s father, Enrico Cappucci (1910-1976), a Democrat, served as a state representative from East Boston from 1937 to 1949.
Cappucci said that his father is one of the reasons why he remains loyal to the Democratic Party. Cappucci said he was a strong supporter of Edward J. King, a conservative Democrat who served from 1979 to 1983.
Cappucci said he thinks the left wing of the Democratic Party is the faction that has no rightful place in the party — not the right-wing.
“I’m not going to get out of the party,” Cappucci said. “I want the progressives to get out and start their own party. This is a party of labor, not a party of foolishness.”
Even though he has plenty of experience with politics, Cappucci’s campaign has not received much attention. For example, he was not happy that The Boston Globepublished an article on August 13 that described the 2021 Boston mayoral race as “a mayoral race that does not have a single white male candidate.”
“I think the whole thing — it might not even be personal — it could be because of my pro-life views, but I think they’re adamant about controlling society and in this case, who becomes mayor,” he said. “The powerful people who control the media talk about the five minority candidates and say there’s no white male candidates. It’s a lie.”
One stance that Cappucci has that may surprise some is his opinion of the Boston school committee. He was an elected member of it, but he opposes going back to an elected school committee.
“I saw what they were doing in terms of politics,” he said. “They were putting people into positions that really didn’t have the background to be in those positions. That doesn’t help the students. I am going to be selecting people who I believe understand how the schools should be run.”
Cappucci is one of seven candidates on the ballot in the preliminary round of the Boston mayoral election. Early voting started over the weekend, but election day is on Tuesday, September 14. The top-two vote-getters will face off in the general election, which is set for Tuesday, November 2.
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