The Yoon camp is probably pretty happy today with this article from The New Republic, a left-leaning magazine, which portrays the race for mayor coming down to Mayor Thomas Menino and their guy, and leans a bit on local write-ups (Boston magazine and the Globe). Michael and Kevin who?

Some excerpts:

The secret to Menino's longevity in office has been his knack for just muddling through. Parochial even by parochial Boston standards--he grew up and still lives in the white ethnic working-class neighborhood of Hyde Park--he has never aspired to any office beyond his current one. He tends to avoid doing anything that might draw significant attention--be it positive or negative. Indeed, about the only thing Menino is renowned for, besides being mayor, are his malapropisms--once referring to the city's shortage of parking spaces as "an Alcatraz around my neck" or promising to stop people from "conjugating" on Boston Common late at night. Now, as Menino seeks to make history in this history-obsessed city, the question confronting Bostonians is: Do they want this guy making it?

....History is not on Yoon's side: The last time a Boston mayor lost his race for reelection was in 1949, when Curley went down to defeat after spending much of his previous term in prison. What's more, Yoon begins the race in a money hole, with (as of the end of 2008) $137,000, compared with Menino's $1.4 million. But there is one number that gives Yoon hope: 192,000. That's the number of Bostonians who, spurred by the candidacies of Deval Patrick and Barack Obama, voted in the state and federal elections in 2006 and 2008 but didn't vote in Boston's two most recent municipal elections. And, when you consider that Menino was last elected in 2005 with just 64,000 votes, it's not hard to see how a big increase in voter turnout could spell trouble for him. "I do this thing at events where I say, 'How many of you voted in last year's presidential election?' Most of the hands go up," Yoon explained. "Then I say, 'Well, how many of you have paid little or no attention to the mayor's races?' It's about the same number of hands that go up. I say, 'Listen, you're going to determine the next mayor of Boston, this election is going to be yours to decide.'"