TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2001 — It’s election day across the country. Today in Brighton I was the ninth voter to cast my ballot at the polling place. Poll workers outnumbered voters by more than 2-1. The level of excitement was minimal. The low-pulse of the Boston electoral scene on Tuesday was a far cry from the intense glimpse of the political world evidenced at Doyle’s in Jamaica Plain last night.

Mayor Tom Menino’s political consultant, Ed Jesser, gathered a host of strategists, politicos, and journalists at his favorite watering hole to honor Chris Matthews, the host of CNBC’s Hardball. New congressman Stephen Lynch of South Boston was on hand fresh from Washington -- a congressional seal attached to his lapel -- as was Rep. Ed Markey of Malden. Menino posed for photos with the Hardball host. Veterans of presidential campaigns past, such as John Sasso and Chuck Campion, upheld the glory of Boston’s political hey-day. Most of these political pros could relax knowing City Councilor Peggy Davis-Mullen had little chance of unseating the mayor. The next big races are the 2002 governor’s race (Steve Grossman was the only gubernatorial candidate present) and the 2004 presidential primary, to which the operative question is: How many of those present at Doyle’s last night will form the backbone of Senator John F. Kerry’s presdential run?

New York City, meanwhile, faces a more competitive political race. The latest polls show Public Advocate Mark Green, the Democrat, and plutocrat Michael Bloomberg, the Republican, " dead even, " according the New York Post. The question in that race is who is the candidate most able to fill the shoes of outgoing Mayor Rudy Giuliani? Neither can, of course, but Green, a seasoned-veteran of city politics, is more suited to the job. Unlike Giuliani, who worked as a federal prosecutor in the 1980s and came close to defeating David Dinkins in 1989, Bloomberg is a neophyte best known for giving lavish parties for the press than political action. In this he differs from a pair of erstwhile political actors in New York, Mort Zuckerman, owner of the Daily News, and Ron Lauder. Lauder, at least, was an active behind-the-scenes political player when he vied for the Republican nomination in New York in 1989.

But the current environment -- one in which Green is already likening to the 1970s fiscal crisis that almost brought New York down -- makes it a terrible time for a Bloomberg mayoralty. The city council will be almost completely new thanks to an ill-devised term limit plan authored by Lauder, angry that Giuliani bested him. Green, for his part, has run his campaign as a uniter. He has rebuffed the buffoonish Al Sharpton and plans a role for Bill Bratton, the former commissioner of the Boston and New York police departments.

Bloomberg also unwittingly exposed his Boston roots (Bloomberg grew up in Medford) at a recent campaign stop at Katz’s Deli on Houston Street. Bloomberg ordered corn beef. That might be the sandwich of choice at Boston delis, such as the B&D and Rubens, but not at Katz’s. The right choice there is pastrami.

New York, which wants to keep Giuliani, will get a new mayor, and Boston, which might have been wooed by a stellar candidate, gets its old one back. Maybe Bloomberg would have gotten more bang for his buck if he had spent it here in his hometown instead of New York?