Mayor Marty Walsh said all he wants is to be re-elected mayor of Boston.
The field of mayoral candidates won't be official until May 23, but Walsh is already ramping up, from thousands of volunteers to $16,000-a-month consultants Stephanie Cutter and Teddy Goff, both of whom worked on President Barack Obama's campaign.
"It's going to help us tell the story of Boston," Walsh said. "We have volunteers in every part of the city getting ready to collect the signatures, and people are excited about the campaign."
He thinks the city can do a better job of promoting the work it's done with Boston schools, homelessness and low and moderate income housing.
"Even if I didn't have an opponent, this is an area I think we would go," Walsh said.
One thing Walsh says he's not interested in is being a long-term mayor.
"I don't think that's something I would do. I think some of the reasons we've been successful here in the city is people saw a different way of doing business. I think if you stay too long, I'm not sure what that number is, but I think 16 to 20 years, even maybe beyond 12 years, that's a long time. And I think you have to continually have fresh ideas and new people coming in."
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Here's a look at some of the other issues the mayor spoke about during Monday's 1-on-1 interview:
On his campaign: It's going to be a top-notch organization. We'll have thousands and thousands of people in our field operations wanting to help. We can feel it now, people are just dying to be involved in something, in every neighborhood as well.
On opponent Tito Jackson pushing a reporter: I think that you know, during the campaign it's stressful. But you can never put your hands on a woman. I mean, you can't do that. And I think that if you're going to run for mayor, you have to expect that the Boston media is aggressive. And the Boston media is going to ask questions and they're going to dig and dig and dig and push you. And you have to expect that. You're running for mayor of Boston, it's part of the job. I think you have to try and keep your calm and keep your temper and not get excited.
On his relationship with Trump: I don't think he's supporting me (laugh). We're going to keep an eye on what Washington is doing. I'd love to have more opportunities, I'd love to find a common interest and work on some issues with the White House. I think it would be important for the city and the state. Obviously during the campaign, he said something about me, I said something about him, which is fine. It's in the heat of a campaign. I haven't really heard anything out of Washington since then. They need us, and we need them to move together. We need the federal government. There are financial obligations that we need from the federal government. And the federal government needs us as a city, so I would like to find some common ground that we can move forward on and work on some issues together.
On the failed Boston 2020 Olympics: I think a couple opportunists jumped on this and I guess they are writing a book now. I'd like to know where the profits of the book are going to go. There are some falsehoods in that book that they wrote about. It seems to be that they're doing it for their own personal gain, which is fine, but I think that we could look at the Olympics as a positive that Boston was chosen. There was no money spent. We got out of the bid. I wasn't going to sign that agreement.
On the failed Indy Car race: We were moving down the path with IndyCar where we were working with one promoter and it was going well. Then he ran into financial problems. We probably should have cut ties after that. We probably never should have been dealing with this Casey guy. But unfortunately we did and we were and now we are in a situation where we're not getting Indy car. Again, no money lost on the city. It's not like what we put money up and lost money here.
