What would Kevin do?

That is what Boston Mayor Michell Wu should have asked before launching her exclusive and ill-advised “electeds of color” Christmas Party at the stately and elegant Parkman House.

What would Mayor Kevin White have done?

It would not have happened in the first place. But if he did get caught excluding white folks from a mayoral all black Christmas party, he would not have apologized or disseminated as Wu did.

He would have brazenly called it a gala, and bragged about how much he was doing for the minority community.

Wu should study White.

Not only was White an outstanding politician and mayor of Boston for 16 years (1968-1984), he made Boston a “world class city.”  He was 39 years old when he became mayor—before Wu was born– the same age as Wu is now.

The difference is that White was a creative, often flamboyant politician who knew the city inside and out. One of his campaign television ads featured him holding his coat over this shoulder, walking alone as “The Loner in Love with his City.”  He was that, and more. White died January 27, 2012, at age 82.

With his world class view of the city, White, among many more important initiatives that put Boston on the map, also created the Parkman House.

He took an old, worn-out city-owned building on Beacon Street—the Parkman House—that had been used for city offices, refurbished it and transformed it into what it is today, a stately and elegant retreat from the drabness of City Hall.

He turned the building, which is beside the State House overlooking the Boston Common, into an unofficial mayor’s mansion. Prominent visiting officials and celebrities from across the country and the world stayed there as guests.

Not only did White use it for meetings and parties but held widely publicized dinners there on a grand scale, like he did in 1977 when he honored seven distinguished “Grand Bostonians”— Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., Sen Leverett Saltonstall, Eliot Norton, Sidney Rabb, Walter Muir, Florence Luscomb and Melnea Cass—all gone now as is White.

He loved the place and often slept there.

It was all done at taxpayer expense, of course, but White thought big and governed big, often acting as though Boston were a state and not just a city.

He was effective and flamboyant at the same time. He believed in going first class, especially as he was not paying for it. He also loved the national spotlight, which led me to dub him Kevin Deluxe, the Mayor of America. It was a moniker he pretended to hate, but really loved.

I covered him throughout his career during a relationship that wavered between hot and cold, depending on what I wrote.

He loved the trappings of the office and the pomp that went with greeting visiting Queen Elizabeth, or the arrival of the Tall Ships, or having presidential candidates seek his advice and endorsement, wining and dining them at “PH,” which was City Hall code for the Parkman House.

He would then be furious with me when I printed the lavish French wine and dinner menu leaked to me by a PH insider.

And he would retaliate, as he did when he scrubbed me from covering his trip to China in 1982 when China was just opening.

So I referred to him as “The China Clipper” because at the time he was under investigation by the State Ethics Commission for shaking down campaign contributors for a phony birthday party. He was exonerated.

He got even with me good, though, in 1984 when we were on speaking terms again. He leaked to me that he was going to run for a fifth term. I ran with the “exclusive” page one Boston Herald story that screamed “WHITE WILL RUN.” He did not run, and I was embarrassed.

I handed in my resignation the next day, but the editor Bob Page tore it up—wisely, I must add, at least for me.

White then went on to teach at Boston University and he loved to talk about the “curve ball” that caught me whiffing.

I used to joke with him that Paul Newman was going to play him in the faux movie about him called “Boss of Bosses.” He wanted Robert Redford.

When he died, his wake was held at the Parkman House.

Maybe just like Wu’s, politically speaking, that is.

Peter Lucas is a veteran Massachusetts political reporter and columnist.

Boston Mayor Kevin White, center, laughs with former Mayors Thomas Menino, left, and Raymond Flynn prior to the unveiling of a bronze statue bearing White’s likeness outside Faneuil Hall near Quincy Market in Boston, Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2006. (Herald file)