Lucas: Josh Kraft needs to get radical …
Josh Kraft should go to Uganda.
There he could meet with New York City’s Zohran Mamdani in Kampala, the capital, and find out how to win a mayoral primary.
Not a primary in Kampala, the capital, where embattled Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago — a sort of Eric Adams of Uganda — is up for reelection in 2026, but by applying what Mamdani did in the Big Apple to what Kraft hopes to do in Boston.
Lukwago, by the way, was once impeached for incompetence and abuse of office, but he retained his office after a high court threw out the charges.
New York Mayor Adams was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of political corruption, but the charges were later dropped by the U.S. Department of Justice.
That aside, Mamdani can teach Kraft a lot, mainly how to unseat an entrenched incumbent — Boston Mayor Michelle Wu.
Kraft merely talking about bike lanes and White Stadium will not cut it.
Mamdani, after winning the New York Democratic primary for mayor, returned to his home country last week to celebrate his wedding.
A holder of joint Uganda/American citizenship, Mamdani owns land in Uganda. He will return to New York at the end of the month.
Kraft of course could have requested a meeting in New York. But a trip to Uganda in East Africa would be electric, bold and politically daring. And nobody in their right mind goes to New York these days.
Besides, if Mamdani can campaign for mayor of New York from Kampala, Uganda, why can’t Kraft campaign for mayor of Boston from the same place? Besides, Kampala is safer than New York or Boston.
It would also show that Kraft was willing to go to the ends of the earth to whip Wu.
If handled properly, Kraft could also drive a wedge between Mamdani and Wu, a fellow free stuff socialist, who has found inspiration in Mamdani’s primary victory, even though Mamdani, a Muslim, has refused to walk back his support of the globalization of the intifada, which calls for the killing of all Jews.
Kraft happens to be Jewish.
Despite that, Wu, commenting on Mamdani’s primary victory, said, “it’s inspiring to see that someone who ran a campaign on a joyful, positive vision of getting thing done that matter to people to win out over millions of dollars of negative attacks and an a much darker vision of what cities are and what they stand for.”
Wu apparently did not have in mind Mamdani’s support of Hamas and the anti-Israeli rioters at Columbia, where his father teaches.
But Wu is wowed by Mamdani’s call for free buses, free childcare, rent control, city-run grocery stores, defunding the police, fighting ICE, taxing white neighborhoods at higher rates, rent control, abolishing billionaires, and, among other impossible promises, arresting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should he set foot in New York.
It’s no wonder that Andrew Cuomo, now running for mayor as an independent, jokingly promised to move to Florida, like everybody else, if Mamdani is elected mayor.
Cuomo, 67, refers to Mamdani, 33, as the “kid.” Yet it was Mamdani who ate Cuomo’s lunch in the primary campaign.
Still, if Wu is inspired and finds joy in what Mamdani is promising, then we all should be headed for Florida.
Yet, she is on track to demolish Kraft.
The latest poll shows Wu beating Kraft in the September 9 preliminary by 30 points, or 59.8% to 29.6% for Kraft.
Kraft would need a Hail Mary to do better in the November election.
Wu not only has the power of incumbency, but she is a political pro who worked her way up the political ladder through the city council to become mayor. Kraft is new to the game, and it shows.
The Uganda scenario is, of course, just a dream, much like Kraft’s campaign for mayor.
Veteran political reporter Peter Lucas can be reached at: peter.lucas@bostonerald.com
NYC’s Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. (AP)
