Behind the Scenes at a Closing

At Thursday night's candidates forum for the Allston-Brighton District 9 City Councilor race, challenger Abigail Furey took her seat and opened her file folder with her notes.

And realized that the page with her closing remarks wasn't there.

Furey called her Campaign Coordinator Katie Bassler aside and told her the problem. Bassler knew what to do: grab Furey's bag; rifle through looking for keys; hop into Furey's car; learn to drive the standard transmission on the way to Furey's house; search the house for the missing papers; and return to the forum.

And she got the papers back in plenty of time for the closing statements.

Bassler's no rookie of solving last-minute snafus: she worked in 2007-8 as Grassroots Outreach Coordinator for the failed presidential bid of now-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Bassler isn't the only Hillary Clinton connection for Furey: a campaign donor of Furey's, Patti Solis Doyle, was Clinton's campaign manager and happens to be married to a cousin of Furey.

After all's said and done, I hope Furey's clutch still works.


Image of Furey in a less-stressed state of mind at Tuesday night's meet-and-greet.