Will the Real David Maher, Please Stand Up?

When not talking to volunteers and voters, the normally upbeat Maher seems very tired.

By noon he was yawning.

“I’ll be glad when this is behind me,” he told Paul Toner, leader of the teachers union and a longtime campaign advisor.

The night before, Maher handed out candy to 75 kids first at his home and later at his office off Porter Square.

“I always give away big candy bars,” he says with not a little bit of pride.

Along with his reputation for candy, he is known as a particularly hard-working council member.

He is quick to point out that he is one of the few city council members who also holds a daytime job.

This gets added on top of his council work, which Maher estimates took about 40 hours per week during the zoning hearings. At the height of the negotiations, he put in 16-hour days.

He worked 28 hours a week at his day job up until Wednesday, when he took a leave to commit himself full time to campaigning.

Maher pitches himself as a hard worker, not a politician.

“I do not self-promote as much as some of my colleagues do. I’m less of a speechmaker than a worker behind the scenes,” he says.

But out on the rotary, Maher was very much on stage.

And the dozens of honks, toots and waves, undermined—if ever so slightly—Maher’s claim to being a behind-the-scenes player.

Unlike many in local government, Maher does not have aspirations for higher office.