Joe Biden Called the Wrong Marty Walsh to Congratulate Him

AP

What follows is certainly both the most classic Joe Biden story and the most only-in-Boston story you’ll come across today.

The Cape Cod Times reports that after State Rep. Marty Walsh won the mayoral election, a different Marty Walsh—this one a former aide to Sen. Ted Kennedy—received a phone call from a White House operator looking to set up a call with President Obama. Walsh politely informed the operator that they had the wrong Marty Walsh, told them where they could reach the right one, and hung up.

That’s when the phone rang again.

“Marty, you son of a gun, you pulled it off,” Vice President Joe Biden began, before being told that he, too, had the wrong Marty Walsh. According to The Atlantic Wire, which spoke to the wrong Marty Walsh as well, an unphased Biden then checked the number and gave himself an A for effort. “I’m talking to a Marty Walsh in Boston,” he said. Not that he should feel too bad. Other Marty Walsh got phone calls from the Mayor of Minneapolis and the Democratic Campaign Chairwoman, too.

This is, amusingly, not even the first time these two particular Marty Walshs have been mixed up. The latter says he often jokes with Mayor-Elect Marty Walsh about a time Ted Kennedy thanked his aide from the stage and Mayor-Elect Walsh’s mother thought Kennedy was referring to her son. Boston politics being what they are, they know each other well enough that Non-Mayor-Elect Marty Walsh was able to text the newly elected Marty Walsh and tell him to expect a phone call shortly.

Nor is Other-Walsh focused only on the downsides to the mixups that will come along with sharing a name with an elected official. “If you need a reservation in the city of Boston, I can probably get you any reservation you want,” he tells the Times. Yeah, you and every other Marty Walsh in town.