Maybe, just maybe, there is some method to the madness behind Don Chiofaro’s scorched earth public relations campaign against City Hall.

But amid the mounting attacks against Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino over his refusal to sanction a pair of skyscrapers next to Boston’s Greenway, Chiofaro is quickly beginning to look like Frank McCourt on steroids.

And as Chiofaro, developer of the landmark International Place towers should know, that’s not exactly a recipe for success when it comes to getting things built in Meninoville.

McCourt knew how to make headlines, going head-to-head with the Hub’s strongman over the future development of the South Boston waterfront. But after years of throwing up grand and, frankly, sometimes bizarre plans for his valuable expanse of windswept Southie parking lots, McCourt bailed for Los Angeles, achieving nothing other than to land atop the mayor’s “naughty list.”

Like McCourt, Chiofaro appears unable to grasp one of the most fundamental rules for development success in Tom Menino’s Boston – he who grandstands the least winds up building the most.

“The personal animosity regarding Frank was mild compared to this,” said one downtown development observer of the growing fued between Chiofaro and Boston’s longest-serving mayor.

Natural Showmen

On his present course, Chiofaro’s success in building the landmark International Place towers in the 1980s and early 1990s could wind up being his last.

That’s not to say it’s not easy to sympathize with Chiofaro or even the somewhat goofy McCourt, not to mention the long line of other developers who, either out of bad luck or just uncontrollable hubris, have fallen afoul of Boston’s mayor-for-life for one reason or another.

Developers are often natural showmen. Donald Trump didn’t get his start in the Big Apple by being a wallflower.

But unfortunately for the colorful and irascible Chiofaro, this is not New York.

Instead, Boston is a small town masquerading as a big city. It’s not the geography so much as the mindset. It’s a small town run by a mayor who takes a very personal interest in what gets built and who builds it – and one who can be quite touchy to boot.

Just popping up in the headlines is enough to create problems for a Hub developer, let alone taking jabs at city development policies or the mayor himself. Talk to a reporter about your project before the mayor has been briefed and you are toast.

McCourt spent years spouting off to the local papers about his grand plans for his parking lots, even envisioning a spiffed up Northern Avenue as the Boston answer to the Champs-Élysées.

The result was a growing rift with the mayor that eventually degenerated into outright derision. There were sneers over at City Hall about McCourt being a glorified parking lot attendant.

McCourt eventually managed to land a golden ticket out of town, selling his lots to media baron and then Los Angeles Dodgers owner Rupert Murdoch in exchange for the ailing ballclub.

One-Upmanship

Now, Chiofaro appears determined to one-up McCourt.

In fact, it turns out the two are quite chummy – Chiofaro told me he had lunch with McCourt in L.A. a couple years ago after the fellow developer’s escape from Meninoville.

“He was acting like a guy with a get-out-of-jail-free card,” Chiofaro recalled. “I know Frank well. I knew Frank when he was in Boston and I had a lot of respect for him.”

But whereas McCourt got so desperate he even attempted to befriend Menino at one point, Chiofaro will have none of it, instead preferring to engage in a verbal and administrative tit-for-tat.

Chiofaro rolled out plans for a pair of skyscrapers where the hideous Harbor Garage now hulks over the Greenway, only to be met with a move by City Hall to cut heights along the new parkway.

Menino’s minions at the Boston Redevelopment Authority have played a double game, on one hand saying they want to give Chiofaro a fair hearing, even as they declare his skyline topping proposal dead on arrival.

To his credit, Chiofaro is not backing down. He’s cutting the heights of his two towers, with a big announcement expected soon. But he has no plans to bring his proposed towers down to the piddling 200 feet City Hall and you-know-who have decreed.

One recent press release sent by Chiofaro blasts the BRA, the same agency from which he hopes to gain approval for his plans, for adopting “self-defeating regulations.”

“I don’t think we can afford to live in a city where one person can shut down a conversation because he wants to,” Chiofaro said.

Chiofaro clearly hopes to flush the mayor out in a war of words, expose the sometimes ludicrous reasons City Hall uses to block his plans, and force Menino to back down.

And if you believe that is going to work, well then I have some nice luxury condos in Lawrence to show you.

As anybody who has followed events over the past two decades in Boston knows, going head-to-head will only spur the mayor to dig in deeper.

“We don’t know the best way of winning over the mayor, or we would have done it a long time ago,” Chiofaro conceded.

It helps to be a friend of Menino – as some of the more successful builders are. But they also know enough to run the other way when they see a reporter, stay out of the papers at all costs and give all credit to Boston’s almighty mayor.

It’s not pretty, but in Tommy’s Town, it’s just how things get done.