Water rushes in from the north and east, flooding our confluence of rivers, and the committee men and women of our Democratic Party prepare to endorse candidates for public office.Luke Ravenstahl has incumbency and narrative on his side. Bill Peduto has experience and ideology. Personality is still a toss-up.
Over at 2 Political Junkies, commenter Patrick writes:
"However, this whole contraception/abortion exchange does highlight for me my concern that Peduto, and his fellow travelers are NOT motivated by the nuts and bolts of local government, but rather by national cultural issues - and a desire to transform the Democratic Party in Pittsburgh into a left-liberal (and thus minority) interest group. The more the Democratic party is defined by the cultural left, the less success it will have in this area."
Easy Answer: Are those the same "nuts and bolts of local government" that caused our Convention Center to collapse? #rimshot#
Real Answer: Peduto certainly seeks to fashion our Democratic party into a left-center coalition -- with a Libertarian streak, actually, on tax breaks and subsidies. The "Libertarian Left" is totally in right now. If Peduto puts that together, that is potent stuff. But he still needs to add a couple of wagons to his wagon-train.
Ravenstahl needs to win by a three-digit margin to feel safe. Everybody knows that.
Secret balloting generally mitigates the incumbent advantage, and will mitigate this one.
We predict that Ravenstahl will be made to feel unsafe.
In the race for Controller: The brass ring will probably go to our fine Prothonotary, Michael Lamb.
We do hope that maverik Mike Dawida gets enough votes to continue bringing his inside-outsider message hard through May.
Committee members would be wise to bear in mind the integrity factor in this race more-so than in any other. Given Luke's habitual flip-flopping, and the fact that his decisions are plainly for sale, members should bear in mind that any favor they "purchase" today will likely be sold to the next highest bidder the very next day. Luke lacks consistency, and despite his youth, the moral compass that offers stability in decision-making.
ReplyDeleteI blog about this posting at my blog.
ReplyDeleteThe "LIBETARIAN" word was used to describe something that is so UN-Libertarian. So, I feel the need to clean up that poor use of a philosphical word.
Then there is "maverick." But, I'll leave that for others to tackle.