Philadelphia Mayor 2023 - Official Thread (Pittsburgh, Parker: office, health, ranked)

[mphilly]

Yeah I think people may be underestimating Parker, if she can consolidate a good percentage of the black vote she could be tough to beat. She’s not my favorite but I’d be fine with her winning. I definitely think she’d be better than Kenney.

[cpomp]

Originally Posted by mphilly

Yeah I think people may be underestimating Parker, if she can consolidate a good percentage of the black vote she could be tough to beat. She’s not my favorite but I’d be fine with her winning. I definitely think she’d be better than Kenney.

Yea, an average candidate, but she would fine.
If Parker gets in and the moderate council candidates get in, then the city has an acceptable future, lol.

[thedirtypirate]

Originally Posted by mphilly

Yeah I think people may be underestimating Parker, if she can consolidate a good percentage of the black vote she could be tough to beat. She’s not my favorite but I’d be fine with her winning. I definitely think she’d be better than Kenney.

I want to agree, but idk. Parker gives me weird vibes. She's a tough person to pin down policy-wise. Definitely anti-krasner. Which I think everyone is except for Gym? Idk maybe a strong loud black women is what the city govt needs to get working better.

Her stances on urban development stink though


One thing I hated that Parker said recently was that the city "doesn't need a manager for mayor. we need a leader". I mean after 8 years of Kenney being neither, I feel like people desperately want someone who is much more hands on with the various city departments and someone who actually cares enough to manage them correctly. Parker says a lot of big sayings like that which are basically meaningless.

[Redddog]

Hasn't she passed on a bunch of questions in the debates?

I'm still a Domb guy but someone told me last night he was a slum lord. I thought he was a straight-up real-estate broker but he was adamant. Whether or not that's true, there seems to be that perception out there.

My Gym fears are growing stronger by the day.

[cpomp]

Originally Posted by Redddog

Hasn't she passed on a bunch of questions in the debates?

I'm still a Domb guy but someone told me last night he was a slum lord. I thought he was a straight-up real-estate broker but he was adamant. Whether or not that's true, there seems to be that perception out there.

My Gym fears are growing stronger by the day.

I haven't been following as closely as I should, but is she gaining momentum? I tend to have a bad feeling with politics these days.

Worst case scenario, she is Mayor and those Progressive groups gain several seats and Clarke 2.0 takes over Clarkes district. That would hurt the city.

[thedirtypirate]

Originally Posted by Redddog

Hasn't she passed on a bunch of questions in the debates?

I'm still a Domb guy but someone told me last night he was a slum lord. I thought he was a straight-up real-estate broker but he was adamant. Whether or not that's true, there seems to be that perception out there.

The only place I have ever seen Domb referred to as a "slum lord" is from Gym's supporters. They have been adamant that everyone else is an awful person who needs to drop out and Helen Gym is the second coming of Jesus Christ.

My Gym fears are growing stronger by the day.

See, to my previous point, I think her coalition has already burned way too many bridges. I think out of almost all of the candidates she has the hardest "cap" on who her voters are. You are either fully on the socialist-karen bandwagon or you're not. I think she had a ton of momentum several weeks ago after Brandon Johnson's victory in Chicago, but it's petering out with Parker stealing a lot of the last month thunder with a variety of endorsements.

I truly want to vote for Domb as I believe he would be the best mayor, but I just don't know if there are enough of us like-minded individuals to actually win the split primary.

[JamesJay64]

Originally Posted by thedirtypirate

The only place I have ever seen Domb referred to as a "slum lord" is from Gym's supporters. They have been adamant that everyone else is an awful person who needs to drop out and Helen Gym is the second coming of Jesus Christ.

See, to my previous point, I think her coalition has already burned way too many bridges. I think out of almost all of the candidates she has the hardest "cap" on who her voters are. You are either fully on the socialist-karen bandwagon or you're not. I think she had a ton of momentum several weeks ago after Brandon Johnson's victory in Chicago, but it's petering out with Parker stealing a lot of the last month thunder with a variety of endorsements.

I truly want to vote for Domb as I believe he would be the best mayor, but I just don't know if there are enough of us like-minded individuals to actually win the split primary.

I'm voting Domb regardless. I just don't think anyone else seems to genuinely care about the city as much as he does, or is nearly as reasonable and prepared.

The more I read from Gym and her followers, the more frightened I am. They are so disconnected from the actual issues our city faces. I thought I was a Philly booster but these people are downright delusional when it comes to the state of things and how to address them.

[Redddog]

Originally Posted by cpomp

I haven't been following as closely as I should, but is she gaining momentum? I tend to have a bad feeling with politics these days.

Worst case scenario, she is Mayor and those Progressive groups gain several seats and Clarke 2.0 takes over Clarkes district. That would hurt the city.

I'm not sure about gaining momentum. It's really more that she's not losing it. I was optimistic that her adgenda would have lost it's allure as the city falls deeper into violence and disarray (Ok, I'm being dramatic).

I'm tired of how much worse the situation is here. And I'm one of the lucky ones. I live in a realively tony area of the city and even we have seen dramatic upticks in violent (and petty) crime.

Friday night, around 10:30, we had a guy with a postal key casually walk up to our buuilding, open the postal box outside the building to get the code. He then accessed the building and used the key to open all the mailboxes (like the carriers do) and casually look through each mailbox. He took some mail and left. My imediate thought was "what if someone came upon him and he had a weapon?"

As it turns out, some carriers have told us that the new thing is that kids are holding up postal carriers and taking their keys. Its called a "66 key" and apparently, those keys are universal and are used to access outside postal boxes to get building codes. So anyone with that universal key, has access to any building with a callbox system and then ultimately every mailbox in the building.

THIS kind of crap is getting worse everywhere. Most of the violence happens out of center city and is related to drugs and poverty and kids beefing. But criminals are realizing there's little to keep them from branching out into the areas that are more dense and hstorically least susceptible to crime.

We need a "tough on crime" mayor. Period.

[JamesJay64]

Originally Posted by Redddog

THIS kind of crap is getting worse everywhere. Most of the violence happens out of center city and is related to drugs and poverty and kids beefing. But criminals are realizing there's little to keep them from branching out into the areas that are more dense and hstorically least susceptible to crime.

We need a "tough on crime" mayor. Period.

Exactly. A lot of people who are saying that policing won't help, that this can ONLY be fixed by addressing the root causes, etc. aren't looking at the whole picture. The root causes of this stuff, mainly poverty, DO need to be addressed... but they haven't drastically changed in the past few years. The drastic change has absolutely come on the side of policing, (lack of) enforcing laws, etc. It's incredibly clear that people are doing more of these things because they can get away with it, an example being the 54% increase in retail theft since last year. The schools didn't get tremendously worse in that period. Why can't we acknowledge that we need to fix both short AND long term problems?

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by JamesJay64

Exactly. A lot of people who are saying that policing won't help, that this can ONLY be fixed by addressing the root causes, etc. aren't looking at the whole picture. The root causes of this stuff, mainly poverty, DO need to be addressed... but they haven't drastically changed in the past few years. The drastic change has absolutely come on the side of policing, (lack of) enforcing laws, etc. It's incredibly clear that people are doing more of these things because they can get away with it, an example being the 54% increase in retail theft since last year. The schools didn't get tremendously worse in that period. Why can't we acknowledge that we need to fix both short AND long term problems?

I said to some people in a group text message chat I participate in that right now, Mayor Ed Rendell's analogy for the fiscal crisis the city faced when he took office is equally apt here:

"You have a patient that's been wheeled into the ER with cancer and a gunshot wound. The first thing you need to do is take care of the gunshot wound."

If we waited until we could "address the root causes" before doing anything, we couldn't do anything.