You can play campaign manager for a day (The Next Mayor)

In today's Inquirer, columnist Tom Ferrick has some interesting ideas about combatting the rise in violent crime in Philadelphia, ideas that center around the appointment of John Timoney as "Deputy Mayor of Public Safety."

This is an idea that seems to come up every time there's an election and for just about every issue - deputy mayor of transportation, deputy mayor of public safety, deputy mayor of arts and culture, deputy mayor of pigeon management, etc. No doubt one or several of the candidates will run with this idea. Sam Katz talked about the same thing during his 2003 run. There's definitely one part of Ferrick's plan that won't be brought up by any of the candidates.

As campaign manager for a day, what would you do if one of your opponents suggested the following:

You could direct more money to:

The prisons, which are overcrowded. The city needs another prison and the guards to staff it.

Go to it, campaign managers. What do you think the response to that idea would be? In a few days, I'll remind you what the response actually was when the last candidate suggested that idea and why it's a lot easier to be a newspaper columnist (or PBS/NPR blogger) than it is to be a candidate for mayor.

Comments (2)

Wendy

If we really talked about building another prison, during the campaign...

I will eat the front page of that day's Daily News.

This is one issue that manages to say, all at once: "I've given up on hundreds of our people! There's no way I can slow down the rush of Philadelphia's young and young adults to prison. Plus, crime will definitely continue to grow and we need to house all these people who will be preying on you! Oh, and this is really gonna cost a fortune -- can I borrow some money or raise your taxes to pay for it?"

Posted by Wendy | December 26, 2006 1:13 AM

Dan

If I were the campaign manager:

And I would shoot back with... we need to building more schools, not more prisons. And throw out this stat, which can be found all over the place:

Every dollar invested in quality early care and education saves taxpayers up to $13.00
in future costs. (source: http://web.mit.edu/workplacecenter/docs/Full%20Report.pdf)

Those future costs, being prison building, welfare, policing, etc.

Then I'd probably play the "do your homework" card.

Posted by Dan | December 26, 2006 12:35 PM

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