I can't believe it's getting this close...
This weekend, we had TV commercials on the air from Michael Nutter, Bob Brady, Dwight Evans and (of course) Tom Knox. We have Brady doing a PR twofer, with his "Takin' it to the Streets Tour" and doin' a little of what he's known for -- settling the Community College strike. Next week will be a blur of announcements, forums, polls and generally escalating back and forth over who's got the right stuff to be mayor.
Folks, there are only 50 days left 'til the primary -- and they are going to be jam-packed.
At The Next Mayor, we wanted to celebrate the 50th day to go. So we have a number of special things coming today.
We'll be rolling them out all day. Here's the first: We've commissioned a very small, unscientific, and rather illuminating survey. (And we want you to take it. Keep reading, past the jump.)
We asked 50 leading Philadelphians -- the city's most prominent non-profit and university leaders, top developers and corporate leaders, but also those in independent media, bloggers, professors, political analysts and others -- to rate the race so far.
We asked them:
1) Are they registered to vote in the Democratic primary?
2) Are they working for, volunteering for, or donating to a mayoral campaign, or do they plan to do so in the primary?
3) Do they see voters as interested and engaged, or disinterested and unengaged in the race?
4) What issue is most important in the race?
5) Is there an issue that they wish were more prominent in this race?
6) If the Democratic primary were held today, who would they vote for?
Results are still coming in. But, so far:
Only 32 percent say voters are interested and engaged in this race; 50 percent say people are disengaged and uninterested. Ten percent answered "other," and their comments were particularly illuminating:
"Some very vocal people out there [are] wanting to seek answers and are active in many fronts. Others are oblivious and have defeatest attitude like it just doesn't matter. No one will be able to change [the] system."
"The usual suspects seem interested and engaged but the typical resident remains removed from the issues and the candidates. People in general seemed to be dismayed by politicians. We must continue educating the public about the importance of voting and learning about the candidates and the issues so they can vote with some level of knowledge and certainty."
Among our respondents, crime is the number-one issue in the race (we borrowed our list of issues from the Keystone poll, for comparison's sake), followed by "government, politicians and leadership" and taxes.
When we asked about issues that those surveyed wished were more prominent in the race, we recieved a host of interesting responses. Many people answered "ethics" or "public integrity." Several said schools. Several said the city budget, and pension costs in particular. One person mentioned regional stormwater drainage -- "I live in the burbs. When it rains an inch, my commute time is almost doubled because of the poor waste-water drain off."
Perhaps the most sophisticated was this:
"I hear a lot of people who work or have worked for Philadelphia's city government saying that many of the candidates' proposals for change in any given policy area simply aren't feasible due to the fact that Philadelphia's government structure is old, large, and excessively bureaucratic. I'd like to know more about the reality of that situation, and see some truly innovative proposals for changing the way Philadelphia's government works.
Every choice a Mayor makes has both a cost and a benefit. Right now, the candidates are stressing the benefits of their proposals because that's what you have to do in a campaign, but there's been no grounded-in-reality analysis of the costs, both fiscal and otherwise, of implementing those plans. What are the difficult choices the candidates would make as Mayor? Can these potential Mayors actually overcome the real or perceived barriers to change inherent in our current governmental structure? How will they do it? That's not clear to me yet."
Oh, and who would they vote for? By a slim margin in our (again, completely unscientific) survey: Michael Nutter, followed by Dwight Evans, Chaka Fattah, and a tie between Bob Brady and Tom Knox.
Of course, all of this is what just a few people say.
This afternoon, we'll open our survey to everyone -- so you can say exactly what you think of the race to date.