Phil Goldsmith's column in today's Daily News is spot on about the role that Al Taubenberger should be playing in an election that he is very unlikely to win:
But is it asking too much for him to put up a decent Web site (see Al's at mayoral2007.com) and have a couple of volunteers post some position papers with a GOP twist, like touting the value of more school choice or the need to outsource businesslike functions of city government or rein in the labor unions?
Wendy and I have been talking a lot about the Taubenberger campaign and what Taubenberger can do, given the realities of his situation, to bring value to this election. My frustrations with him are a little closer to what Goldsmith talks about in today's column than what the city's GOP told Catherine Lucey a little while back. He doesn't have to attack Nutter or portray Nutter as some sort of "insider" who will be "more of the same." Heck, the media is doing that for him by essentially creating controversy with substance-lacking stories about Nutter's continued fundraising.
At the very least, he could be offering traditional, moderate-Republican ideas of governing like the ones outlined by Goldsmith. Sam Katz talked about school choice and vouchers in 1999. Public schools with Democratic mayors have been experimenting with it for years so there is evidence that can be used on both sides of the debate. But as long as John Dougherty, lifelong Democrat, - not Al Taubenberger - is the only one talking about those vouchers, we won't even get to see that debate.
In 1991, Ed Rendell ran a campaign that tip-toed around privatization of city services, preferring to call it "introducing competition" while Republican Joe Egan opposed it with his soundbite answer of not "balancing the budget on the backs of the workers." The roles were reversed and the issue often reduced to those bites, but at least it was brought up in the campaign.
And, of course, there's the union issue. Taubenberger's not going to get their backing anyway so with contracts with all four major unions expiring this summer, he could be talking about the city's long-term fiscal health and telling us about the concessions that everyone - unions, management, and residents - are going to have to make to right the ship. He might not have a fierce and smart negotiator like Tom Cronin to deal with anymore but those negotiations aren't going to be a cakewalk.