3 easy steps to be the next mayor

Did you catch this in yesterday's column by John Baer of the Daily News?

A leading Democratic consultant likely to work for another mayoral candidate says, "Whoever makes the people of this city believe they will be safer on the streets will be elected next year."

The column focuses on potential mayoral candidate, State Rep. Dwight Evans, and the work that he has done on the issue of gun violence, an issue, it seems, that will be front and center next year.

What do you think? Does the entire election come down to this one issue?

Elections have been known to turn on one issue before, especially in this town (cf. 2003 Mayor's race). In low turnout, Democratic primaries, these elections are won on the ward and committee level. With six potential candidates, the winner may only need 17% to win, assuming it's split pretty evenly among them.

So if one of them can unite all the people who are dealing with this issue day in and day out (say with a snazzy, well-timed commercial that includes the very fortunate headline "Rep. Evans has walked the walk on battling gun violence in city"), he can win in a walk.

The strategy seems simple.
1. Take a ward map of Philadelphia.
2. On top of that, place this map that pinpoints the location of every homicide this year, which I clipped from last Sunday's Inquirer since I couldn't find it on-line.
3. Now, spend all of your time campaigning in every ward with more than, say, three homicides in it, and convince the people there that you're the man that will stop the killing.

Congratulations! You're the mayor. Now you just have to fix the problem.