Developing Trends in the Mayoral Election

During the early portion of this past week, Pittsburgh City Councilmember and mayoral candidate William Peduto issued a challenge to incumbent Interim Mayor Luke Ravenstahl. Mr. Peduto publicly called for a series of at least eight televised debates with Master Ravenstahl, to be held during the run-up to the May 15th Democratic primary election. Yesterday, KDKA television reported, in a story headlined "Ravenstahl Answers Peduto's Debate Challenges", that the Interim Mayor had responded to this challenge. The story quotes Master Ravenstahl's own remarks, made during an appearance on KDKA Radio's Marty Griffin Show:

I'd be more than happy to participate, uh, in any forum as we move forward throughout the, uh, campaign. I think it's important for people, uh, to understand, uh, the positions of myself and, uh, my opponent.

KDKA reporter Jon Delano also notes that, "Ravenstahl's campaign delivered [a] letter to Peduto's campaign, which commits the mayor to debate Peduto on TV and in the neighborhoods."

All of this sounds great. It sounds like the two candidates are behaving as grownups and agreeing to put their views -- unedited, unspun, and unpolished -- before the voters in a long series of relatively open discussions. This is really good news. Or at least, it seems like really good news. Until, that is, you take the time examine the rest of KDKA's televised report.

In what is fast becoming yet another disturbing behavioral pattern, Master Ravenstahl echoes the general sentiment that the public wants to hear, but fails to provide anything at all in the way of specifics. Once again, he says things which make it appear like he is completely in line with Mr. Peduto's position, but fails to take any actions that are congruent with those comments. Because, when you watch the rest of the report, you find out that Luke Ravenstahl has refused to agree to a specific date and time for any of these debates, despite being given multiple opportunities to do so. Indeed, he seems to be doing everything possible to avoid a public debate with his opponent:

But five organizations working together, including the League of Young Voters, say Ravenstahl has not been easy to schedule.

Nish Suvarnakar says a number of groups wanted a February 28th evening debate. Peduto accepted but Ravenstahl declined.

“I don't know if he was dodging us or not. I really, I'm not sure if it was just a matter of scheduling. We told him that if the time wasn't going to work, we would change the day,” said Suvarnakar.

If you actually watch the report, instead of just reading the text that appears on KDKA's website, you see that what Mr. Suvarnakar really said was, "we were completely rebuffed on that one" by the Ravenstahl campaign.

Meanwhile, over at the Burgh Report, in the comments to a post discussing the latest City Paper article about Councilmember Peduto, a person calling themselves "Demcat" noted the following:

Here's my take on debates/Mayoral Forums... I've invited both to take part in a Mayoral Forum in Sq. Hill. Within 24 hrs., the Peduto camp accepted... I've been dealing with Luke's Campaign for 4 days... My response from Luke's campaign manager. " I'll get back to you." I know the Mayor has his job to do, but 2 to 1 says I never hear from him.

Another comment made in response to this very post, written by someone calling themselves "ndp", related the following:

I can verify that interim Mayor Ravenstahl is more difficult to schedule than Bill Peduto. The business-related non-profit that I am a member of has been trying to schedule both Peduto and Ravenstahl to speak to the membership; Peduto was receptive and agreeable; Ravenstahl has not responded - it's been over two months of continued requests.

I'm not saying that we are quite to this point just yet, but if this "duck and cover" behavior continues for much longer, it's going to be time for someone to put on a chicken suit and begin showing up at all of Interim Mayor Ravenstahl's public appearances. The Ravenstahl campaign could, at the very least, propose their own list of dates and times for these debates to take place. Mr. Peduto certainly seems to be neither reticent nor fearful of debating the interim mayor, and I'm betting that the Ravenstahl campaign would quickly receive an affirmative response. Probably in less than twenty-four hours.

In other news, a discussion over at the Pittsburgh Comet examines the seemingly counter-intuitive idea that Mr. Peduto's support is growing among conservatives. He even managed to charm Fred Honzberger, of all people, into agreeing with an expansion of the federal government's role in investigating the convention center's structural problems. How is it possible that Mr. Peduto, who is described over at Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents as, "... the true progressive in this race, ... who actually seems to value women and gays for more than our ability to contribute to campaigns", could enjoy more conservative appeal than Master Ravenstahl, who apparently holds noticably right-wing views concerning such hot-button liberal issues as contraception and abortion?

As a fairly conservative individual myself, perhaps I can shed some light on this conundrum. Simply put, character counts. And Luke Ravenstahl doesn't seem to have much in the way of appealing character traits. I don't particularly feel that I can trust him. I don't believe that he is, or ever will be, a good steward of my tax dollars. I am not at all convinced that he has the backbone needed to take on the city's most obvious and critical financial problems, such as our ballooning and unfunded pension obligations.

Mr. Peduto, on the other hand, seems to have the kind character that one count on. He may be more socially liberal than Master Ravenstahl, but he is clearly far more fiscally conservative. He appears willing to take on powerful union interests when the situation demands it. And I just feel like I can trust him more than I trust Luke Ravenstahl.

I'm not quite willing to publicly endorse Mr. Peduto just yet. He has a disturbing habit of asking for yet another study, when every important issue facing our city and region has largely been studied to death. His campaign seems overly timid in taking issues to the voters and in reacting to the attacks made by his opponent. And I haven't yet had the chance to dissect all of Mr. Peduto's positions on the issues that are near and dear to my heart. But from a conservative standpoint, there is far more to admire in Bill Peduto than there is in Luke Ravenstahl.

Which brings me to a potentially explosive proposal for the Peduto campaign. In the event that Mr. Peduto fails to secure the Democratic nomination during the May 15th primary, and especially if he loses by a fairly narrow margin, I would strongly encourage him to run as an independent candidate in the general election. There are thousands of Pittsburghers out there who are not registered Democrats. Their voices will not be heard on May 15th. The opportunity for these people to vote for a viable mayoral candidate in the general election has long been denied, and there is an enormous amount of pent-up demand. As an independent who has broken free from the Democratic machine, and who has already demonstrated a certain degree of city-wide support, Mr. Peduto would present an almost irresistible opportunity for this long-silenced minority. If Mr. Peduto can attract nearly 50% of the Democrats in the city electorate, and can combine those votes with those of the conservative and independent minority, he can become a mayor completely unburdened by machine politics and free to pursue an agenda that will benefit the city as a whole.

What a fantastic thing that would be.

UPDATE: Despite the fact that I still think that it would be an excellent idea for this city to elect Mr. Peduto as an independent, it would appear that our Commonwealth's byzantine elections laws forbid us to do so. The only way that it could happen would be if he drops out the Democratic primary right now, registers as an independent within the next month or so, never files any kind of petition to run in the primary, and sacrifices a goat on a mountaintop during the next full moon. And state law isn't all that specific about exactly what kind of goat has to be used, so there would likely be a court challenge anyway.

It's crap like this that makes me truly resent living in this backwards-ass state sometimes. It's amazing the lengths that Pennsylvania will go to in it's effort to thwart the will of the voters. It's even more amazing that Connecticut, of all places, does a better job. At least they allowed the voters to elect Joe Leiberman after he lost the Democratic primary last year.