PoYB's Preliminary and In-Progress Thoughts on the 2023 Philly Mayoral Election

It's probably just about time to start getting some conversation going about who we want to be the next mayor of Philadelphia.

I guess if we consider every Puke on Your Birthday blog post to be on a scale from "universal ideas that apply to everyone who could possibly read this" to "so hyper-specific that literally not a single person on earth is going to give a fuck about this besides Joe himself," then this post is going to fall somewhere on the median. There are some people reading this right now (or skipping over this right now) who live outside of the Philadelphia limits. You have a right to an opinion, but your opinion means very little if you don't have a vote in the city. The vast majority of people in my life live outside the city (though, now that I think about it, a fair amount of my few friends still in Philadelphia at least know what Puke on Your Birthday is, so there's that). It's a slow week in early February, I'm just killing some time, baby.

And look, this blog has roots in Northeast Philadelphia, which in October will be inundated with David Oh signs, since I live in the trumpiest part of the city, and the loser Republicans up here like to delude themselves that their candidate has even the remotest of shots at taking the Democratic candidate to task in Philadelphia. When I talk about the mayoral election here, I'm just going to ignore all that noise. We're talking about the Democratic primaries. That's where the next Philly mayor will be decided. (Hey, at least David Oh never murdered anyone in his bathtub like Krasner's last Republican opponent.)

Let's start with someone who is NOT going to be on the ballot for Philadelphia Mayor. I'm talking about Jim Kenney. Here's my thing with Kenney: I agree with a lot of what he says, but over time, I've come to realize that this dude is ALL talk, and very rarely backs it up with actions. He's the type of liberal that I've really come to disdain over the past few years. Like, just this past week, I got an email from Kenney (won't say why I got an email from Kenney publicly, but if you know me, you know why) that spoke to the most recent police murder of a black man. He said, and I quote: "In Philadelphia, we have taken steps forward to reform policing..." This is a lie. Sure, I agree with him in the hypothetical that there needs to be real steps taken toward police reform in this city and in this country, but Jim Kenney, the man who actually has the ability to take those steps to some degree, has done NOTHING. In June 2020, when presented with the opportunity to side with Philadelphians on the issue, he instead made excuses for the police who committed war crimes against those Philadelphians, and was subsequently whipped by the New York fucking Times over it. Embarrassing. Fuck this guy.

Sorry, I know I've mentioned the 676 incident a few times before on PoYB, and maybe that's overdoing it. This blog post is not about our current mayor. But the main reason I bring him up is because there is a candidate, perhaps even a frontrunner, who reminds me of Jim Kenney in this particular way. I'm talking about Helen Gym. On paper, she seems like a candidate I agree with on many or most issues. She seems like a progressive. Condemning some fucking jabroni club for honoring human trafficker DeSantis? Great. Attending a cocktail party at that same club a few days later? This is the shit I'm talking about. I want my mayor to take action. A progressive politician should be working to dismantle pharma abuse, not be married to a pharma bro and let her marriage influence her voting on city issues. I have no doubt that Gym says that she's going to work toward addressing the situation at K&A, but what she does is a different story.

I dunno, man. I said these were preliminary thoughts. Maybe Gym is able to convince me otherwise by the time the primaries roll around. But as it stands now, she definitely seems like a Kenney type, and I'm tired of that shit.

I don't even know if she really is a frontrunner. Maybe! But ultimately, it's going to come down to money, and I sincerely don't have my finger on that particular pulse. If it is about money, though, then Allan Domb appears to be the richest person in the race right now. That's a problem on two fronts. First, I sincerely believe that rich people are too far away emotionally from poor people to actually understand how to address the concerns of the lower classes. Maybe Allan Domb is an exception! It's possible! But the second is that he owns like a thousand properties in Philadelphia, and I don't trust rich people to not act in their own interest. Like, say a law comes across his desk that is going to lose Allan Domb money. Why would Allan Domb sign it? He says right now that he wouldn't anyway, but c'mon. You know how rich people operate. How do you think they got rich in the first place?

Sometimes it comes down to money because money translate to exposure, which is important in such a crowded field. The only TV ads I've seen so far are for Allan Domb, so maybe white moderates are being exposed to only Domb and see him as a viable candidate. Not everyone is wasting a Monday morning thinking about this shit publicly on their blog. Not everyone gives a fuck. Maybe they are voting for a name they recognize.

That's why there are definitely some names on here that I think we can dismiss, if only because I am not familiar with them. And my thought process is that if I am not familiar with them (I, Joe K***, who gives more of a shit about this election than, conservatively, 50% of the population of Philadelphia), then they aren't known enough to be elected. Just looking at the list here, I would include the following candidates in this group: Warren Bloom, Amen Brown, Jimmy DeLeon, Cherelle Parker. Whether I should know these candidates is besides the point. I don't, and I at least halfway represent your typical Philly voter.

There are two candidates I know just generally because of their experience on City Council. Derek Green and Maria Quiñones Sánchez. Let's say right now that my thoughts on both are mixed, but I could probably be persuaded to vote for either if it comes down to it. It's just a matter of swallowing some shit that I don't like. But they say that voting is like picking a bus route, in that you are trying to get as close to your destination as possible, as opposed to always being pissed off the bus is dropping you off right at the door. So when Derek Green says calls Helen Gym's policies "socialist," that sends up a red flag for me, even though I just got done saying that I probably wouldn't vote for Gym. I said I like her policies (though do not believe that she'd follow through was my point), and if Green is immediately dropping Fox News-type rhetoric, then I am turned off.

The red flag for Quiñones Sánchez is that she is vehemently anti-soda tax. Which is less of a red flag for me than the "socialism bad!" bullshit, but still something that I personally disagree with her on. I could probably say "here's the thing I disagree with the candidate on" for everything. It's worth looking at what you agree with as well, right? With Q.S., it's the "melding of progressive and pro-business stances" that sits well with me. And with Green, I dunno, he comes off as half-pro-cop, but also has outwardly said that he wants to replace scumbag Outlaw, so it's complicated. That's why I'm not as quick to dismiss either of these candidates just yet.

Speaking of the soda tax thing, though, Jeff Brown is basically in this race because of the soda tax. He's not even a politician; he owns a bunch of ShopRites and Fresh Grocers. In all fairness, this puts him in a position that he actually could and probably has effected positive change in the community, which could theoretically translate to being mayor. But also, it's a business, and I'm tired of people saying that businessmen are "good for politics." They aren't outsiders. They are insiders because their focus is on money. Note that his main concern is the soda tax, which affects his bottom line. Look, the soda tax probably requires a separate blog post, but I've long maintained support for the tax, and that was even before my kid start going to preschool for free because of it. The pros are that it adds money to the city and supports city services, and the cons are that it's more expensive to buy soda (which is a secret pro because soda is terrible for you!!!) and it... loses Jeff Brown money. In general, I'll say fuck that guy, though I know it is more nuanced than this.

This leaves one more candidate, and it's the candidate who, at this point at least, has my support. Rebecca Rhynhart. My reasoning brings us back to the beginning—of all the candidates, she seems the most willing and able to walk the walk in addition to talking the talk. Rhynhart has served as city controller since 2017, and during her tenure, she was known for doing detailed audits of city departments and local incidents. She wasn't tweeting some bullshit, she was doing the nitty-gritty work. Look at the depth and scope of her audit of the PPD.

Every candidate has an opinion, but opinions aren't shit without facts to back them up. Rhynhart has the facts. It's one thing to be an ignorant asshole with a blog who can't stop writing about how we should abolish the police, or, say, be a mayor who says that he supports "police reform" but then not actually do a fucking thing about it, but it's another thing to bring the facts and say "here are a list of SPECIFIC IMPROVEMENTS that we could make for these specific areas of the city." I love facts, and that's really the sole reason that Rhynhart has gotten my support so far.

You never know, though. I've heard through some anonymous sources close to the blog that Rebecca Rhynhart is kind of an asshole. Maybe that turns people off, I don't know. But regardless of whether that's true or not, I'm saying now that that type of shit is not going to affect my vote, for the most part. That seems to trend more toward identity politics than anything, and I'm tired of voting for people because of that. I don't care how people like Helen Gym feel about some fucking Chris Columbus statue or whatever. Whether I agree or disagree with her, it's not like that has any measurable impact on the wellness of this city.

What I see in Rebecca Rhynhart is the candidate who is poised best, currently, to have an impact on Philadelphia in positive and helpful ways. So, if the primaries were today, she'd have my vote.

But we'll see what happens. Feel free to try to convince me otherwise. I'm open to all opinions at this time.