Because You've All Been Waiting For It...

Hope you've been tuned into the Philadelphia mayoral race, which has been perhaps the last word in political weirdness. My boss had been out of Philly for a while, and I had to explain to him that a man in a shark costume, along with his "spokesperson", had been following Tom Knox around accusing him of predatory lending practices in his previous gig as...well, as a predatory lender. Now, Knox has fallen in bed with John Dougherty's electrical workers union IBEW 98, famous for their get-out-the-vote-and-look-burly-and-intimidating operation. This means that the spokesperson claimed that Local 98 guys had been following him (and the shark, I s'pose) around, hanging outside their house, etc. The shark held a press conference in front of City Hall, which was interrupted by Dougherty's PR guy - Frank Keel - who took over and began to berate the shark for being a member of a motorcycle gang.

I mean, this is totally batshit insane. However, I'm happy to report that the only guy to get out of this mess without looking like a total douche is my man Mike Nutter. After being widely dismissed by just about everyone as a "principled reformer" who really "knew how the city works," but even so had a "snowball's chance in hell" of winning election - after all that, seems like the man's in a dead heat for first.

I've been on board with Nutter basically since he announced; at a certain point, when it seemed like Tom Knox - who is, let's be clear, totally sketchy - might be taking over, I was certainly thinking about voting for whichever candidate was strongly in second place. Fortunately, that's ended up being pretty easy - Nutter's 9 points ahead of Fattah at this point, and has really rallied in the closing months, thanks in part to an ad featuring his incredibly composed daughter Olivia.

So yeah. Don't vote for Fattah, Evans, or (ugh) Brady. I think the nerds win this one.