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Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown
Rendell was what Philadelphia needed at the time.
Nutter was exceptional. I think often about how much progress the city would be making on these problems if Nutter had Kenney's (growing) tax revenue. It would be night and day, the output.
Everyone else was varying degrees of garbage. Street was by far the worst, but Kenney isn't far behind. I was too young to have a perspective on Wilson Goode.
Reinhart and Domb both have the potential to be very good mayors.
I like Helen Gym where she is. I know she is the most popular politician in the city but I think she's too progressive to be the executive in a city which has to make difficult decisions to cut waste and fat. I like her more on council to hold people accountable and come up with good policy. She'd be a good Council President.
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I agree Nutter was a great mayor and it's hard to understand why he doesn't seem to be thought of as one universally. Think it may honestly come down to looks and charisma.
With Rendell, I think in retrospect it seems like he got more credit than he deserved and just seemed to be in right place at the right time, but he was fine. Rizzo looks worse and worse with every year that passes and was a true disaster. Goode, Street, and Kenney are all bad, though i think Kenney probably gets a little too much crap here.
The issue with Philly is the same with any place with one party rule, the party just exerts outsized influence because they don't even have to really consider what the voters want, they know they'll win no matter what.
Even though only moderate Republicans run in Philly, their national identity has become so toxic to your average Philadelphia voter that they have no shot outside of the northeast and can't even hold on to their opposition party at large seats any longer, so there's really no hope of having two competitive parties in Philly.
The good thing is in the past few election cycles the party hasn't been able wield their typical control over the primary process. Hopefully that trend continues.