O'Connor exudes poise - PittsburghLIVE.com: "During much of the campaign, O'Connor has relied on repeating a few sayings to convey how he would operate. He is less likely to offer detailed plans, unlike his opponents.
O'Connor frequently promises to become the CEO of Pittsburgh, which he describes as 'a $417 million operation with 3,500 employees.' The campaign promise harkens back to his days as operations manager for Pappan's Restaurants, a job he last held 13 years ago before his election to City Council. He simplified how he would scrutinize city spending by way of example. At the Pappan's restaurants, 'I could always see at how much money was coming in and how much money was going out,' he said.
O'Connor's gregarious nature is on regular display. At the debate, he arrived late, prepared to steal the show.
'Seven of the nine City Council members are supporting me,' he told a crowd of roughly 200 in East Liberty. 'I'm still working on Bill,' glancing at one of his challengers, City Councilman Bill Peduto, who slowly shook his head as the laughter quieted.
If Bob had all that support on City Council -- why is it that the Mayor is still getting his way with things around here? Why is it that the mayor got over for so long?
Bob has the support because Bob has been one of the supporters. The whole gang is suspect.
If I don't get the endorsement of Onorato, that is a feather in my cap. Onorato would have to do a lot of fancy footwork to endorse O'Connor for Mayor and endorse Rauterkus for PA Senate. That would be a challenge for him. Onorato isn't going to expend that type of energy.
If Jim Roddey doesn't sign my petition to allow me to get onto the ballot, as was the case in 2001, that is a victory for me. Roddey is part of the establishment. Roddey was part of the problem as well. A small part -- but a part nonetheless. Roddey is tickled with Diven's switch. Roddey, in 2001, talked every day with Tom Murphy. The Roddey - Murphy relationship went cool, but later.
Real reformers are hard to find within the ranks of the powerful.
The voters, however, know what's what.
A recent poll, conducted by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, put O'Connor well ahead of his two top rivals, Allegheny County Prothonotary Michael Lamb, 42, of Mt. Washington and Peduto, 44, of Point Breeze.
That poll isn't so recent any more.
The polling data is interesting. The media does the polls when the race is hot to drive up ad spending among the candidates. Bob and Tom went at it in 2001. They held a dozen debates with only Bob and Tom and there were an similar amount of polls taken.
We need polls to be fair. We need the reporting on the polls to make sense.
A poll from a month ago isn't recent.
Finally, it is the hope of many that city council one day goes to five, not nine.
What we really need to hear is a candidate say that one day, as mayor, five out of the five on council will be supportive of the mayor's efforts of debt reduction and reforms. AND, all five on the council then will not be from the council of today. That dream is about new Pittsburgh leadership, new regional voices that overcome the same-old same-old.
Posts
4 comments:
New polls will show Bob with just as big a lead as he had a month ago.
Bob also has the support of Dan Desay who is the endorsed candidate for the vacant city council seat.
Bob should have re-programmed his pitch before the debate at the Hilton before the downtown neighborhood assn. He didn't read the blog.
After Bob was talking about having a great command of the numbers and how he always knew the numbers when he was running the biz for the food service -- Les Ludwig got a chance to speak.
Lus nailed Bob. It was a classic line of the night. By the way Bob. You're endorsement of 7 out of 9 is not valid as city council is now at 8. So you have 6 out of 8.
The commander of the numbers had trouble.
Yeah, he really nailed him. That will probably sink the campaign.
Post a Comment