Despite popular perceptions, local politics does matter for Penn students. I promise, I know, I’m the DP’s city politics guru. Engage quickly: there are only 5 days left to register to vote for the primary. Here’s a primer on the election and what it means for you.

All semester, I’ve been hanging around the Philly politicos, and I’ve heard them talk some smack about Penn students. Apparently, we don’t matter because we won’t turn out to vote in the post-Commencement, May 15 primary. We want to matter so to convince you to vote, here are three issues important to Penn students that will be influenced by the next mayor:

• Crime: Crime is the defining issue in this campaign. Just take a look at the murder rate in the city and The Philadelphia Inquirer’s homicide map for last year. It’s scary that a large number of these murders happen only a few miles from campus. The next mayor will be responsible for either bringing that number down or letting the situation spiral even more out of control.
• The economy: If you plan on staying here after graduation, you’re going to need a job. Right now 25 percent of Philadelphians are below the poverty line. It’ll be up to the next mayor to create a good business climate and attract those high-paying corporate jobs you Whartonites love.
• Ethics: It’s hard to improve things in a city whose mayor is bugged by the FBI, and the next mayor will be responsible for restoring trust in government and making sure it operates efficiently to do things like fix SEPTA and improve public schools.

There are five Democrats running for mayor: Bob Brady, Dwight Evans, Michael Nutter, Tom Knox and Chaka Fattah. There’s also one Republican in the offing — Al Taubenberger — but since the mayor of Philadelphia has been a Democrat for 60 years, whichever candidate wins on May 15 will be the mayor of Philadelphia.

To find out more about these candidates, click here, it’s thenextmayor.com. a blog run by the Daily News, WHYY and the Committee of Seventy (a government watchdog group).

To register to vote, click here and follow the directions, drop by the post office on 40th Street or make a run to the liquor store (yes, they have the forms there).

To register for an absentee ballot, print this application here and mail it to

520 N Delaware AVE 5th FL

Philadelphia PA 19123-4295

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 10th, 2007 at 10:49 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.