Here's the thing ...

So at this point it just doesn’t matter, but, you gotta understand that I am an ordinary guy, and I look at the world in ordinary ways. By which I mean I read the paper, often every day, I agree with it if I like the paper and take it with a grain of salt if I don’t (I don’t read the trib much). I go through phases where I ignore local news, so I don’t know a lot about Pittsburgh’s history.

When Peduto ran before, I guess in ’83, about all I knew about him was that progressives seemed to like him and that he had been Dan Cohen’s staffer. I was pretty impressed that a high powered lawyer like Cohen had been on council, so automatically I was well disposed towards Peduto, but people also said he is smart. I dunno, some people you get that smart vibe and some people you don’t; I didn’t really get it from Peduto but, who knows. Dropped out of school? Was Cohen’s campaign chair/hatchet man in a House run?

So who is/was Bill Peduto? Policy wonk, Loyal Democratic Soldier, scheming politician …. All three?

Al Gore is considered a policy wonk. Of course, Al Gore claimed he invented the internet … NO NO NO (look at the Wikipedia page). But I gotta say, there was a bit in “An Inconvenient Truth” where Al was talking about the professor from, I think, the sixties who was where Al Gore first heard about global warming. The thing is, Al said the guy had noticed the upswing in the temperature for like, at that point, the last five years or so. FIVE YEARS??? That’s nothing, the guy should have had his tenure yanked and been thrown out on his ass.

OK, so the guy was right, but shame on Al for listening to such a crack pot.

But Al Gore has written some books and made a movie with Laurie David (almost as annoying as Larry David). What makes Bill Peduto a wonk.

I tried to find examples of what Peduto has done. Maybe I should watch council on the TV, because I looked on Bill’s campaign website and nary an issue or policy. Of course, Luke’s doesn’t either that I could find, but we are talking about the reputed wonk. Other people have said Bill’s a wonk, so I am inclined to believe it, except that I can’t prove it to myself. Granted, his council site has a couple of policy things. I get the impression he didn’t write them, but at least he posted them and I assume read them.

Here’s the thing, I am a slightly better than averagely informed person, but I never got a firm grasp on what Peduto might do as Mayor. Now just not being Luke would have been something, but since Luke is a walking national billboard for the city, I can see where the city might not want to replace Luke. Several people commented on the Peduto blog site that there weren’t any issues there.

One of the reasons Bill gave for dropping out was that he didn’t want the campaign to go negative. Well, he can control what comes out of his own mouth. Yes, there were viral videos going up, but that was because the Mayor was mis-stepping everywhere. If Bill wanted to talk about policy or issues, he should have done that, and made it interesting and brief enough to satisfy his voters and the media.

I don’t know, I don’t have much more to say ('sides I'm tired). Does seem likely, the way things have gone, that tomorrow could well bring some new shocking news.