A race to watch tomorrow night of particular interest to me, having lived for many years, is the Pittsburgh Mayoral Race. The people of Pittsburgh have not elected a Republican to, well, pretty much anything in near 80 years. Predictably, the one party rule has resulted in exactly what you would expect, corruption, patronage, and a city falling in on itself. There is a chance, however, just a chance, that tomorrow might break the cycle.

Mark DeSantis has run an unprecedented campaign, basically in my lifetime, for a Republican mayoral candidate. He has done stellar fund raising, garnered an extraordinary amount of positive press, received the endorsement of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, a left leaning newspaper, and the endorsement of the Fraternal Order of Police. Furthermore, while the Firefighters Union almost always endorses the Democrat candidate (2005 being a noted exception), they have held off giving an endorsement this year to anyone.

DeSantis is running against 27 year old, accidental Mayor Luke Ravenstahl. The Boy Wonder, who at the time was also an accidental President of City Council, ascended to the mayoral post when former Mayor Bob O’Connor passed away from a brain tumor in the summer of 2006. Since taking office Ravenstahl has made several embarrassing ethical missteps. While I hate to point to his age as being the problem, his lack of maturity and his candid openness of having no qualms with acting his age could be his downfall tomorrow. He has demonstrated unequivocally that he is not mature enough to be the mayor of a major American city. There is visible frustration among Pittsburgh Democrats with their mayoral candidate and many are crossing over to support DeSantis to finish the rest of O’Connor’s term.

If anyone can pull this off DeSantis certainly can, but the ball is still in Ravenstahl’s court. Pittsburgh has a 5 to 1 Democrat to Republican registration advantage and history has shown that it will prevail for Mayor Luke in the end. My gut feeling is that the race will be close, but Ravenstahl will pull it out. By close, I am speaking in terms of Pittsburgh close, which would be DeSantis receiving about 40% of the vote and only being beaten by about 20 points. That would be a remarkably close mayoral race for Pittsburgh. I lived there too many years to have the faith that the mill hunky yinzers are capable of making the right decision tomorrow, but I would be ecstatic to be wrong.

I wish Mark DeSantis and my friends back in the ‘burgh all the luck tomorrow. Maybe our time has finally come and the people will pull the right lever in the voting booths. If they don’t, then may they rot in the depths of Hell.