Help Wanted: Philly Mag Puts Ad for Mayor on Craigslist

The next mayor’s race isn’t for two more years, but the prospective 2015 field? Not so inspiring. To help turn up some more exciting contenders, Philly Mag yesterday placed an ad for prospective candidates on Craigslist. It reads in part:

“Large Eastern city with problems (but potential!) seeks bold, dynamic leader to run for mayor in 2015. Ideal candidate will have vision, independence, and the courage to take on entrenched interests. Large personal bank account helpful, but not required.”

In our new issue, Patrick Kerkstra also writes about the lameness of the field—and calls out the city’s business and civic leaders for not getting more involved in the overall direction of the city.

“Philadelphia’s political class is imbued with powers entirely disproportionate to its abilities and past performance mostly because the private and nonprofit sectors have, time and again, surrendered that power without a fight. What about the … contention that leaders can make a bigger difference outside of City Hall than within? It’s rank defeatism, just the latest iteration of a decades-long capitulation to the hacks. You don’t simply cede control of a $3.8 billion enterprise to the very people who, over decades, have made that enterprise so ineffective. And yet that is exactly what Philadelphia appears poised to do. Again.”