Five of the current seven Democratic candidates for Mayor of Philadelphia in 2015 are in their late 50s or older. City residents' average age is under 34. Is that a problem?
I don't know, but it's not worth the ink that's been spilled on it, given what's at stake in this election. Moreover, some younger people who've complained about the candidates' ages have their own interests rather than the city's at heart.
An Inquirer article called attention to the Democratic candidates' ages two Sundays ago. Another one last Sunday that highlighted the age of the youngest candidate, Doug Oliver, wasted precious space in the increasingly thin newspaper. It would have been better used to inform the public about where the candidates stood on substantive issues. Maybe the Inquirer will stop lamenting the candidates' ages now that another candidate in his 40s, Keith Goodman, has entered the race.
That would be nice, because no shortage of real issues must be settled. In the next five years, the Mayor and Council may determine whether to raise the wage tax, whether the so-called actual value initiative should be administered in a way to keep property taxes rising, whether to sell city assets, whether to radically change the conditions of employment of the city's workforce with respect to pensions and benefits, whether the public school system will be effectively replaced by charter schools, and even whether to take the city into bankruptcy. No one will care how old the Mayor is when those decisions are made.
Having younger candidates in the primary wouldn't change the issues Philadelphia faces. Moreover, while the average city resident's age is much lower than that of the Democratic candidates, it would be no surprise if the candidates' ages are much closer to the average city voter's age.
Young people in Philadelphia live the stereotype: most of us don't vote. It's hard to say what percentage aren't even registered, but it must be high. The influx of young people into the gentrifying areas around Center City includes few civic-minded ones. Most stay for a few years, make some money, decide that Philadelphia is not where they want to raise children, and get out. Transient, short-term residents who don't usually take the time to vote are an unlikely group from which to expect candidates for office to emerge.
Still, even if there's nothing to be gained from matching candidates' ages to the average population, maybe it would be useful for young people to play a more active role. Nobody would say that the city government is full of youthful energy, or that the city's Democratic Party is. Philadelphia has serious problems with its budget, its schools, its infrastructure, its economy, and its ability to attract people and businesses to stay after their first child comes, or their tax breaks go. It will take energy to solve those problems. Maybe youth can supply it.
A tiny percentage of young people in Philly have organized to gain clout. Can they help the city-- or will they? The website of one group, the nonprofit Young Involved Philadelphia (YIP), appears to show that it has a little more than 110 members. YIP featured in the Inquirer article about the Democratic candidates' ages. A YIP spokesman said that his group has had "a lot of conversations about how the older political establishment, who are primarily 50, 60, and up, have not been developing the younger generation of political leaders."
Since the current "political establishment" in the city is almost exclusively Democratic, YIP would presumably like the Democratic Party to "develop" some subset of young people (drawn ideally, one imagines, from the ranks of YIP) into future officeholders. Would that serve YIP's goal of "break[ing] down the barriers to the political system for young people"?
By and large, no. All it would do is "break down barriers" facing a few brown-nosers. YIP seems to consist of a not-at-all representative little group of young people who want power, but have so far seen their ambitions thwarted by older people who possess power. Every generation of people has tasted a bit of the same frustration in its relations with the generation before.
But if YIP's goals consist of no more than getting old Democrats to train new ones, its members' ambitions appear purely personal rather than civic-minded. If YIP wants current Democratic politicians to groom its members into successors, it must be comfortable with those current politicians' performance. Certainly, for those whose ambitions go no farther than holding office in Philly, the city's Democratic Party is a perfect fit. YIP's complaint is not that Philly doesn't do better, but that it doesn't bring in enough new personnel to do the same. In effect, YIP argues that it's time to throw the bums out and replace them with younger bums.
At some point, some among today's cohort of young people who decide to stay in Philadelphia will enter the political fray-- although by the time they do, they might not be so young. But the best hope for the city is that any emerging leaders have more than their personal aggrandizement in mind. The people the city really needs to get involved will have new ideas and a new vision of how the city should be run, rather than just a desire to grab power. As to the Democratic Party, the new leaders Philadelphia needs will seek to improve it or replace it with something better. They will not beg to become the current leaders' toadies.
