If Only Luke Ravenstahl Worked This Hard At City Business

Here's a quick and approximate timeline of how Mayor Luke Ravenstahl spent his last 5-1/2 months:

Jan 1 -- City becomes embroiled in a scandal involving the Police Department.  Eventually this reaches all the way to Chief Nate Harper.  FBI investigates potential displacement of city funds into  off-the-books accounts relating to the Mayor's security detail

Feb 1 -- Things look grim for the Chief, who resigns and takes the fall for the whole scandal.  Ravenstahl maintains his innocence in knowledge of the scheme or wrongdoing on his part.

Mar 1 -- Ravenstahl, the prohibitive favorite as a sitting Mayor, pulls out of the re-election for "personal reasons".  That sound you heard of March 1 was the exultant rejoicing of Bill Peduto, who is the clear-cut favorite.

Mar 15 -- Jack Wagner enters the race for Mayor and transfers over his State Auditor campaign money.  That sound you heard was tearful weeping of Bill Peduto.  All the old money, Democratic machine voters are thrilled.

May 1 -- It's found out that a major supporter behind attack ads on Bill Peduto (from the Wagner campaign) is a Political Action Committee founded and funded by Luke Ravenstahl.  Post-Gazette outs him and Wagner's campaign takes a huge hit.

May 21 -- Peduto crushes Wagner in the primary, which in Pittsburgh is the election as the Republicans put just a token patsy up for Mayor.

So to recap:
Ravenstahl's Police Chief brings down faith in police and government
Ravenstahl may have known about it
Ravenstahl does not run for re-election, perhaps in exchange for not being investigated further
Ravenstahl can't withstand his pure hatred for Peduto, so he petulantly funds a smear campaign
Ravenstahl ruins Wagner's chances of winning, potentially

Kudos, Luke.

To be fair, if I became Mayor at age 26, I probably would have had syphilis by age 28.  Yes, I know he was married at the time, but that didn't last.  Most likely he was busy "polling" the voters at various nightclubs like the one he was recently photographed getting a lap dance in, surrounded by his bodyguards.

Ravenstahl abandoned the City during the Snowmagadden in 2010, on his birthday weekend, so he could (theoretically) go up to Seven Springs and have a huge hot tub orgy with dumb blondes and snow bunnies.

Ravenstahl was a joke of a Mayor and brought next to nothing to the table.  Now at age 33, he's washed up from his only known line of work -- politics. What now?

The good news is that Bill Peduto has a vision, has ideas, and has an ally in County Executive Rich Fitzgerald -- Ravenstahl had none of those things.  Although I don't live in the City, it's still My City That I Love and I'm hopeful that Mayor Elect Peduto can grow this region in ways Ravenstahl couldn't.