UPDATED: Mayor Dread

There's a Philadelphia mayor that I like less than Mayor Nutter. Come back tonight and I'll tell you who it is.

UPDATE: Well, those bad chief executives of yesteryear can't hurt us now (I don't think) but the mayor who scares me the most right now is the NEXT one who will be elected in 2015. I'd been thinking about this even before Philadelphia magazine came up with this cute ploy for bloggers like me to write about them (hey, it worked).

Two problems: For one thing, no exciting, interesting or charismatic figure has broken out of the pre-election pack (the same thing is happening this year in the wide open NYC mayor's race -- who is sucking the lifeblood from our urban politicians?) But more importantly, how many millions of dollars are sinister hedge fund gazillionaires willing to spend just to get their guy on the 2nd floor of City Hall -- and complete the destruction of public education that just resulted in 23 school closures.

Think about it -- in 2010, three hedge-fund billionaires from Bala Cynwyd whose sole issue is corporate education reform spent more than $6 million of their own money in a late and doomed effort to elect a "school choice" fanatic from Philadelphia, state Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams. Now, Williams is eyeing the mayor's race, where with time and money he'd have a much better chance of winning -- and where there's little doubt that the Hedge Fund 3 have millions more to essentially buy the mayor's office for their single issue. And if Williams doesn't run, there's no doubt the charter school billionaires will find someone else.

Suddenly those old guys up top are looking a lot better.