Running Republican in a Democratic race

Now that the Penn College Republicans have a candidate to support, you can be sure they'll be throwing their weight behind him.

Only they say they don't know much about him yet - a problem that Republican candidate Al Taubenberger will have to deal with in the coming months running in a city dominated primarily by Democrats.

Taubenberger kicked off his campaign last week with only $100 in the bank and a pledge to bring Republican leadership to City Hall to end a culture of corruption.

Still, he remains a mystery to College Republicans.

"I really don't know much about him," said Michael Shiely, the group's chairman, though he is heartened by Taubenberger's business background as president of the Greater Northeast Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce.

But because Taubenberger expects to run unopposed, Shiely said the group will begin rallying support for him in earnest starting next semester.

"It's way too early" to be campaigning for Taubenberger, Shiely said.

If elected, Taubenberger would be the first Republican mayor the city has seen since 1952, when Bernard Samuel handed over the reins of government to his Democratic successor, Joseph Clark.

Though Samuel was in office for the longest contiguous stretch of time of any mayor in city history - he took office on the death of his predecessor in 1941 and was re-elected in both 1944 and 1948 - Philadelphia has seen a steep drop in Republican power since then.

But despite this, Matthew Wolfe, the Republican ward leader for the district that includes the University, says he remains undaunted in his task to win elections for his party's candidates.

University City tends to be an "independent-minded place" where voters are willing to split their ballots at above-average rates and will support candidates of both parties - despite the fact that most Penn students identify as Democrats, he said.

Thus, Wolfe has focused the local Republican Party's efforts on electing candidates in "lower-visibility races" like inspector general and judicial appointments.

The thinking goes that, though voters will have made up their minds by Election Day which candidate they would support for major races, they are very open to persuasion on their way to the polls as to which candidate they'll support in lower-profile races.

Wolfe, who as a 1978 Penn graduate has been in the area for decades, can also remember times in the 1980s when more Republicans were on the voter rolls in the 27th district than Democrats.

Still, he acknowledges that getting Taubenberger elected is "going to be tough," especially because he isn't expected to have the fundraising ability of his Democratic rival.

Vito Canuso, chairman of Philadelphia's Republican Party, added that this problem may be compounded by the fact that media coverage will focus on fundraising dollars as a measure of a candidate's competency.

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