{"id":227774,"date":"2026-06-25T12:43:06","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T12:43:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/227774\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T12:43:06","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T12:43:06","slug":"how-mayor-parker-is-doing-and-what-she-should-do-next","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/227774\/","title":{"rendered":"How Mayor Parker is Doing and What She Should Do Next"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The whispers have gone public, ever since Democratic Socialist Chris Rabb<\/a>\u2019s stunning congressional upset in May: Is Mayor Parker<\/a> in trouble? After all, the mayor has endured a string of political defeats. Not only did Rabb beat her candidate, the establishment\u2019s State Senator Sharif Street; her own ward went for the progressive firebrand. At least one private campaign poll has shown the mayor\u2019s job approval to have dipped below 50 percent in that 3rd Congressional District \u2014 a large swath of the city. Then, of course, there is City Council\u2019s rejection of her four mystifying tax hike proposals \u2014 including a regressive rideshare levy and a hotel tax \u2014 during this $7.1 billion budget season.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Listen to the audio edition here:<\/p>\n

Is the mayor in trouble? It\u2019s tempting to suggest that the mere question is related to her status as the city\u2019s first Black and female mayor. That is, it\u2019s hard to remember such circling of sharks three years into her depressed predecessor\u2019s mayoralty. But circling they are: Just witness District Attorney Larry Krasner\u2019s performative trolling<\/a> of the mayor as he ostensibly sought more budgetary largesse from her. (Just days before, a panel of federal judges took disciplinary action<\/a> against one of his top former prosecutors and excoriated Krasner\u2019s office for having \u201cviolated its duty of candor\u201c to the court.)<\/p>\n

What Parker is up against is less a fair-minded assessment of her record than the rise of a performative progressivism more concerned with symbols than outcomes. Democratic Socialists like Rabb, and mayors including New York\u2019s Zohran Mamdani, Chicago\u2019s Brandon Johnson and Seattle\u2019s Katie Wilson may all prove to be governance-challenged. But as a political movement, the Democratic Socialists of America and Working Families Party is having a moment.<\/p>\n

The mayor is as good a City Hall front person as we\u2019ve had since Ed Rendell over a quarter century ago.<\/p>\n

Perhaps that\u2019s why, in arguing for her (regressive) rideshare tax proposal, Parker talked about taking on \u201cbillionaire big tech companies.\u201d<\/a> She was elected to be a practical quality-of-life mayor but, suddenly, she adopted the buzzwords of the far left. No surprise the argument fell flat, since it ran counter to the pragmatic Parker Philadelphians elected in 2023.<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s start with Parker\u2019s record. Whether she\u2019s dancing with Team Mexico fans at Fan Fest<\/a> or breaking into rap to honor Lady B at the Philadelphia Music Alliance Walk of Fame Gala, the mayor is as good a City Hall front person as we\u2019ve had since Ed Rendell over a quarter century ago. She exudes Philly from her pores; she\u2019s publicly joyous; and her emphasis on unity \u2014 \u201cOne Philly,\u201d complete with the demand to raise your hand and put \u201cyour one in the air\u201d \u2014 strikes just the right rhetorical tone in these fractured times.<\/p>\n

Substantively, as I\u2019ve written,<\/a> she has orchestrated a public safety turnaround the likes of which we\u2019ve not seen in nearly 70 years \u2014 yet gets scant credit for having done so. It\u2019s not just that crime has receded everywhere else; here, the drop has been more precipitous and directly flows from the interventional work of Parker\u2019s hire, Commissioner Kevin Bethel, the cooperation of civic stakeholders, and her own framing of the strategy, which she has coined \u201cPIE\u201d: Prevention, Intervention, and Enforcement, a fresh spin on focused deterrence policing.<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t say Parker doesn\u2019t take big swings. Wherever you ended up on the Sixers arena, her support demonstrated the political will to fight for a big economic development deal. Ditto her $2 billion HOME Initiative; like Rebuild<\/a> before it, it has the potential for boondoggle \u2014 but lacking in ambition it\u2019s not.<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s not sexy, Parker has made strides in an area where the city has long lagged: In six years, the city\u2019s pension obligations are projected to finally be fully funded,<\/a> freeing up nearly $500 million in the city\u2019s operating budget to invest in people. Finally, Parker has smartly handled the mania that is Donald Trump by refusing to take his bait. The same can\u2019t be said of Council, whose likely unconstitutional \u201cICE Out\u201d legislation is now the subject of an administration lawsuit while Republican U.S. Representative Jim Jordan\u2019s Judiciary Committee is readying to subpoena City records.<\/a><\/p>\n

Parker doing no favors to Parker <\/p>\n

Problem is, Parker\u2019s record just might be too practical for today\u2019s platitudinous progressives. And Parker has not helped herself, particularly when it comes to two key areas of governance: implementation, and the inside game of politics.<\/p>\n

First, the former. It was telling, early on, when Parker\u2019s sweep of the Kensington encampment found the police arriving hours before the social workers. As a result, all they did was essentially push many of those in the tents into other neighborhoods, rather than help them. As The Philadelphia Citizen\u2019s late founding chairman and civic force Jeremy Nowak used to say, \u201cImplementation is policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Remember, Parker is a lifelong legislator; what we\u2019ve witnessed for two years now are the growing pains of on-the-job CEO training. Civic leaders, politicos, and even members of her own administration all have the same complaint: The Parker administration moves at the speed of bureaucracy. Micro-management, either from Parker herself or Chief of Staff Tiffany Thurman (who outlasted an original, and impractical, three-headed leadership team), is the order of the day. I\u2019ve heard it from department heads in the government and from civic leaders without: You can\u2019t get a yes or no, because everything must run up a very complicated and lethargic chain of command. And forget about access to the mayor; one boldface name civic leader tells me they\u2019ve been here through five mayors. This is the first one they can\u2019t just get on the phone.<\/p>\n

Former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed had a standing rule: If a councilmember wanted to see him \u2014 even if Reed was huddling with President Obama \u2014 said councilmember took priority.<\/p>\n

Which gets us to Parker\u2019s political skillset. She spent a boatload of political capital in year one on the proposed Market East basketball arena. Yes, the Sixers bailed on her \u2014 which is why she\u2019s privately complained about \u201ctrusting the billionaires.\u201d But she lobbied Councilmembers into taking a perilous vote for, it turned out, no reason. Now, the 12 members who backed the politically dicey plan have targets on their backs come next year. Who do you think they blame?<\/p>\n

When Kasim Reed was building Atlanta into an economic behemoth as its mayor from 2010 to 2018, he never lost a vote in Council. Like Parker, he\u2019d been a legislator, but he had wise political counsel in his ear, including legends like former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young; former San Francisco Mayor and California Speaker Willie Brown, and Home Depot founder Arthur Blank, the leader of his city\u2019s business community. Reed had a standing rule: If a councilmember wanted to see him \u2014 even if Reed was huddling with President Obama \u2014 said councilmember took priority. In his phone, he kept data on councilmembers: not only spouses and kids\u2019 names and birthdates, but also their relatives and friends who brought home city paychecks. All so he could inquire: \u201cHey, how\u2019s your buddy Jeffrey doing over at Parks and Rec?\u201d<\/p>\n

Such interactions are expressions of care, yes, but they\u2019re also subtle reminders of power and maybe even implied threats. That\u2019s the tedious work of politics away from the klieg lights. Here, Parker has mostly chosen to defer to Council President Kenyatta Johnson when it comes to whipping votes, a perfectly valid choice \u2014 if it works.<\/p>\n

But, at least this budget season, it didn\u2019t. The rash wishlist of taxes sought by Parker stemmed from retrograde political thinking. A decade ago, Mayor Nutter\u2019s final budget was $3.9 billion. Parker seeking to further her predecessor\u2019s tax and spend proclivities and nearly doubling Nutter\u2019s 2016 budget speaks to a confounding old school political addiction. After all, what return on investment have we seen from all that spending?<\/p>\n

Think of our $7.1 billion budget as consisting of three buckets. About $3 billion is mandated on items like employee healthcare, pension contributions, and debt service on bonds. Another $3 billion is what we\u2019ll call \u201cpolitically protected\u201d spending: Police, fire, libraries, emergency services. You cut them \u2014 as Nutter learned in his first term when he tried to right-size the library system \u2014 at your political peril. That leaves maybe $1.1 billion at a mayor\u2019s true disposal.<\/p>\n

Cherelle Parker can still be among those representing a third way \u2014 neither left nor right, but for you.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why we\u2019re always privy to fights about this or that $50 million or $100 million need. Compared to cities like Nashville and Charlotte, neither of which is burdened by such required spending, Philadelphia is enjoined from investing in growth as a matter of accounting.<\/p>\n

Parker as reformer? <\/p>\n

But does it have to be so? Parker\u2019s finance director, Rob Dubow, has been in his position under three mayors, starting with Nutter nearly 20 years ago. (Despite the fact that, a decade ago, it came to light<\/a> that, under Dubow, the City had misplaced about $30 million and had long failed to reconcile seven of its bank accounts \u2014 a faux pas that would never be tolerated in the private sector.) Dubow has amassed internal clout within the Parker administration. But he is a numbers guy, not a policy maven.<\/p>\n

The challenge for Mayor Parker, as a wave of socialism looms, is to respond to the performers as a reformer would. Remember reform? It\u2019s what\u2019s working for other mayors in the face of Working Families Party grievances, giveaways and shibboleths. It\u2019s what Mayor Dan Lurie is doing in San Francisco,<\/a> when he proclaims \u201cthe era of excuses is over\u201d while introducing sweeping city charter reform; what Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb is doing with his membership in the middle-of-the-road reform group Third Way<\/a> and his remaking of the urban grid into a 15-minute city; what Houston Mayor John Whitmire is doing with a series of systemic structural budget reforms<\/a> he announced with members of his City Council by his side; what Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin \u2014 a self-described \u201cpro-growth progressive\u201d \u2014 is doing with his Birmingham Promise, which funds collegiate scholarships, and his Black Male Initiative<\/a> workforce development program.<\/p>\n

Here, rather than play the tax-and-spend game (where has that gotten you, Dems?), Parker\u2019s reform could begin by zero-budgeting that middle bucket of our budget, the one where all the political claims reside. You remember zero-based budgeting, right? Mayor Kenney promised to do it, and then forgot. You start each department\u2019s budget at zero and align every expense with your mission. When it\u2019s been used elsewhere \u2014 as then-County Commissioner Josh Shapiro did in Montco<\/a> \u2014 it has unearthed tens or even hundreds of millions. You\u2019d be saying to taxpayers: Government is in your pocket enough already. I\u2019m going to find money myself to invest back into you.<\/p>\n

\"\"Mayor Parker at the Philly Fair 250 on June 20, 2026. Photo by Byron Purnell III for the City of Philadelphia. <\/p>\n

Impossible? It kinda just happened. I\u2019m told that Councilmember Katherine Gilmore Richardson didn\u2019t buy Dubow\u2019s conventional wisdom and, after a tense meeting with the mayor in which Parker must have realized she didn\u2019t have the votes for her slate of taxes, the mayor, Johnson and Dubow magically came up with $48 million for schools. It took a little over two hours to find the funds, Dubow boasted in a press conference. Well, if you spent, I don\u2019t know, a week combing through the ledger, how much more might you find?<\/p>\n

Or let\u2019s take it a step further. A reform mayor might borrow from the Copenhagen model, as Denver did with its airport, and leverage her city\u2019s assets to make public investments. As urbanist Bruce Katz has championed,<\/a> Copenhagen created a public Development Corporation and transferred vast amounts of city-owned land into it. The corporation borrowed against future land values and financed major infrastructure projects, including building its Metro system. A mayor who is willing to think outside the box would argue that, if your feet are on city property, you\u2019re standing on part of an untapped investment portfolio.<\/p>\n

In other words, in the face of the oncoming socialist movement, a reformer might channel Nashville Mayor Freddie O\u2019Connell, who argues that being pro-growth is an anti-poverty plan. Instead of tacking left, Cherelle Parker can be a bulwark against a progressivism that gives Trumpism ammunition to caricature blue municipalities and that drives capital to pro-growth Sun Belt cities.<\/a><\/p>\n

She will have to practice politics in the best sense of the term: reaching out, widening her kitchen cabinet, inviting strange bedfellows to the problem-solving table, forging coalitions.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket,\u201d wrote Eric Hoffer, author of the seminal 1951 book, The True Believer. History has proven him right: Movements fade. (As Mayor Brandon Johnson, at 34 percent in the polls,<\/a> is learning in Chicago.)<\/p>\n

Make no mistake about the racket Parker and her city are up against. In New York, Mamdani has already fueled a political civil war between progressives and socialists<\/a> \u2014 a brewing fight to the death to see who could be most responsible for unwittingly keeping Trumpism alive. In Seattle, Wilson\u2019s response to Starbucks moving 2,000 jobs to Nashville \u2014 \u201cLike, bye\u201d \u2014 has other businesses fleeing and even Democratic council members rethinking the mayor\u2019s radical platform.<\/a> In Washington, D.C., a new Socialist mayor is about to take office. Blue city electoral wins notwithstanding, the DSA platform is dead on arrival for a national party that one would think might be tired of losing. DSA policy positions include a four-day, 32-hour work week with no loss in pay; universal basic income plus a federal jobs guarantee; free government childcare, free pre-K and free college; federal rent control, and eliminating deportations. Not every candidate supports all these planks, but every DSA-endorsed candidate signs on to some mix of them. Problem is, the DSA platform just is not where the majority of the country is,<\/a> and cities that get too far ahead of the national Overton window are cities that lose their clout \u2014 especially if they exist in purple or red states.<\/p>\n

Cherelle Parker can still be among those representing a third way \u2014 neither left nor right, but for you. Imagine: A city that solves its own problems instead of always asking its taxpayers to foot the bill. A city that invests and delivers quality of life outcomes \u2014 for you. That picks up your trash, that creates green and clean spaces, that entices employers to offer opportunity.<\/p>\n

The mayor of that city will have to say no to elite progressive ideas fueled by little more than class grievance, yes, but she\u2019ll also have to push her own government to think more creatively in order to invest more wisely. She will have to practice politics in the best sense of the term: reaching out, widening her kitchen cabinet, inviting strange bedfellows to the problem-solving table, forging coalitions. That will be a mayor who invites others to help her build a pathway to the middle class and beyond. Hannah Arendt once said that the great success of Stalinism among intellectuals everywhere was that it had replaced all questions of validity or testability or objectivity with the question of motive. Our Comrade has questioned our policy; why would he do such a thing? And why now? And who put him up to it?<\/p>\n

A mayor who holds ideology up to inspection and errs on the side of pragmatism will be a mayor staying true to FDR\u2019s long-ago advice, words of wisdom that every hubristic socialist parroting Emma Goldman ought to heed:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

LARRY PLATT ON PHILADELPHIA POLITICS<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mayor Cherelle Parker (center) at the June 2026 opening of the John B. Kelly pool. Photo by Quinton Davis for the City of Philadelphia. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The whispers have gone public, ever since Democratic Socialist Chris Rabb\u2019s stunning congressional upset in May: Is Mayor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":227775,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9537,990,12535,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-227774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-cherelle-parker","tag-city-council","tag-ideas-we-should-steal","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}