Republicans an endangered species in Philly
GIVE CREDIT to Joe DeFelice, the executive director of the city's Republican Party. With the blessing of the party chairman, state Rep. John Taylor, he is leading a youth movement within the GOP and has recruited a gaggle of under-40 candidates to run for City Council and mayor.
The move makes tactical sense, partly because it stands in sharp contrast to the Democratic organization's approach to recruiting candidates, which seems to require AARP membership before it will back you as a candidate. (The only bow to youth in the ruling party is when a ward leader's or elected official's son or daughter wants to run for office.)
But, this emphasis on youth also carries the scent of desperation. The Republican Party's numbers in the city have been declining for years, and something has to be done lest it totally sink from view.
In 1999, when then-Republican Sam Katz made a serious run for mayor, there were 198,000 registered Republicans in the city. Today, there are 119,000.
On the surface, those are dismal numbers. Dig a little deeper, though, and the picture is even worse.
In reality, there are only 81,000 Republicans who are active voters - meaning they have voted at least once in the past five years. The other 38,000 haven't shown up at the polls for years.
Then there is geography. In effect, the party has ceased to exist as a citywide entity. About one in four Republicans are clustered in four wards in the Far Northeast (Wards 58, 63, 64 and 66).
It's all downhill from there. Only 11 percent of active voters are Republican and there are wards - mostly in African-American areas - where the number drops to 2 percent. For instance, of the 14,779 active voters in the 10th Ward, which is centered in West Oak Lane, only 237 are Republican.
There are 15 wards in the city where active Republicans number 300 or less. (No wonder there were divisions in Philadelphia where Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney got zero votes in 2012.)
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Republicans an endangered species in Philly