With Lil Mayor Luke so nonexistent he's practically a UPMC employee, our city craves a real leader: One with a clear vision, real ideas, a belief in community engagement, and who is bursting to get to work. This has led to the extraordinary circumstance of the conservative Tribune-Review and the middle-of-the-road Post-Gazette finally catching up to what progressives have long known: Bill Peduto is the best choice for Mayor of Pittsburgh. Now it's time that we get out and give him the mandate he deserves. We also need to make sure he has a City Council who will work together with him to make Pittsburgh the city we know it can be.
This half of 2pj endorses:
Bill Peduto for Mayor of the City of Pittsburgh
Natalia Rudiak for City Council, District 4
Deb Gross for City Council, District 7
Dan Gilman for City Council, District 8
Eleanor Bush for Common Pleas Court
Jack McVay Jr. for Superior Court
Marty B. O’Malley for Mayor of Forest Hills Borough
*** Obligatory
Disclaimer: As everyone should know by now, I've been working part-time for
People For Peduto since 2010
There are many paths that one can travel as a candidate for elective office. Some running for mayor might give years of public service, put out 100 policy papers, knock on doors all over the city, and attend hundreds of community meetings -- others try a road less traveled...
Here's the one taken by Josh Wander, Republican nominee for Mayor of Pittsburgh:
August 2012
Do a creepy "mock interview with myself pre and post an Apocalyptic event...."
December 2012
Appear on a national television show referring to the city that you want to become mayor of as an "urban deathtrap." Also be filmed running around a park with your buds covered in fake blood--guns in hand--playacting your response to some catastrophic event.
January 2013
Publish a YouTube video pushing your government conspiracy theory:
"I see the government playing a sort of PSYOPs game against the 2nd Amendment lovers, against people that care about their rights of bearing arms. What I mean by that is that I think that they're trying to bait us. I think they're trying to get us riled up and they're trying to get one of us that's possibly on the edge to do a crazy act of desperation..."
April 2013
Do a local TV interview where all you do is bitch about how terrible Pittsburgh is and why no one would want to live here.
June 2013
Do a newspaper interview moaning about how no one takes your campaign seriously.
Relate in an interview that you've sold your home, moved with your family to a foreign country, and "expects to return in time for the Nov. 5 election against Democrat Bill Peduto but would instruct campaign staff to assume his duties otherwise."
Have your press secretary resign citing law school commitments.
*** Obligatory Disclaimer: As everyone should know by now, I've been working part-time for People For Peduto since 2010
By now we all know who won the recent primary in May. As the P-G wrote:
With a convincing win for the Democratic nomination for mayor of Pittsburgh Tuesday, Bill Peduto...
And so on.
We must remember, of course, that the election hasn't happened yet. There still is a Republican ticket with a Republican running on it: Josh Wander. Though as he pointed out to Bob Mayo:
The Squirrel Hill resident admitted city Democrats' registration edge stacks the odds against him.
"My only chance of actually winning is the race is if the Democratic nominee drops dead, but then there's a possibility I'll still lose because there's a demographic of dead voters out there that still may vote him in," Wander joked.
Ha. Funny. A voter fraud joke. Wow. Cutting edge political humor. Still not true, of course, but he's a republican so I guess he's constitutionally incapable of not telling it so I guess I'll let it pass.
Not a big deal. Not like it's the end of civilization or anything. Ha, I'm just joshing.
Back to the primary election.
Being a "social media" sort of guy, I was curious about how the Peduto campaign used it to connect with its supporters and how important he thought it was for his primary win. We had an old-school "phone call" to discuss the topic.
Learned a lit - it was very enlightening.
Hey, did you know that the Maria, the OPJ, was a very important player on Peduto's social media team? Peduto said she was the campaign's "Social Media Consultant" and she worked the content while John Carman, of Avenue Design, was the tech guy. If you have the time, you can watch this Podcamp video of "a very 101 session" (his words) on using Social Media. The web based video was from Chris Ivey. The whole PR team answered to Sonya Toler.
Necessary disclaimer: Just as there were discussions on the campaign side
about any possible conflicts of interest arising from having a prominent
local blogger working for a prominent local politician, there were some
similar discussions, if I recall correctly, here at this blog. Maria's
solution was to disclose on her blog posts, whenever and as often as she could, this (or something very close to it):
Disclaimer: Yes, I am a member of Peduto's cyber staff.
And whenever I (who had no connection to the campaign at all) wrote about Peduto or the race, Maria and I would have no communication about it whatsoever. Full disclosure.
The first thing I learned was that the campaign's social media infrastructure is not something they threw together in a few weeks. Peduto said his campaign website was set up in 2009 (though Reform Pittsburgh Now was put up just after he pulled out of the 2007 mayoral race) and it was initially updated each week but as the primary drew closer, the updates became more frequent - and this is where Maria did her work. That's 4 years' momentum for the campaign. By the time of the primary, the website was updated daily and 17,000 people received emails from the campaign every day as well. Then there were those 100 policy papers posted one per day. The email list was compiled over a long period of time (people stopping by the website or recommending friends and so on).
Peduto's tweets were his own, as was his facebook status updates, though a few staffers with "People for Peduto" were able to tweet on the campaign's behalf.
But that's the past. What would the social media thumbprint look like in a Peduto administration? He said we can expect more information being transmitted to the city more quickly via twitter and facebook and emails. Info on street closings, street pavings, storm warnings. It would be a far cry from what he said was the rather small amount of info being transmitted currently.
With the greater use of social media, we can probably expect a new position in the mayor's office: someone to coordinate all that information to the public.
The amount of up to date information available to the public (as well as the rate at which it was released) was something new (certainly for local politics) and if Peduto wins the election in November, we can expect to see the same sort of connectedness with the public as we saw in his primary campaign.
Coda: I had to ask the Peduto about this video:
Had he seen it? Did it come from the campaign? What did he think of it?
He loved it - says they're thinking of posting it as "the ad we never aired."
All in all I have to say that his campaign's use of social media was a lot of work, day in day out, accumulated over a long period of time - and obviously, it paid off. Bill Peduto won the primary.
There's a little more to say about the Susquehanna poll out a few days ago. Mostly about the remaining undecideds. From Keystone Politics:
The final poll of the Pittsburgh Mayor race, from Susquehanna, shows Bill Peduto leading Jack Wagner by 9 points, 42-33.
But wait aren’t there a lot of undecided voters? Sure, there still are about 16% undecided, but when the pollsters pushed them to say which way they’re leaning, Wagner only gets 20% of them. With the soft supporters included, Peduto still has a 7-point lead – safely above the poll’s +/-4.88% margin of error.
I have to add a slight "Yes, but..." here. In an election of this size (a municipal election where the margin of victory might be a few thousand if not a few hundred votes) nothing is "safely above" or assured. The worst thing would be for a voter to assume that because these numbers point in one direction that his or her the race is over. (And this is true for either camp, Wagner or Peduto.)
Moving on:
Wagner would need to win 80% of the undecided voters to overtake Peduto’s lead. Could that happen? It’s unlikely in the extreme.
But it's still possible. There's only one solution for this situation: VOTE!
At this point it's all about GOTV - the candidate with the better Get Out The Vote organization will probably win.
I have no idea who these people are but since they're in tune when they break into harmony, I will assume one or more of them have some musical training.
I am also assuming they're proscuito, voluto, menudo, potato Peduto supporters.
I haven't been able to find any similarly kewl Wagner videos.
City Councilman Bill Peduto grabbed the front-runner status he once claimed to have in the Pittsburgh mayoral race, seizing on growing disapproval of chief opponent Jack Wagner in the campaign's bitter, final weeks, a Tribune-Review poll shows.
Peduto surged ahead of Wagner to stake a 42 percent to 33 percent lead among 400 likely voters a week before the decisive Democratic primary on Tuesday, according to the poll by Susquehanna Polling and Research. The poll shows a 9-point gain for Peduto, 48, of Point Breeze and a 7-point drop for Wagner, 65, of Beechview since an April 1-2 survey by the Harrisburg firm.
The context of the earlier poll is important. If we sort by the change in percentage points between the two polls, we might be able to see where support was lost and where it was gained.
Peduto - 9 point gain (up to 42 from 33 percent)
Wheatley - 2 point gain (up to 6 from 4 percent)
Undecided - 4 point loss (down to 16 from 20 percent)
Wagner - 7 point loss (down to 33 from 40 percent)
Richardson - No change
Other - No change
The big looser, then, according to this poll has to be Jack Wagner. Of the overall shift of 11 points (what Peduto and Wheatley "gained" and what Wagner and the Undecideds "lost") more than half came from Wagner.
The Trib presents a few ideas why:
“It looks to me like whatever the Wagner folks have done might have backfired,” said Jim Lee, president of Susquehanna Polling and Research. “All the movement has clearly gone to Peduto.”
And:
Mudslinging that punctuated advertising during the past three weeks, including an anti-Peduto ad from a Republican consultant hired by a Ravenstahl political committee, impacted Wagner's popularity.
“The credibility of the mayor at this point is rapidly decreasing, and that has hurt Jack Wagner,” said Gerald Shuster, a political analyst with the University of Pittsburgh. He said Wagner has not distanced himself from Ravenstahl as a federal investigation of city spending moves closer to the mayor's office.
The Trib quoted a Wagner spokesman saying that they'd "disavowed" the Ravenstahl ads. You remember, those, right? The swiftboat ads? It looks like Luke's swiftboat ads damaged Wagner's credibility.
Another really smart move from the soon-to-be former boy-mayor.
But of course, none of this means anything if Pittsburgh's Democrats don't vote. So:
Both campaigns said they would focus on Sunday and Monday on “get out the vote” efforts, noting that voter turnout could make the difference. Peduto will “be out on the street,” Toler said, and Wagner scheduled 20 events between Friday and Tuesday to allow him and about 400 volunteers to meet people, Abbott said.
There's a new Jack Wagner ad out (you can see it here) that tries to undercut Bill Peduto's support among the younger electorate.
The ad is narrated by Wagner's daughter Sara and begins like this:
I’m Sara Wagner. My dad’s Jack Wagner and he’s running for Mayor. He knows what’s important to young people like me. He’s evolved a lot on social issues and I’m really proud of him.
However, the ad itself never says anything about how he's "evolved" on social issues. I am guessing the campaign is hoping the electorate (READ: the young-uns already leaning towards Peduto) will just fill in the blanks.
As we've noted here previously, on LGBT issues especially, Wagner has come a long way since his city council days. And at debates, he routinely makes a point of emphasizing the importance of sensitivity to the "lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community." (I don't think I've ever heard him use the acronym, now that I think of it.)
It's a cute spot, ending with a self-consciously dorky father-daughter fist-bump. But I can't help but feel it speaks to a certain unease about younger voters within Wagnerland: Polls consistently show Wagner lagging with that portion of the electorate.
That link on "previously" takes you to this piece by Lauren Daley where she writes:
Wagner's position on LGBT equality has evolved over the course of his political career. As a city councilor, he opposed a 1990 ordinance to include gays and lesbians in the city's anti-discrimination law. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that while Wagner acknowledged "incidents" of discrimination, "I don't believe that [Pittsburghers] discriminate in any systematic manner against homosexuals."
But during a 10-year stint in the state Senate, Wagner championed numerous pro-LGBT bills, including measures to bar discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and to punish attacks on gays and lesbians as hate crimes. In this year's mayoral race, he told the Steel City Stonewall Democrats that he backed "full equality under the law for members of the LGBT community," including "the right to marry."
Which of course is a good thing - it should be noted, however, that that same Daley piece points out that even though Wagner backed marriage equality, the Stonewall Democrats endorsed Bill Peduto anyway.
Then there's this is an odd bit of social issues dissonance. While Daley writes:
During his failed 2010 gubernatorial campaign, some anti-choice groups touted Wagner as an ally, but while Wagner described himself as a "pro-life Democrat," he also said he "support[ed] the current state law" — which permits abortion. In any case, Wagner's campaign told City Paper that he pledged to "enforce [clinic-access] laws appropriately."
LifePAC (which touts itself as "oldest pro-life PAC in southwestern Pennsylvania") writes that:
There can be no legitimate diversity of opinion with regard to abortion and euthanasia. The truth is that human rights begin when human lives begin.
As a member of the Catholic Church we cannot support candidates or legislation that sustains keeping abortion legal. We cannot serve two masters. We must eliminate from consideration candidates who endorse policies that cannot be reconciled with moral norms that are held by all Christians.
On the one hand Wagner couldn't possibly have any control over who endorses him but on the other, as Molly Ivins once wrote, "You got to dance with them that brung you."
So while Wagner's evolved on some LGBT issues (though not enough to warrant an endorsement by the Stonewall Democrats) he's still anti-abortion (or pro-life or anti-choice - you pick the label).
As they say, context is everything. Imagine a race where one candidate is consistently ahead by double digits only to stumble a week or so before the election down to a 7 point lead. You could say that the other candidate might be surging - that the momentum is moving in that candidate's direction.
But in this case we have something of the opposite - only 6 weeks or so ago Wagner was up by 7 and now it's Peduto's 7 point lead.
If there's momentum to be discussed, it's in Peduto's direction.
*** Obligatory Disclaimer: As everyone
should know by now, Maria's been working part-time for People For Peduto since 2010. I, however, am unattached to any campaign.***
Lemoyne, PA (May 13, 2013) – In the race for Pittsburgh’s Mayor, Bill Peduto has increased his
lead over former Auditor General Jack Wagner from two points on April 22nd to seven points late
last week, according to a poll released by Keystone Analytics®.
Peduto leads with 39 percent of likely voters saying they’ll vote for him while 32 percent say they’ll
vote for Wagner. This lead, which is outside the margin of error of +/-4.9, indicates a surging
Peduto but with the primary next week, 18 percent of voters are still unsure who they will vote for.
Ravenstahl's a putz and Peduto rightfully opposed him, but that proves he can't work well with Ravenstahl's minions on Council so you shouldn't vote for him. Wagner contemplated maybe running against Ravenstahl in the fall but wouldn't jump into the primary until Ravenstahl dropped out which proves how brave Wagner is and how unconnected to the Ravenstahl crowd he is so you should vote for him. Also, Wagner works well with Republicans so he will work well with Council which is all Democrats. Policies? We don't need no stinkin' polices. The End.
Campaign finance reports filed with Allegheny County's Elections Division and the Pennsylvania Department of state indicate that the group behind an attack ad in the Pittsburgh mayor's race has past ties to Mayor Ravenstahl's now shut down reelection campaign.
The TV spot begins with an announcer saying "Bill Peduto wants to be Mayor of Pittsburgh, but Peduto only seems to care about his own district". The attack ad charges that Peduto was against helping Homewood seniors, Hill District development, and a living wage -- claims he denies. Peduto says "it's an outside group lurking in the shadows that's trying to determine who the next Mayor of Pittsburgh is". Peduto is one of four people competing in the spring primary to run as the Democratic mayoral candidate in the fall.
The Repubican-aligned agency hired to make the ad also created the 'Swiftboat' ads against Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry -- a third-party attack ad that hurt Jerry's run for president. The anti-Peduto ad's fine print says it's paid for by a "Committee for a Better Pittsburgh".
You can read the Peduto Campaign's response to the Swiftboat ad here.
But that's not the part of the story I want to look at. Mayo mentions how "The Repubican-aligned agency hired to make the ad also created the 'Swiftboat' ads" but doesn't mention the name.
From this document posted at the P-G, we learn the name: SRCP Media. So Luke's "Committee for a Better Pittsburgh" hired SRCP for the Peduto ad.
So how did they do on the Kerry Swiftboat stuff?
As of this morning this ad is still posted at SRCP's "Presidential work" page. I guess they're still proud of it. I guess they still think it's good work.
It isn't. Factcheck.org took a look at the ad and found it wanting. Here is their summary of the ad:
A group funded by the biggest Republican campaign donor in Texas began running an attack ad Aug. 5 in which former Swift Boat veterans claim Kerry lied to get one of his two decorations for bravery and two of his three purple hearts.
But the veterans who accuse Kerry are contradicted by Kerry's former crewmen, and by Navy records.
One of the accusers says he was on another boat "a few yards" away during the incident which won Kerry the Bronze Star, but the former Army lieutenant whom Kerry plucked from the water that day backs Kerry's account. In an Aug. 10 opinion piece in the conservative Wall Street Journal, Rassmann (a Republican himself) wrote that the ad was "launched by people without decency" who are "lying" and "should hang their heads in shame."
And on Aug. 19, Navy records came to light also contradicting the accusers. One of the veterans who says Kerry wasn't under fire was himself awarded a Bronze Star for aiding others "in the face of enemy fire" during the same incident.
Factcheck takes spends a lot of time on the (now debunked) account of then-Captain George Elliot:
Several of those who appear in the ad have signed brief affidavits, and we have posted some of them in the "supporting documents" section to the right for our visitors to evaluate for themselves.
One of those affidavits, signed by George Elliott, quickly became controversial. Elliott is the retired Navy captain who had recommended Kerry for his highest decoration for valor, the Silver Star, which was awarded for events of Feb. 28, 1969, when Kerry beached his boat in the face of an enemy ambush and then pursued and killed an enemy soldier on the shore.
Elliott, who had been Kerry's commanding officer, was quoted by the Boston Globe Aug 6 as saying he had made a "terrible mistake" in signing the affidavit against Kerry, in which Elliott suggested Kerry hadn't told him the truth about how he killed the enemy soldier. Later Elliott signed a second affidavit saying he still stands by the words in the TV ad. But Elliott also made what he called an "immaterial clarification" - saying he has no first-hand information that Kerry was less than forthright about what he did to win the Silver Star.
What Elliott said in the ad is that Kerry "has not been honest about what happened in Viet Nam." In his original affidavit Elliott said Kerry had not been "forthright" in Vietnam. The only example he offered of Kerry not being "honest" or "forthright" was this: "For example, in connection with his Silver Star, I was never informed that he had simply shot a wounded, fleeing Viet Cong in the back.
Factcheck points out a BIG problem with that last part:
The official citations show Kerry was not awarded the Silver Star "for simply pursuing and dispatching" the Viet Cong. In fact, the killing is not even mentioned in two of the three versions of the official citation (see "supporting documents" at right.) The citations - based on what Elliott wrote up at the time - dwell mostly on Kerry's decision to attack rather than flee from two ambushes, including one in which he led a landing party.
In the end, Senator John McCain summed up the ad still being used to polish SRCP's conservative street cred:
I think the ad is dishonest and dishonorable. As it is none of these individuals served on the boat (Kerry) commanded. Many of his crewmates have testified to his courage under fire. I think John Kerry served honorably in Vietnam.
Why am I spending so much time on this one ad?
Because I want everyone to remember that Luke Ravenstahl's "Committee for a Better Pittsburgh" purchased an ad smearing Bill Peduto from the same folks who produced the dishonest and dishonorable ad that smeared then-Senator and now-Secretary of State John Kerry.
You think they suddenly found religion and became honest and honorable?
I'm not saying there's no differences between current Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl and Democratic primary candidate Jack Wagner. Wager served very honorably in Vietnam while Ravenstahl wasn't even born until years after that war ended. But, they do have an awful lot in common.
They both have come late to the party in terms of LGBT rights (coincidentally right after polls show a change in public attitude).
They both have even more muddy views on women's reproductive rights -- Wagner didn't even show up for Planned Parenthood of Western PA's "Candidate's Forum on Women in Western Pennsylvania" (which was about more than just women's vagina's).
Ravenstahl was unexpectedly propelled into the office and his vision didn't ever seem to get more detailed than to "move forward" (though he never seemed to meet a big developer he didn't like or a city asset he didn't want to sell). Wagner's details on issues and policies can at best be described as light and breezy, especially when compared to someone putting out 100 policy papers. And again, Wagner shares the same supporters as Ravenstahl...
And, while Wagner is now trying to say he is the change we need from the current administration, he chose not to run until the current mayor dropped out of the race (meanwhile, doing back flips trying to paint Bill Peduto as both someone who will butt heads and someone who is part of what needs to be changed).
So there you have it, folks. This race is primarily Wagnerstahl Vs. Peduto.
With less than a month before the primary election, Bill Peduto shored up support Thursday for his bid to become Pittsburgh’s next mayor.
Peduto was joined by representatives from 22 unions and organizations, as well as 15 elected officials on the steps of the Pittsburgh City-County Building.
And the message came from County Executive Rich Fitzgerald:
“The number one thing is we really need a mayor who can work with everybody, and Bill Peduto has shown he can do that,” Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald said.
Hoping to stoke a perception of momentum about his mayoral campaign, city Councilman Bill Peduto appeared with dozens of officeholders and union officials Thursday outside the City-County Building, Downtown.
The rally of figures who had endorsed him earlier was emceed by county Executive Rich Fitzgerald, who declared that, "We need a mayor who can work with everybody" and pointed to the surrounding array of city, county and state officials as evidence that Mr. Peduto was that person.
Though he gets corrected in the comments:
"The rally of figures who had endorsed him earlier..." that is simply inaccurate. about a dozen new endorsements were announced today including senate democratic leader jay costa, rep dan frankel, county councilman bill robinson, county council president chuck martoni, and school board president sharene shealey. were none of those leaders of state and county government and the school board worth mentioning?
And:
"The rally of figures who had endorsed him earlier..." Somehow the fact that both the minority leader Jay Costa and Caucas chair Dan Frankel endorsing Bill doesn't seem noteworthy? Half of Wagner's campaign is him saying what great friends he has in Harrisburg yet here we see most of the state reps and senators backing Peduto. These are some of the most notable endorsements in the race. I'm not one to start bashing the media but come on P-G it takes three seconds to do this research.
Must've been an oversight. Anyway, O'Toole got the message of the day:
The tableaux of supporters from various layers of government and civic life was designed to support Mr. Peduto's contention that he had forged a new coalition to move the city forward. Speaking afterwards, Mr. Peduto acknowledged the strength of the Wagner challenge.
"I think momentum shifts in any campaign," he said. "We know that -- Jack getting into the race late -- obviously there's going to be an immediate shift to him, but once people start focusing on who represents the future, who is part of the past, who has a coalition that's built around the future of the city of Pittsburgh and who is being supported by those who supported the past administration, I think when people start focusing in on this race, momentum will shift again."
It was a strong showing of support for Pittsburgh mayoral candidate Bill Peduto from elected officials, labor unions, and community leaders — what Peduto calls a new coalition for a new Pittsburgh.
“I just want to savor this moment,” said Peduto as he turned to face his supporters, ” because this is a coalition of all of us working together — different battles which each of us had where we have been allies over years and years of supporting each other.”
“And I get to stand to be here today as a new team comes together, a new coalition for a new Pittsburgh,” he added.
Just got back from the City-County building where City Councilman and Mayoral Candidate had something of an endorsement show of force early this afternoon. Take a look:
That's County Executive Rich Fitzgerald introducing everyone. From the press release:
Today on the portico of the City County Building representatives from the nearly 40 unions, organizations, and elected officials, and individuals will gather at 1 p.m. to affirm their endorsement of Bill Peduto for Mayor.
There were representatives from the School Board, City Council, County Council, The General Assembly (both The House and The Senate) as well as members from Pittsburgh's Faith community and Labor Unions. I even saw a sign from the Gertrude Stein Political Club and a few National Organization for Women signs.
What stood out for me was that each person speaking had basically the same message: that Bill Peduto is the candidate who's worked with broad coalitions (at various local and statewide political or community levels) in the past and he's the one who can form new coalitions in the future.
In addressing the crowd, Peduto spoke of a "new coalition for a new Pittsburgh" and if you're curious what this "new coalition" looks like, here's the current list of endorsements.
First the political:
State Senator Jay Costa, Senate Democratic Leader
State Senator Wayne Fontana, Caucus Administrator
State Representative Dan Frankel, Caucus Chair
State Representative Ed Gainey
State Representative Erin Molchany
State Representative Paul Costa
County Executive Rich Fitzgerald
County Council President Chuck Martoni
County Councilman Bill Robinson
City Councilman Bruce Kraus
City Councilman Patrick Dowd
City Councilwoman Natalia Rudiak
School Board President Sharene Shealey
School Board Member Mark Brentley
Former Allegheny County Recorder of Deeds Valerie McDonald Roberts
And then the unions:
American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees 84 (AFSCME)
Fraternal Association of Professional Paramedics Local 1
International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees Local 3 (IATSE)
International Brother of Teamsters/Graphic Comm. International Union Local 24 (IBT/GCIU)
Ironworkers Local 3
Laborers District Council of Western PA
Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers Local 400 (PFT)
Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ (SEIU)
Sheet Metal Workers Local 12
Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees, Greater Pittsburgh Chapter (SOAR)
United Food & Commercial Worker Local 23 (UFCW)
United Steelworkers (USW)
And finally:
Ceasefire PA
Clean Water Action
Conservation Voters of Pennsylvania
Equality PA
Gertrude Stein Political Club of Greater Pittsburgh
PA National Organization of Women (PA NOW)
Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania
Progress Pittsburgh PAC
Sierra Club Allegheny Group
Steel City Stonewall Democrats
Faith leader John C. Welch
If this endorsement list is any indication, that's what Peduto's New Coalition for a New Pittsburgh looks like.
Post Script: Let me point out that while the OPJ is on Peduto's "Cyber Staff", I am not. I have no affiliation with either of the candidates and as I am neither a Democrat or a City of Pittsburgh resident, I won't be voting in the primary.
