Ravenstahl's counterargument

There's been some talk here and elsewhere about the city House wins Tuesday by Erin Molchany and Ed Gainey being bad news for Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's reelection chances next year, and good news for Bill Peduto and other Pittsburgh progressives.

Here's a counterargument from somebody inside the campaign of another member of the city's House caucus, Adam Ravenstahl:

I just wanted to send some highlights about our race since some out there are saying the Gainey and Molchany win is proof that the 'progressives' can win. I think Gainey's win makes the mayor stronger because even though Luke stayed out of that race, Ed is close with the Ravenstahl administration.

Even with Mark [Purcell] sending 3 negative mailers, a robocall from Franco Harris, and a 'positive' fold out mailer about eliminating the property tax, our campaign stayed completely positive and sent less mail than Purcell and Adam won with 56% of the vote.

We knocked on thousands of doors and ran a volunteer based grassroots campaign. While I think we political 'pundits' like to oversimplify results and what it means to certain factions of the political establishment there are some things I take away from the race.

The good news for the mayor is that Adam won with 63% of the vote in the Northside and 60% of the city vote overall.

The good news for us is that we won West View and Reserve Township. Adam's message crosses city borders and that is good as we move forward with the redistricting process.