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Jesus and the 2015 mayor's race

A truly progressive, pro-teacher candidate rocks the Chicago's mayor's race...can it happen in Philadelphia?

Of all the people running for mayor in 2015, no one is offering ideas that are bolder and more progressive. If elected, he would freeze charter schools, re-open some of the many neighborhood schools that have been closed in recent years, and work to restore an elected school board. On hot-button policing issues, his ideas are truly radical. He would put more officers on the street -- 1,000 more, in fact -- but also proposes a huge shift in the way that law-enforcement works. There would be a new emphasis on conflict resolution, and keeping folks out of jail (saving tax dollars in the process). He backs a $15-an-hour minimum wage, but he'd curb abuses of tax break programs for big business.

No candidate for mayor has a resume like his, either. He was raised by parents who came to America when he was 10, in search of a better life in the city's then-booming factories. He's survived a lifetime of rough-and-tumble ward politics and taken on the city's corrupt, entrenched Democratic machine and won. Now in the mayor's race, he's doing battle with a candidate endorsed by only by the city's wealthy business elites but by President Barack Obama.

And the crazy thing is that he just might win.

He sounds like a dream candidate, and maybe he is...

....for Chicago.

But while it's 1,000 miles away, the stunning success so far of Windy City mayoral candidate Jesus "Chuy" Garcia, an outsider who's been a city councilman and county commissioner, who entered the race late, raised very few dollars, and yet has forced a runoff with powerful incumbent mayor Rahm Emanuel -- yes, the former White House chief of staff, that Rahm Emanuel -- has valuable lessons for the Philadelphia's mayor's race.

On Tuesday night, Garcia -- who only entered the race when the first choice of Chicago progressives, teachers' union leader Karen Lewis, was diagnosed with brain cancer -- grabbed 34 percent of the vote to finish second in the multi-candidate race. Emanuel, the current one-term mayor and national political star, got just 45 percent -- and any pundit will tell you there's nothing more toxic than an incumbent who can't get 50 percent of the vote. Now the upstart Garcia has everyone's attention -- and six weeks to make his case in a race that will be getting huge attention.

No city should pay closer attention than Philadelphia -- where a half-dozen or so less-than-stellar candidates are now vying to replace Mayor Nutter next January.

For one thing, this shows that teachers can make a difference. In Chicago, Garcia's success was driven by the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) and its national parent, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), which provided thousands of eager volunteers and donated hundreds of thousands of dollars. The other big race on the AFT's radar screen in 2015 is Philadelphia. The national president, Randi Weingarten, has spent considerable time here, believes that unionized teachers played a key role in electing Gov. Wolf last November; the union hopes to make a huge splash with an endorsement next month.

Second of all, Garcia's success suggests that the playbook for governing big cities is changing, rapidly. In Chicago, critics have labeled Emanuel "Mayor 1%," and 55 percent of Democrats said this week they don't want an encore. Since the Rendell years, Philadelphia's been governed by a slightly more benign business-friendly consensus that was great for Center City skyscrapers but lousy for neighborhood schools. Voters are clamoring for something different. A candidate who "borrows" Garcia's playbook could do very well here in May.

But Philadelphia also isn't quite like Chicago -- there's no incumbent in the race, certainly not a cartoon-villain elitist like Emanuel, and no one here has quite the same progressive cred as Garcia. Former councilman Jim Kenney has adopted the most progressive platform so far, but legitimate questions remain about his ties to some non-progressive forces like pro-charters electricians union boss John Dougherty. Yet nothing seems fixed in stone in this Philadelphia election, and Garcia's bold platform -- and the success of new very liberal mayors like New York's Bill DiBlasio, who's kept murders at record low levels while ending the abuses of stop-and-frisk (while Philly hasn't) -- can serve as a road map. Maybe Tuesday's Chicago vote can be a come-to....um, Garcia moment for Philadelphia's City Hall wannabes.