A New Day, A New Way For The Mayor To Crack A Joke

Mayors love a good joke to warm up a crowd.  Some mayors even love a bad joke.  Take Mayor Street.  Please.  Street spent eight years telling the same joke, which usually drew polite laughter from the audience and eye-rolling from the press.  The joke:  "I'll be brief [pregnant pause] no matter how long it takes."  Ba-dum-dump.

Mayor Nutter seems to prefer situational comedy as opposed to the repetitive set piece.  Speaking this afternoon to the Philadelphia Bar Association's quarterly luncheon, Nutter described his humor this way: "I'm just a sarcastic kind of smartass."  Did the attorneys need evidence?  Nutter followed up with this wisecrack about the lawyers in the audience who had contributed the maximum amount allowed by law to his campaign last year: "If we've not been in touch with you this year, we will be shortly."