Congratulations Pittsburgh!

Congratulations Pittsburgh, You've (or yinz/yunz, in Pittsburghese) taken the first important step towards a two party system...

GOP mayoral candidate DeSantis unfazed by obstacles

Mark DeSantis

By Jeremy Boren
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, May 31, 2007

Mark DeSantis sat in his sparse South Side office Wednesday, cradling his company's latest investment -- a plastic sphere of tiny wireless cameras called a "MobileFusion Ball."

The prototype might one day help soldiers or police officers safely survey a room filled with gunmen and hostages.

But DeSantis, soon to mobilize a political campaign, knows it will take a lot more than stealth technology to unseat Democratic Mayor Luke Ravenstahl.

A day after learning he captured enough Republican write-in votes to challenge Ravenstahl in November, DeSantis said he is undaunted by the young mayor's enormous popularity and fundraising advantage, the Democrats' voter registration dominance in Pittsburgh, or the fact that a Republican hasn't been mayor since 1933.

story continues below

<a href="http://ads.pittsburghlive.com/RealMedia/ads/click_lx.ads/pittsburghlive.com/pittsburghtrib/s_510260.html/811917349/Position1/OasDefault/dollarbankP1R3_June07/DB_nothing_300x250.txt/34363131626538613436356662363430?http://dollarads.h2media.com/dollarads/nothingtohide/"><IMG SRC="http://ads.pittsburghlive.com/RealMedia/ads/Creatives/OasDefault/dollarbankP1R3_June07/http://ads.pittsburghlive.com/richads/dollarbank/nothingtohide/300x250_PL.gif" WIDTH=300 HEIGHT=250 BORDER=0></a>


"We need profound reform, and that really crosses any party affiliation or party lines," said DeSantis, 47, of Downtown, who founded the technology consulting firm Formation3. "Pittsburgh has some very serious problems."

He notes that a typical major U.S. city spends 12 percent of its budget to pay off long-term debt. Pittsburgh spends about double that.

"The debt and liabilities are really off the scale," he said. "Unless it's addressed right now, directly, on a grand scale, it will overwhelm this city. It will overwhelm our ability to take care of ourselves. And to me that's a big deal."

Shrinking the size of government to bring it more in line with the city's declining population, and combining city and Allegheny County services, are some of the issues he plans to discuss during his campaign.

DeSantis intends to rely on his deep background in business and politics, which Ravenstahl, 27, of Summer Hill, lacks.

DeSantis worked under President George H.W. Bush as a senior policy analyst in The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the U.S. Department of Commerce, and served as an aide to the late U.S. Sen. John Heinz. He worked as a management consultant with a technology consulting firm in Virginia.

Ravenstahl, a one-term city councilman who inherited his job in September when Mayor Bob O'Connor died, said he would take any Republican challenger seriously.

"I think if a good enough candidate came forward with good ideas, I think anybody can win," Ravenstahl said yesterday.

He said he decided not to wage a campaign to capture the majority of GOP write-in votes in the May 15 primary in an attempt to run unopposed in the general election.

"I'm a Democrat," Ravenstahl said. "I didn't feel I wanted to pursue that at this time."

Party pride didn't deter another Democrat, county Chief Executive Dan Onorato, from pursuing Republican voters. Onorato, who will run unopposed in November, used an automated phone bank to woo Republicans. They rewarded him with 1,844 write-in votes, nearly triple the 623 netted by Matthew Drozd Jr., the son of County Councilman Matt Drozd.

A preliminary tally gave DeSantis 910 write-in votes, compared to 294 for Ravenstahl and well more than the 250 DeSantis needed to get on the ballot.

Ravenstahl said he would debate his opponent.

"Sure, I'm willing to talk about the issues," he said. "If I feel he's serious enough about his candidacy, it's something I'd be open to doing."

City and county Republicans must get serious about DeSantis' candidacy to pull off what many consider an improbable -- if not impossible -- victory, said Jerry Shuster, a University of Pittsburgh political communications professor.

"All of the Republicans have to coalesce around him," Shuster said. "They have to be able to put together the nucleus of a campaign team that handles everything from low-level door knocking to high-profile fundraising."

Ravenstahl has a big head start, with $695,905 in his campaign account. DeSantis has zero.

But he has been involved in winning Republican causes before, as a volunteer with Jim Roddey's successful 1999 campaign for county chief executive. He worked for Roddey's transition team.

Roddey said DeSantis is intelligent and articulate, understands politics, and loves Pittsburgh.

He believes DeSantis is running in order to highlight the city's serious financial woes, which "have been swept under the rug."

"I think Mark would favor cutting the size of city government, combining city services with county government and cutting the size of the fire department," Roddey said. "He has a lot of ideas that are sound, but are not going to be popular with the labor unions."

Mark F. DeSantis

Political party: Republican

Age: 47

Background: Born in Oakland and reared in Sharpsville, Mercer County.

Family: Single

Occupation: President of Formation3, a technology consulting firm.

Education: Graduate of Kennedy Christian High School in Hermitage; bachelor's degree in American studies and master's degree in business administration, from the University of Dayton; master's degree in technology management from American University, Washington; doctorate in public policy from George Mason University, Fairfax, Va.

Background: Was a senior policy analyst in The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the U.S. Department of Commerce under President George H.W. Bush; served as aide to the late U.S. Sen. John Heinz; worked as a management consultant with Booz, Allen and Hamilton, a technology consulting firm in McClean, Va.

Jeremy Boren can be reached at jboren@tribweb.com or (412) 765-2312.