PITTSBURGH - Corey O'Connor, 21, youngest son of Pittsburgh's late Mayor Bob O'Connor, announced today that he will challenge 26-year old Luke Ravenstahl, who has been mayor for the past ten days, in the next mayoral election. With the same high spirits he displayed when he led mourners in a chorus of the Steeler Polka at his father's funeral, O'Connor declared that the city has "grown stagnant" under Ravenstahl. "He's been in office for almost two weeks but I can assure you he can't point to a single accomplishment during all that time." Pulling out a terrible towel and whipping it around his head, he ratcheted up the volume of his voice: "In fact, this mayor has torn down everything my father built up. My father wanted to redd up the city; but under Mr. Ravenstahl, the city is unredd up, or not redd up, or not redded up. Mr. Ravenstahl has led us into a period of prolonged and sustained malaise and despair." O'Connor calls his program The New Frontier. "It's time, at long last, to pass the torch to a new generation of Pittsburghers," he declared.
O'Connor repeatedly poked fun at what he called Ravenstahl's "advanced" age, sprinkling his announcement with references to "Rip Van Ravenstahl" and "Metamucil Luke." At one point he derided the mayor as "someone who was born back in the Carter administration." Then he looked directly into the camera and addressed the voters at home: "You need to ask yourself: Are you better off today than you were when he took office?" O'Connor said that he could "rattle off statistics" to prove his point but mentioned only one: the price of gas has gone up one cent in the ten days since Ravenstahl took office. "Is that the kind of city you want to live in, where you're paying more for gas, instead of less?" When a reporter corrected him and advised that, in fact, the price of gas had decreased, O'Connor immediately pulled out the terrible towel and waved it above his head while screaming in a high-pitched voice.
Meanwhile, Ravenstahl's campaign unveiled the mayor's first television ad that will stress his experience and seasoning. It is called, "Tested by Fire: Ten days in the Cauldron of the Mayor's Office."
