He has to keep himself visible through the summer at community festivals, neighborhood meetings, antiviolence marches and the like.
He wants to continue to weigh in on major issues such as the future of the city schools and to meet with visiting Democratic political heavyweights.
And after the buzz he felt after only a few hours on the road, it's a safe bet that he'll be making more such trips, perhaps to New York, Chicago, Boston and Atlanta.
"It's important to get out of the city and talk to other government people, to business people, to see what they're doing," Nutter said on the train back to Philadelphia on Friday. "You pick up new ideas, variations of old ideas, new ways of coordinating things. For me, there's something about meeting with people, learning in a way that's personal and conversational, that makes it real . . .
"I feel more than ever that we're going to have to drastically change the culture of the government and raise citizens' expectations about what they can expect in service," he said. "Because if we can do it, those two things are going to drive each other."
