Compare the pedigrees. Democrat Michael Nutter, the overwhelming favorite, is Wharton, finance, fine threads. Taubenberger is Penn State, soil management, Ben Franklin neckties.
With Democrats outnumbering Republicans in this town five to one, Graham Lee, chairman of the political science department at St. Joseph's University, puts Taubenberger's odds at 1,000 to 1.
Sisyphus had a better shot.
No matter. Alfred Wilhem Taubenberger - part Don Quixote, part Willy Loman - has come to play. Attention must be paid.
"My candidacy is serious," says Taubenberger, president of the Greater Northeast Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce since 1991 and a longtime GOP soldier. "I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't think I was going to win. I'm in it to win it.
"My odds are getting better. People are getting to know me. I'm the underdog. Maybe I'm the super underdog. Underdogs have won before."
There are underdogs and there are underdogs.
Nutter, 50, widely respected across racial and party lines, has the backing of the city's Democratic machine. Taubenberger, 54, was drafted because "he was breathing, he was Republican, and he was willing to do it," says a local wag.
"I don't see how he has any chance at all," says Republican Sam Katz, runner-up to John Street in 2003 and 1999. "That doesn't mean he doesn't deserve to have a chance."
Chances take money in politics, and Taubenberger's war chest resembles an empty ice bucket.
Katz doesn't see that changing. "I think the community at large made a judgment after the last election that Republicans couldn't win," he says. "I couldn't beat a Democrat with $20 million in two elections."
