In fact, this is the first contested Republican primary race for any city office that anyone can remember since 1991, when Frank L. Rizzo beat former District Attorney Ronald Castille, the GOP's endorsed candidate, and Sam Katz for the mayoral nomination. Rizzo died two months later.
There's more. In a party not known for diversity, one candidate is openly gay. Another is Korean American.
For comic relief, there is even an Andy Reid impersonator.
The race also occurs against a backdrop of a declining city Republican Party whose members are warring among themselves and whose registered voters are outnumbered by Democrats more than 6-1 in Philadelphia.
And incumbent Frank Rizzo - son of one of the city's most famous politicians and long one of the top GOP vote-getters - is vulnerable because his participation in Philadelphia's controversial Deferred Option Retirement Plan has angered some voters. It cost him his party's endorsement this year.
The Council at-large race could even affect who becomes Council president if GOP Councilman Brian O'Neill is reelected and he and the at-large Republican candidates decide to vote as a bloc, Democratic political consultant Larry Ceisler said.
One of the GOP seats is available because incumbent Jack Kelly is retiring.
DROP has weakened Rizzo, but polls suggest he will win. Name recognition and a strong record of constituent service make him hard to beat. In the 2007 primary, 15,451 people voted for Rizzo, ahead of the No. 2 vote-getter, Kelly, with 12,354.
But DROP, which allows city employees to take home large lump-sum pension checks, is a real threat. The program requires employees to retire when they get the check, but Rizzo intends to use a legal loophole that allows him to run for reelection, retire for a day, and return to office if he wins.
