Hey, Philly mayoral candidates: Stop playing nice!

Philadelphia mayoral candidate Allan Domb recently dropped an ad where he took a swipe at Mayor Jim Kenney and his now infamous “I want out” moment.

Props to Domb for coming out swinging first, but as I watched the ad I wondered when the rest of the field might jump in the ring.

For as much of an easy target as our “so sad sometimes” lame-duck mayor routinely makes himself, Kenney isn’t running for another term.

I’ve been surprised that this bloated group of candidates hasn’t spent more time setting their sights on one another. It’s not like they haven’t been giving each other plenty of ammunition.

There’s been a lot going on — the Eagles, Chinese balloons, the toxic cloud over the Ohio-Pennsylvania border — so you could be forgiven if you missed out on some major developments in the city’s mayoral race.

Allow me to recap:

Amen Brown, it turns out, not only doesn’t know much about running the city’s finances, but he may not know much about running his own.

Jeff Brown has been diagnosed with “white savior” syndrome and drew the ire of former first lady Michelle Obama, who took exception to the grocery magnate for touting his White House ties in a recent ad.

Helen Gym, a favorite of the city’s progressives, has had to fend off accusations that she’s a hypocrite after denouncing the Union League one week, then showing up inside the joint the next.

And has anybody seen Mike Stack?

Mind you, no one is calling for ad hominem attack ads here — but we need something that can start a real citywide discussion about policy plans, past performance, and potential.

I’m no campaign manager, I told Jennifer Stromer-Galley, an expert on political campaigns. But if I was, I’d be whaling away at my competition, or at least keeping a “hit list” for future reference.

I’d called on Stromer-Galley, a Syracuse University professor, this week to talk ads, messaging, and timing. You know, all the things that factor into picking our next mayor.

There is no question that the rules of the game have changed over the last decade, partly because of Donald Trump, Stromer-Galley told me, but there is still a playbook.

In the beginning, especially during crowded primaries where candidates are “cut from the same cloth,” their focus is mostly on introducing (or reintroducing) themselves to the public: the condo king, the pastor, the progressive ...

Until someone gets the official party endorsement, candidates are usually careful not to engage in too much intramural mudslinging.

“Americans, in general, dislike negativity and can punish a candidate who goes on the attack,” agreed Erika Franklin Fowler, professor of government at Wesleyan University and the codirector of the Wesleyan Media Project.

In most elections, candidates from the same party also don’t want to give the opposing side any additional ammo. Party above all — in case anyone still wondered why so much of our democracy is broken.

That reluctance to engage in any friendly fire may account for why Domb focused on Kenney in a new ad and other candidates are still mostly playing footsie with one another.

But worrying about the opposing side is not so much of a factor in Philly: Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 6-1, so the mayor’s race will be all but decided in the primary.

I don’t see much risk in hitting early and hard — and even if there was, holding folks accountable shouldn’t be a risk — especially when candidates are revealing themselves in ways that speak to their character and ability.

As the race tightens and the primary gets closer, Stromer-Galley said the vibe will likely change and candidates will start throwing more elbows. But it’s still early, and voters aren’t necessarily paying attention yet.

That’s where I hope Philadelphia voters go against the playbook, even in the sleepy early days of this race.

I hope we Philadelphians are paying a lot of attention to these early missteps, gaffes, and faux pas — because each one speaks louder than any slick campaign ad or email currently clogging our inboxes.

We are three months from the primary that will all but determine who our next mayor will be, and each candidate has already presented themself as the antidote to the Kenney administration. But not being Kenney is not enough — not in the poorest big city in the nation, where nearly a quarter of residents live in poverty, and where gun violence goes mostly unchecked.

In 2015, the city had more than three-quarters of a million registered Democratic voters, but just 234,000 of them cast ballots in the mayoral primary.

That can’t happen again.

We have to show up and vote — and not for what the candidates say they are, or who we wish they are, but for who they’re showing themselves to actually be.