Mayor Nutter 3.0? No thanks.

This week’s big political news in Philadelphia was simultaneously unsurprising and uninspiring: Former Mayor Michael Nutter may make a run at his old job.

Considering some of Nutter’s increasingly pointed critiques of city leadership since leaving office, a recent op-ed he wrote in The Inquirer about the traits the next mayor should possess, and a new podcast titled How To Really Run a City — subtle, real subtle — who among those in the city’s political scene didn’t anticipate a potential resurrection?

We are, after all, a place that loves nothing more than to recycle and romanticize our past leaders — usually while wondering why the city has experienced so little progress.

And historically, not much is held against Philadelphia politicians looking to revive or revise their electoral fortunes: not corruption, not incompetence, not incarceration. Not even death.

Frank Rizzo, the former police commissioner and twice-elected mayor, ran for a third term in 1991 but died before the general election. He’s been gone for more than 30 years. But plenty of Philadelphians still pine for him and those highly subjective “good old days.” It’s not hard to imagine that if the OG of recycled Philly politicians were to return from the afterlife to announce his bid for mayor — at the newly de-boxed Columbus statue, of course — he’d get more than his fair share of votes.

For now, though, it is Nutter that some in the city’s business and civic community are reportedly trying to draft into what’s looking like the largest field of mayoral candidates in decades.

And even if they’re not actively pushing for a rerun, they’re not exactly shutting it down either.

Bob Brady, the head of the city’s Democratic Party, told WHYY that the suggestion of Nutter’s return signals that people aren’t happy with the current — at nine and counting — rather bloated options and want an alternative.

“He has a right to run,” Brady said of Nutter, adding that there’s also “a draft movement out there to have me run for mayor and I told them to forget about that. That isn’t happening.”

Brady lost in a crowded 2007 primary to none other than Nutter, a wonkish, bespectacled Wharton School grad, who after 15 years in City Council was considered a long shot.

Sixteen years — and two Nutter terms later — we’re being told that this current crop of candidates isn’t really cutting it, because … wait for it … they’re all a bunch of long shots.

But consider where all this so-called conventional wisdom comes from: political “experts” who are often wildly wrong about what voters want. (See: the supposed Red Wave of 2022, Trump vs. Hillary, etc.) Poli-bros who are trying to get people into the idea of Mayor Nutter 3.0, instead of, say, taking a bunch of other candidates — including some clearly qualified women — seriously.

It reeks of irony — and sexism.

The four women candidates who’ve announced so far — former Council members Maria Quiñones Sánchez, Helen Gym, and Cherelle Parker and former City Controller Rebecca Rhynhart — are all established and qualified to run.

And yet the answer from the city’s supposed kingmakers is to (checks notes) dust off a dude who first ran for Council in 1987, before roughly half of the city’s population was born?

So far Nutter has been mum on the matter; he’s reportedly out of the country and unavailable.

Despite his critiques and concerns about the city’s current leadership — many of them valid — Nutter could (and should) put an end to all of this speculation today.

Say you’re flattered, Mr. Nutter — that of course you’ve got thoughts about all of the imperfect things having to do with a city you led from 2008 to 2016 (imperfectly, I might add). But remind everyone that a true leader wants to see the next generation rise and have its moment. (You might also point out that it would be nice to see the city’s 100th mayor emerge from one of those exceedingly competent women already in the field.)

No doubt Nutter had some wins during his tenure: Philly’s population grew for the first time in half a century. The murder rate dropped, as did the rate of violent crime. Pope Francis came to town in 2015, and so did the Democratic Party, which nominated Hillary Clinton for president at its national convention the following year.

But there were also some big misses: His contentious relationship with Council harmed the city, as did his proposal to close libraries — a move that he later called the “absolute worst decision” in his 20 years of elected office. Then, there was his choice of a problematic inner circle, including Mark McDonald, a press secretary once dubbed “McUseless,” and Desiree Peterkin Bell, a chief aide who in 2019 pleaded guilty to stealing and misusing funds from a city-operated nonprofit.

In an example of his misplaced loyalty, Nutter threw a fit in 2015 and demanded a different headline on a Daily News column about an anonymous spokesperson for Mayor-elect Jim Kenney refusing to entertain the idea of retaining Peterkin Bell.

It read: “Kenney to Nutter aide: Bye, Felicia.”

The headline was changed. But the now-dated way of dismissing someone was relevant then — and it’s relevant now for anyone trying to resurrect their glory days on the back of a city that’s desperately in need of a new face, a new voice, and new ideas.