Republicans Search For Candidate in City Council Race After Gresham Pulls Out

Republicans continue to search for a candidate to run for the Eighth District City Council seat after a former teacher they had selected dropped out.

 said this weekend that Viveca Gresham had been selected to run for the seat—which is being vacated by incumbent Donna Reed Miller, —by the Republican Eighth Councilmanic District caucus last week.

As early as Friday, Gresham, who also ran for Rep. John Myers' 201st District state representative post in 2010, said she was ready to run. The Republican is a former Democrat.

But Gresham said today she isn't running, citing a potential lack of funding after her last campaign.

That left Republicans scrambling to find another candidate to fill the void in a race that already boasts and is expected to attract even more in the near future.

"It's just unfortunate, because she would have been a good candidate," Tucker said today.

Tucker said there has not been a black Republican elected to City Council in 30 years, and he said Republicans would like to see that happen again.

The party is focusing on Northwest Philadelphia as an area where such a candidate could be elected.

"It's an opportunity to do that, but we have to organize and get all the tradiitonal sources—the unions and others—focused," Tucker said. "That's what we're trying to do—raise that awareness."

Northwest Philadelphia is an attractive area for Republicans to zero in on, he said, because it has, in Tucker's words, "a fairly educated electorate ... that is open to dialogue and discussion about fairness and competitiveness and willing to look beyond the label to get somebody that's willing to represent the people."

Tucker said the party has a number of other candidates in mind who could be interested in running.