Photo licensed under Creative Commons, courtesy Flickr user hao$

Now that Providence Mayor David Cicilline is running for Congress, who’s running for mayor? Let’s review: John Lombardi, Steven Constantino, Daniel Harrop, Christopher Young, Angel Taveras and—you? Well, one local group wants to think about it.

The group is called UnCaucus, and they’ve been reaching out to potential candidates in an unusual way. Just ask Dan Seitz, a freelance writer from Boston.

“I’ve been looking for a job, and I went through Craigslist,” Seitz says.

There was one ad that caught his eye: “Wanted – mayor of Providence. So I just go in, I click the ad, and I decided, ‘What the hell?’”

A portion of the Craigslist ad posted to networks around the country by UnCaucus; click to view full ad

Seitz is one of many who responded to the Craigslist ad. It says, “This position reports to the citizens of Providence, Rhode Island. We will be watching.” Seitz says he applied on a lark, and so far hasn’t heard back.

“I’m not sure why, it might have something to do with my total lack of political experience,” he says.

But Melissa Withers, one of the founding members of UnCaucus, says she supports out-of-staters who want to apply, even if they’re not going to move to Providence to campaign.

“To have their ideas put into the mix does challenge the usual suspects and the current candidates to step it up a little bit and be more creative in how they communicate with the citizenry.”

Withers says right now, the system is dysfunctional, with candidates everyone expected promising to run within hours of Mayor Cicilline’s announcement. After they vote, she says, most people just tune out.

“The political system here is very disconnected from the citizenry,” Withers says. “If you’re not a system insider, it’s very unfun to be involved.”

“We need to see ourselves as more than voters. We’re really hiring managers, and it’s our job to find the right person for the gig. If you were hiring someone to work for you in a business, or to a job for you in your home, you would be pretty rigorous, and you would want to make sure that you were getting the best candidate possible. You wouldn’t expect a short-list of suspects… It could very well be that one of the current candidates could be the right person for the job, but I think it’s short-sighted to make that assumption straight out of the gate.”

It makes sense, then, that the Craigslist ad calls for people who can disrupt the status quo. So, has anyone responded seriously to the ad?

Withers says the answer is yes, and suggested that we talk to Carrie Marsh.

Marsh, who runs a non-profit here in Providence, hasn’t made any official announcements yet. But after submitting her resume to UnCaucus, she says she’s considering entering the fray.

“I’m all in favor of having young, emerging leaders and residents in general get intrigued and involved in their community, and particularly in elections,” Marsh says. “I’ve never run for office, but I have always been very much involved in community organization and participation and development and I’ve also worked for city government, for the city of Portland, Maine, so I have some experience with what it’s like to work with people from outside.”

A partial screencap of the group's Facebook fan page

Marsh found out about the group through Facebook, where UnCaucus has drawn a modest following to its fan page. But despite the group’s web-savviness, Withers says their real coming-out party will be next month, when they host what she calls a “listening party.”

“All the candidates, both declared and undeclared, have agreed to participate,” Withers says. “And what they’ll be doing is sitting and listening while citizens get to talk about what they think is important for the next mayor. And the candidates aren’t allowed to speak at all. It’s kind of an un-debate.”

With so many months still to go until the election, whether or not UnCaucus will have any effect is, frankly, a crapshoot. But Withers says it’s their game to lose.

“For all of us, the election is just this thing that’s going to happen this fall. What’s far more important to all of us is that we see our little city as having the opportunity to create a new model for civic engagement. If anyone can do it, we can.”

So yes, it’s an election year, just like all the election years that have come before. And there’s not that much at stake—just, you know, the future and stuff. Seriously, though, even if you aren’t running for mayor, it’s worth your while to find some way to get involved; you don’t need to campaign for anything to make a difference.

To find out more about UnCaucus, point your browsers to http://uncaucus.org/. The BRU Brief airs weekly on 95.5 FM, recapping the week’s top local, national, and international stories, and taking a closer look at the issues of the day in Southern New England. Tune in on Monday nights at 11:00, or stream live at news.wbru.com.