Reportedly, Alderman Ted Hess-Mahan was caught off-guard when Village 14 broke the news Friday that the five-term alderman at-large would be challenging Mayor Setti Warren in his bid for re-election. According to Hess-Mahan, he’s still getting organized and has yet to form a campaign team. Based on the reasons he articulated for running, he clearly hadn’t refined his message when the news broke. Ted is definitely smart enough to know that he needs a more compelling platform than his desire to require a strategic plan and change policy around awarding affordable housing grants. Whatever his reasons for running, Hess-Mahan needs to state them in a way that doesn’t make his entry into the race look gratuitous. Otherwise he risks looking either petty or just plain suicidal.

Unless, of course, he wins. In which case his decision to run is brilliant because he’ll have beaten everybody else who wants to be mayor by four years.

Or maybe a win for Hess-Mahan will be defined by not losing by a large margin. If he gets his name out there now, is he getting a head start on the 2017 mayoral race?