Who wants to be the vice mayor?

Mayor-elect Mark Mallory says he will finally announce his vice mayor sometime before he's sworn in on Thursday. But the three weeks since the election have given the pundits plenty of time to ruminate about who his pick might be, and speculation has become a favorite parlor game in and around 801 Plum St.

After saying initially that all nine members of City Council would be given equal consideration, Mallory has defined the job description in such a way that some council members would appear more qualified than others.

A handicapper's guide:

• The big chair: "Whoever's appointed vice mayor has to be ready to become mayor of the city if something happens to me. I take that seriously," Mallory said. If prior legislative experience is a significant factor -- and Mallory suggested during the campaign that David Pepper's four years on council made him barely qualified to be mayor -- it's hard to see how he could appoint one of the newcomers. Those with the most experience on City Council are, in order, Jim Tarbell, John Cranley, David C. Crowley, Chris Monzel and Laketa Cole.
  

• A full-time job: "I do see an enhanced role for the vice mayor," Mallory said, seeking "someone who communicates a lot more with council members" and "reaches into the community a lot more." That's starting to sound like a full-time job. Council members who are retired, self-employed or who don't have another job include Cole, Crowley, Tarbell and Cecil Thomas.
  
  
• Party affiliation: Mallory has said he sees the vice mayor as having a "policy role," helping to formulate proposals in the mayor's office before they come to City Council. That criterion would seem to favor Democrats (Jeff Berding, Cole, Cranley, Crowley, Thomas) or perhaps a Democratic-leaning Charterite (Tarbell).
  
  
• Politics: While Mallory hasn't talked about it openly, there are also political considerations. No mayor -- with Charlie Luken as the exception -- would want a vice mayor likely to challenge him for the mayor's office in four years. Tarbell is term-limited in 2007, and Crowley, term-limited in 2009, is unlikely to harbor secret mayoral ambitions. Ticket-balancing usually plays a role in this kind of thing, but all of his likely choices are either white or female. A top vote-getter is also handy, and Cranley, Tarbell and Cole were in the top third of their class.
  
  
• Desire: No one has lobbied harder for the job -- at least in public -- than Cole. "My case is based on, we need a female in a leadership position. We have a male mayor. We have seven male members of council who are male, and the city manager is male." She's also the president pro-tem of City Council -- a forgotten office that makes her third in line to the mayor's chair.
  

If you're scoring at home, that puts Cole, Crowley and Tarbell at the top of the list of vice mayor contenders. Only Mallory knows for sure.