November 6-12, 2003

pretzel logic

Fear Factor

Double time: Granted a second term in office, Street may owe a lot to a certain president. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

by Howard Altman

Or: How Street learned to stop worrying and love the bug.

At the end of the campaign, even John Franklin Street is amazed by the numbers. "I could not possibly have imagined that," the mayor says moments before he leaves his last mayoral victory party.

Not even Street figured that he would win re-election by more than 75,000 votes.

Last time around, Street nudged Katz by a whisker of less than 10,000 votes.

Was Street 65,000 votes better a candidate this time around?

Or was something else going on?

Let’s assume that the true meaning of Election 2003 is somewhere in the middle.

That may be generous, but at 5 a.m. the Wednesday after one of the most bruising elections I have ever covered, that’s the way I feel.

Meaning by my calculus, tens of thousands of Philadelphians voted to return the ever-irascible John Street to City Hall for reasons other than his record, which has some highs and some lows, as have been reported here and elsewhere, ad nauseam.

That other reason, of course, is the bug.

I am certain of this not so much because I believe that Ashcroft planted it as a dirty trick. He didn’t.

I am certain of it because it is the type of thing that Ashcroft would do if he could.

And tens of thousands of Philadelphians voted for Street because they also believe that Ashcroft would pull such a stunt if he could.

Let’s not take away from what John Street has accomplished. Traveling more than 100 miles in more than 13 hours on Election Day, I talked to many, many people who said their lives have improved since Street took office.

But even the mayor acknowledges that his astonishing victory was based in no small measure on fear.

Of Ashcroft and the Bush White House.

Of failed national economic and social policies and a stunning disregard for the Constitution.

"If I were the Bush White House, I’d be very concerned about this," Street says when I ask him if the 75,000-vote victory margin is a message to the White House. "There -- I am absolutely certain people out there decided they were not going to take a chance in helping re-elect the president and I think the work we did in the last four years made it easier for people. A lot of people really do like the Neighborhood Transformation Initiative and the work on the schools and the work we have done to make neighborhoods safer and cleaner. It did not take much to push them over the line."

All it took was a couple of tiny bugs.

The bad news here is that perhaps Philadelphia has once again settled.

The good news is that, while certainly no great inspiration for mankind, party has trumped race in Philadelphia. Despite all the talk of a burgeoning racial divide, whites proved they could support a black candidate, even one as cantankerous as Street.

Tens of thousands of Democrats of all flavors found that, given the current denizen of the White House -- a president-select who lied about the reasons to fight Iraq, whose administration compromised national security for political payback -- they could not stomach voting for a Republican.

Even one as nominal as Sam Katz.

They could not stomach it for two reasons.

For better or worse, tens of thousands of Philadelphians put things into perspective.

Street gives millions in public contracts to friends and relatives, but he never had to start a war for patronage. Bush gives millions to friends, but at the far greater cost of billions of taxpayer dollars and thousands of American, British and Iraqi lives.

Then there’s the economy.

Street was deftly able to pound home that Bush has ruined our economy (all while his TV ad campaign, perhaps one of the best of all time, reminded voters of his accomplishments).

Katz never helped himself with his own pitiful ad campaign and he was never really able to deliver his message.

But once the bugs were discovered, it really didn’t matter what Katz did. Or that his election would by no means ensure the president’s re-election.

Philadelphians’ distaste for Dubya was too strong a force to overcome.

"Freedom was founded here and it was re-established here," says Vernon Price, my neighbor and ward leader, as the last of the stragglers mill about the ballroom.

A not uncommon contemporary Philadelphia philosophy that is good news for Street.

And better news for mushmouth Howard Dean or whatever schlub the Democrats put up against Bush.