Matt McClure
4th District Council candidate, Democrat
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The bait dangled on the line, but leaning over the bar at Billy Murphy's Irish Saloonery in East Falls with a Guinness and a basket of fries, Matt McClure wouldn't bite. Earlier in the day, incumbent Councilwoman Carol Campbell got some bad press for pushing to have a school in her district named after her father (between the lines, it seemed as if she'd hold up construction until she got her selfish way).
While most politicians would've taken the easy swipe, McClure did no such thing. Disparaging others, he apologetically noted, wasn't for him. Which makes sense, considering the 34-year-old Philly native — born and raised near Fifth and Spruce, "We were the folks they couldn't kick out of the neighborhood, the people who didn't know it was Society Hill" — is positioning himself as an independent thinker who believes elected officials can actually work for the greater good and, if elected, a politician who will "vote my conscience."
"When you go around the country and see other cities, Philly stands out. This is a great city!" McClure said, poking the bar with his index finger for emphasis. "But then, look at City Hall and it's a joke. We need to raise expectations. We need to stop acting like a banana republic."
A real estate lawyer at Ballard Spahr and father of two young sons with his college-sweetheart wife, Kelly (they met in the community service office at Loyola College in Baltimore), McClure said he'd champion working families and would have a full-time liaison in his office to deal solely with education issues (it's the centerpiece of his platform).
Having just finished a campaign event, McClure shifted between stump speech ("I like people and I like this city, so I would love this job") and bar conversation ("Everybody tells me how good it is, but I've never seen The Wire. We just got DirecTV. All we had before were those antennae, you know, the rabbit-ear ones").
Sitting at a patron-photo-laden pub that he calls "the heart and soul of East Falls," we get through a second beer and chat up a bartender with whom it's clear McClure has spoken before. But since he has to be back on the campaign trail at 8 a.m., we call it an interview around 9:30 p.m.
Having left more than half of the fries untouched, and discreetly covering the cost of the second round, McClure mentioned that if you don't like shaking hands and asking for votes, politics is the wrong business for you. Sure, he can lapse into sound-bite speak, but it was easy to tell, when he strolled around the bar to chat up fellow patrons/voters, his passion isn't an act. After all, he'd take a pay cut to join council.
"Here's what makes me different: I don't want to stay there the rest of my life. Two, three terms and then back to practicing law. We don't need an entire council of career politicians," said McClure, the 38th Ward Democratic committeeman. "I may work at a big law firm, but I'm a row-house kid."
For more on McClure, go to www.mcclureforcouncil.com.
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