Fishtown Comes Through

Thought they wouldn't vote for a black guy?

by Isaiah Thompson

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Published: Nov 5, 2008

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Michael T. Regan DOING WHAT THEY CAN: Students in Point Breeze take to the streets with homemade signs encouraging neighbors to vote. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Ten minutes before the polls closed, while AJ Thomson was pacing back and forth in front of Penn Home in Fishtown, his adorable 4-year-old daughter clinging to his feet, a late voter showed up and asked if the polls were still open.

Thomson, the Democratic committeeman for the 11th division of the 18th Ward (18-11) and president of the Fishtown Neighborhood Association, greeted the straggler.

"It's closed if you vote for McCain," he shouted mirthfully. "Ha!"

Dave Rotan, a Republican committeeman and Thomson's theoretical rival, objected halfheartedly. "You vote for whoever you want to vote for," Rotan said, sounding a little bored.

The voter laughed. Thomson escorted her in, came back outside and resumed pacing.

He was agitated.

For one thing, he had shown up at the polls that morning and found the site plastered with McCain signs, while nary an Obama sign was to be found. He stormed down to the Fishtown Obama office on Girard and demanded more placards. The volunteers noted that Thomson and his ward had done little to help promote Obama in the neighborhood, and that he should have come to get them himself.

Thomson disputed not so much the facts of the story as the point.

"I wouldn't say I knocked on doors for the guy," Thomson admitted to me. "But they could have brought some signs."

Worse than that, Thomson was agitated by an article that appeared in last week's City Paper, written by, well, me.

The story, titled "The Fishtown Effect," was written after an Obama volunteer had written to politico.com about how surprised he'd been while canvassing in Fishtown to hear overtly racist remarks (including the n-word), and then to observe the people who made the remarks say they might vote for Obama.

Thomson took umbrage with the piece.

"I'm just so tired of [how] if you live in Fishtown, people think you must be a racist or a redneck," he said. "If you had called it the Chestnut Hill Effect, you would have been drummed out of town. But you think some of those people don't have the same philosophies? They just wouldn't say it."

Besides, he emphasized, Fishtown — and his division in particular — would come out in force for Obama, and not just in spite of race.

"They did it because he was the better candidate," Thomson said. "I think people here are at a point in time where we've been raised from a new perspective."

But Thomson still sounded nervous. The polls were closing, and in a few minutes, he'd find out if he was right.

Fishtown, a historic blue-collar, Democratic and mostly white Philadelphia neighborhood, is inhabited by just the sort of demographic Sen. John McCain hoped to win over in the final weeks of his campaign. In October, Obama signs were largely absent from the windows of Fishtown, and there were a number of McCain signs. The outcome in 18-11, the geographical center of Fishtown, was by no means clear.

"I'm sure McCain will get his votes, but hopefully the numbers here will bear us out," Thomson said. "If not," he added, jabbing an elbow at his Republican counterpart, "we'll have to rig 'em so they do — ha!"

At 8 o'clock exactly, the polls closed and the count began. For 15 minutes, the poll workers shuffled papers, sealed envelopes, counted and recounted, until finally the vote was in.

Many of the Fishtowners who had voiced racial concerns to City Paper had described themselves as undecided, and on a national scale, many pollsters predicted that undecided voters would turn into non-voters come Election Day. One possibility, it seemed, was that some Fishtowners would simply sit this one out.

In fact, 465 voters, according to Thomson, showed up for his district that day — well more than a 50 percent turnout rate. In the district next door, 491 voters turned out, again more than half.

Fishtown voted. And Fishtown voted for Obama, big time.

In the final tally, Obama won 290 votes in 18-11, compared to John McCain's 127. Obama won even more handily in adjacent division 18-12, with 363 over McCain's 115.

"This is a big change," said Rotan, the Republican, looking a little dazed by the numbers. "A real big change."

Later, about half an hour before Obama's victory was sealed, I walked past the Fishtown Recreation Center to glance at the numbers there, three long slips of paper posted on the walls and fluttering in the shadow of the Fishtown Hockey Rink.

Obama's margin of victory there was even stronger.

A few teenagers, Fishtown kids, walked up as I scribbled down the numbers, and asked what I was doing. I told them. Then I asked what they thought about the result.

"I think it's great," said one of them, John Voilumas. "Time for a change, you know?"

That night, as some neighborhoods in Philadelphia exploded in jubilation, the streets of Fishtown were dark, silent and empty. But in the distance, from every direction, came the sounds of cars honking, and people celebrating the president whom Fishtowners also helped elect.

(isaiah.thompson@citypaper.net)

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