A Million Stories

Seen and heard on Election Day, May 19

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Published: May 20, 2009

[ a million stories ]

On election morning, 12 volunteers — including several seniors, a few lawyers and only one man — sat in front of silent phones at the offices of the Committee of Seventy, a nonpartisan government watchdog group. They were staffing the election protection hot line, and they looked a little bored.

One volunteer perused a blog. Another stared blankly at the "Our Vote LIVE" screen. Every few minutes, a phone rang and everyone jumped at once. Someone called to complain that the hot line, 866-OUR-VOTE, was confusing because her keypad didn't have letters. An employee of the Grady campaign reported three times in 10 minutes that the poll at 6730 Ridge Ave. still had not opened.

Laura Dugan spoke to someone calling from the hospital who wanted to file an emergency absentee ballot. "He sounded fine," she said, unconvinced. "I don't think you can chat if you're in the ICU."

Across the table, Alan Singer was getting frustrated. "I can't seem to get an incoming call," he said. "I grab it as quick as I can."

"You've got to keep your hand on it," suggested his neighbor. "Be more competitive!"

"In November, it was like a madhouse," Singer said.

The most common complaint was about active campaigning at polling places. But by 4 p.m., there had still been just 86 calls. A quiet election day. Until the thing with the golf clubs.

- Lauren F. Friedman

At about 5:30 p.m., Seventy's Ellen Kaplan reported that a poll watcher in West Philly had called to say he'd been turned away by other poll watchers who "stood over him holding golf clubs." Kaplan stressed that she had no first-hand knowledge of the incident, but said it was confirmed by two Seventy volunteers: "They saw guys holding golf clubs and intimidating the witness." But there's more: Apparently when police arrived to investigate, they discovered the complainant had an outstanding warrant and arrested him. As of press time, no more was known, but Seventy was concerned: "The [poll] incident and the warrant are two different situations," Kaplan said.

- Isaiah Thompson

Brett Mandel looks well-rested. He's not: For the past four days, the candidate for controller has been in the midst of 100 hours of nearly nonstop campaigning with three-hour "catnaps" at night. But to see him sitting at Zeke's Café on Fifth and Spruce streets, sipping iced tea with his campaign team, you wouldn't know it. "I feel good," he says with a smile.

Later tonight, Mandel will learn that his effort wasn't enough, that incumbent Alan Butkovitz has held on to office. For now, though, he flips open his cell phone and demonstrates how to send Twitter messages through text messaging. "Lunch with the campaign staff at Zeke's in Society Hill," he writes. He's been sending these frequently, at all times of night. The past 92 hours have been filled with stops at transit stations, parks and bowling alleys. Mandel says he's become so ubiquitous that he's run into the same people twice. "In the end," says Mandel, "it could be that every single voter of mine has seen me."

- Andrew Thompson

Dan Fee, campaign manager for District Attorney candidate Seth Williams, was glaring at the television. But the 46-inch HDTV wasn't turned on. Fee bought it — on his personal credit card — just days prior to Tuesday night's election party at the First District Plaza Ballroom, for supporters to watch poll results. Unfortunately, no one checked if the ballroom had cable or an antenna. As Fee now knows, it has neither.

At 8:30, someone found a boom box and turned on KYW Newsradio. Then a security guard outside started streaming the radio through his Blackberry, and several people gathered around to listen. Eventually, a lobbyist named John Hawkins arrived with a laptop and wireless Internet, attracting a congregation.

By 9:50, Hawkins and his computer crew shouted across the ballroom that Williams had just pulled ahead. Supporters cheered, the DJ turned on something funky and people began to dance. By the time Williams arrived to deliver his victory speech, Fee looked like he didn't care about the television anymore.

- Daniel Schwartz

Finnigan's Wake may be Northern Liberties' last bastion of working-class pubbery. The walls are spattered with union stickers and pro-police and military ephemera, and it was a fitting place for DA candidate Dan McCaffery to hold what turned out to be a concession party. McCaffery was the endorsee of unions and, judging by the crowd, many individual policemen, despite the Fraternal Order of Police's support for winner Seth Williams.

The light crowd had been standing around for two hours expecting McCaffery to show up at any moment. When he finally arrived, several supporters held up his Pennsylvania license plate signs and cheered. "What are you cheering for? I lost!" said McCaffery. "Not to us you didn't!" replied a man. The only concession speech was a brief exchange with reporters. Someone from KYW asked McCaffery what Philadelphians should know about him that they didn't already. "Well, there's nothing at this point. You guys have pulled up everything on me," he said. He smiled, and though he wasn't bitter, he also wasn't joking.

- Andrew Thompson

What thrilled James Sugg Monday night, when he won an Obie Award for his performance last fall in Pig Iron Theatre Co.'s New York run of Chekhov Lizardbrain, wasn't the Obie itself. "It's so boring," the actor-composer-musician-sound designer jokes. "It's framed, sort of like a high school diploma — not something I can hock later."

No, it was the warmth he felt in New York's Webster Hall. It was strange, he reports, "to sit in a room that felt very much like a community. I was very surprised — I tend to think of New York as the cold mistress." Philly-based Pig Iron has performed eight shows in New York, including the 2005 Obie-winning Hell Meets Henry Halfway. "I keep trying to figure out if I care about New York," says Sugg about Philadelphia theater's relationship with the theatrical capital.

The old girl warmed up to Sugg's performance as "a man locked in the echoing chambers of his mind" (Charles Isherwood, The New York Times) in Chekhov Lizardbrain, which has been extensively revised since its 2007 Philadelphia debut. "It's so unlike Pig Iron," Sugg admits. "We've made it clearer and more accessible." When the show began in Philadelphia, audiences were perplexed; "in New York, people were deeply moved."

The show returns in December. "See it again," Sugg urges. "It's better."

- Mark Cofta

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