| A month ago, Nutter was running fourth, but he had husbanded his resources for an effective TV campaign that highlighted him as a reformer, in contrast to the unpopular current mayor.
Nutter's stands included: aggressive police enforcement targeting illegal guns (in a city with far more per capita gun violence than Albany, and 149 murder victims so far this year); transparency in city budgeting; making Philadelphia America's "greenest" city; ethics reform; promoting small business development; zoning and planning reform; creating a city Department of Transportation and working for enhanced pedestrian safety, an extensive bicycle network, reversing the steep decline in local street maintenance since 2000, and improving mass transit; promoting the production of new housing and the revitalization of existing neighborhoods; etc.
All of that would work in Albany and other upstate cities, too. If someone would do it.
In a Philly rarity, Nutter won some white-majority wards, where white voters responded to his reform message.
Here's what one white Nutter voter had to say, in the Inquirer's Wednesday story:
"(Nutter) seems to be a person who isn't angry. No matter what's thrown at him, he seems to be able to deal with it. He seems to be a clear thinker. And he's not full of razzmatazz."
The most interesting story was by an alt-weekly columnist who wholeheartedly endorsed Nutter's tough-on-crime message:
"I'd rather be stopped and frisked than shot and killed," said a friend when asked about Michael Nutter's proposed stop-question-and-frisk strategy.
For him, Nutter's idea is worth the possible inconvenience if it does what no other politician seems willing or able to do: get illegal guns off the streets.
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What is racial profiling in this insidious form of genocide that burns like a brush fire on our streets.
"Who and what are criminals afraid of?" asks another male friend I polled about Nutter's stop-question-and-frisk policy. "Let's give them something to think about."
The hope under Nutter's plan is that people will leave their illegal guns at home, that petty disputes will no longer erupt into gun battles, and that our city's body count goes down.
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There's fear that Nutter's plan would give cops license to define "reasonable" simply as being black. And there's concern that it would make residents only more distrustful of the police.
But I'd like to believe that if people saw beat cops patrolling their neighborhoods, locking up known criminals and getting illegal guns off the street, they'd be more likely -- not less -- to dial 911. And that Nutter, the bearer of ethics and integrity, wouldn't allow stop-and-frisk to be abused.
As they say, read the whole thing, for insight on THE Philly issue that is most relevant to Albany and other cities with gun-crime problems.
Nutter got few endorsements from politicians and labor, though he did get every newspaper endorsement as momentum built late for his candidacy. And Philly's national-level progressive blogger, Atrios (Duncan Black) voted for him.
Because he is the best candidate to be Philly's next mayor, and hopefully a example for winning Democrats elsewhere. |
