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Username: Tonya
Post Number: 6789
Registered: 07-2006
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 - 02:02 am: | 
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Philly mayor, Obama share no brotherly love
Tue Mar 11, 12:15 AM ET
By DeWayne Wickham
You'd think Barack Obama and Michael Nutter would be kindred souls. They are part of a new wave of black politicians. Both graduated from Ivy League schools. Obama has a law degree from Harvard; Nutter earned a degree from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business.
Last year, Nutter broke away from a crowded field of contenders in Philadelphia to win the Democratic Party's primary for mayor. He campaigned as a reformer and the candidate of change — and was swept into City Hall by landslide vote.
Obama, who is locked into a tight race with Hillary Clinton to become the Democratic Party's presidential nominee, holds himself out as a reformer and candidate of change — and paints Clinton as an old-school, machine politician. But with Pennsylvania's presidential primary looming on April 22 as possibly the decisive contest of this drawn-out race, Nutter is backing Clinton. How did it come to this?
For nearly 15 years, Nutter was a Philadelphia city councilman who championed good government in the City of Brotherly Love — the kind of change that is the rallying cry of Obama's campaign. As a councilman, Nutter pushed for campaign-finance limits and passage of ethics reform legislation.
Long shot winner
Early in the 2007 mayoral campaign, Nutter was thought to be a long shot candidate in the five-man race for the Democratic Party's nomination. But shortly before the primary, Nutter pulled ahead in the polls, overtaking his four opponents, including U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah, who was once the favorite.
Fattah was a close ally of John Street, the outgoing mayor whose administration was plagued by allegations of corruption and mismanagement. A federal corruption probe resulted in 12 indictments and the conviction of a former city treasurer. Though federal investigators were caught bugging Street's City Hall office, no charges were ever brought against the mayor. Fattah compared the investigation of Street to a "crucifixion."
Despite all this, Obama, who launched his presidential campaign in May 2007, quickly threw his support behind Fattah in the primary. Obama then sent an e-mail to Fattah's supporters urging them to make financial contributions to the congressman's flagging mayoral campaign, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Despite that appeal, Nutter finished first in the primary and went on to win in the November general election. The following month, Nutter endorsed Clinton.
Why Clinton?
"I met with both Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama last year, and I made my judgment based on their experience and policy ideas. I'm going to work very hard (to help her win the Pennsylvania primary). I'm not conceding any section of the city or any constituency" to Obama, Nutter told me.
Nutter said Clinton's urban agenda and her position on public safety and repairing the infrastructure of aging cities led him to endorse her. But I suspect he could also have been moved by something else. In endorsing Clinton, he said: "It's time for cities and metropolitan areas to take their prominent place in America again." Philadelphia, he said, needs "a friend in the White House."
But there seems to be little friendship between Philadelphia's mayor and Obama, who took time in the midst of his busy presidential campaign to try to block Nutter's path to City Hall.
It won't be easy for Nutter to make good on his endorsement of Clinton. If what happened in other primaries is any indication, the vast majority of Philadelphia's blacks — who make up nearly 46% of the city's 1.4 million residents — will vote for Obama.
But if Nutter, the man in whom Philadelphians invested their hope for a better future, can deliver 20%-25% of the black voters in Pennsylvania's largest city to Clinton, he might succeed where Obama failed in trying to influence the outcome of an important election in the Keystone State.
DeWayne Wickham writes on Tuesdays for USA TODAY.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20080311/cm_usatoday/phillymayorobamasharenobro therlylove |
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