Of the likely candidates for mayor, the winner of today's news cycle is clearly State Representative Dwight Evans, with major stories in both the Daily News and the Inquirer, as well as a radio story on WHYY this morning, about his efforts to enact new gun regulations. It's not a total victory, however, since his name didn't make it into any of the headlines that I saw with this story.
Since I've been convinced by John Baer's argument that the only way to curb effectively the amount of guns flowing into the city is to enact statewide gun laws, Evans could score a major victory in his mayoral efforts if he's able to accomplish this.
The fact that there were no Republicans at his press conference would seem to indicate that this will be a difficult task. For now, just by pointing out something that we probably all already know (ie, that folks in the 4-county suburban ring are more alike to Philadelphians than they are to people in, say, Cumberland or Forest Counties), he's taken a major step in bringing together the collective influence of the 5-county region. Now, what can he do with it?
Comments (2)
i really don't like the argument of "vote for Dwight cuz he knows how to get it done in Hbg". i know two things about Dwight's career in Hbg - he is in leadership, and is very close to Speaker Perzel.
so if anyone could get a bill cracking down on guns passed, it would be him - and not only has he not done so, he hasnt even tried to do so until eight months before his mayoral election.
putting motivation aside, it certainly demonstrates there is no reason to vote for him over another candidate because he can get more out of harrisburg.
besides, we'd all be better off with him as majority chair of approps anyway.
Posted by wardwatcher | September 6, 2006 4:42 PM
I brought that same point up about Congressman Fattah with a friend of mine who is a pretty knowledgeable political consultant in this city. Essentially, my question was, won't people think that it's better for the city to have Fattah in Congress - especially if the Democrats win back the majority and he continues to rise in the Appropriations Committee - and so vote for someone else?
He said that it is a complete non-factor in people's voting decisions and laid out the hypothetical that if you polled 10,000 people who didn't vote for Fattah on Election Day at polling places all over the city, maybe 3 or 4 of them would say that it was because they preferred that he stay in Congress.
The same probably goes for people's thinking about Evans.
Posted by Dan | September 7, 2006 10:25 AM