Welcome to front-runner status, Mr. Nutter!
Congressman Chaka Fattah faced it; businessman Tom Knox has seen it for weeks now. And now it seems the attention -- and, in this case, attacks -- that come with higher poll numbers have come your way.
Catherine Lucey was at tonight's Channel 6-Philadelphia Tribune forum, where the exchanges were fiesty:
“The question is, where is the councilman’s passion for the plight of those in our city who are jobless?" Fattah asked of Nutter. "We need to have someone who’s mayor who’s focused on the broad issues of the day.”
“I know Michael Nutter; he’s a great guy, he’s hardworking. We know what his passion is. We know he wants to clean up government. I want to know how we are supposed to expect at this point that he has a passion for education. Why hasn’t it been demonstrated over the past 15 years?” Fattah asked.
Nutter responded that “anyone who has a child in any school in a district I’ve represented knows that I have a passion for public education."
Nutter did not strike back at Fattah and during a portion of the debate when the candidates were given the opportunity to question each other, he declined.
After the lively session Fattah – who in the past has avoided making negative attacks -- made no apologies, saying “if I offended the darling of the media, I’m sorry, but this is a debate on the future of the city.”
Also at the debate, U.S. Rep. Bob Brady and State Rep. Dwight Evans came down on businessman Tom Knox, who has poured his personal millions into his campaign. Evans noted Knox’s lack of a record on public safety while Brady said he had donated to Republican candidates. (Knox explained that his wife was a Republican and that his own donations to Democrats vastly outweighed her contributions to politicians like President Bush)
And now, these guys are going to take their scrapping to The Next Mayor's live, televised event on Sunday at 8 p.m. -- watch it on WHYY TV12, listen on 91FM or watch it on The Next Mayor. We'll be asking them about the issues of the race -- in front of a studio audience of civic groups that work hard every day to improve the city.
Personally, I can't wait.
Comments (14)
If George Bush speaks about poverty, does that means he'll do the most to reduce it or do it mean he's grandstanding? I think most people are starting to realize that Fattah is a rhetorical trojan horse.
Posted by Anonymous | May 5, 2007 8:25 AM
Fattah is just trying to show the black viewers out there that Nutter doesnt care about "their" issues. I fail to see how having a better business environment isnt a good thing for lower income people. Last time I checked jobs are good for people of any income level. I guess in Fattah's world if you arent promising to end poverty through airport leases you dont care about the poor.
Posted by sj | May 5, 2007 8:49 AM
I found amazing that Fattah doesn't understand that by ending pay-to-play would benefit the poor.
He kept hitting Nutter with that line about "all he cares about is ending pay-to-play".
Well, yes, idiot. That would mean more money for social programs.
Posted by Anonymous | May 5, 2007 9:05 AM
Name-calling has no place here -- Fattah's no idiot. (none of these guys are, which is one reason this race is a good one).
He's going to make fighting poverty his big push for the last week. That's from his opportunity agenda, which is linked from his candidate page if you want to read it.
Posted by Wendy | May 5, 2007 10:53 AM
Well there is one person who who is an idiot -knox - I am sorry to say that and I apologize - I think I mean to say is that he is a very poor speaker... all his reponses are canned and scripted for him. C'mon - everyone can at least agree that he recites his written commericals and does not offer much more, because he can't.
Pay to play is a product of the Street administration in this mayor's race- and to be fair, there was pay to play with every administration before that - in fact Rendell set a new standard.
So if you really like what the Street Adminsitration did for this city - then thank Ed Rendell - that's right -Ed Rendell! And for those of us in the know, Rendell encoraged both the knox and fattah campaigns - not because he really likes these candidates - but more for the opportunities that would be avaialble for him to seize - Rendell can never, ever get enough and he has saddled this city with the likes of knox as a candidate - what a carpetbagger - a New York carpetbagger to be accurate.
Posted by Informed | May 5, 2007 11:32 AM
It's kind of funny that Fattah attacks Nutter for not supporting education when both of Fattah's kids go to private schools. Also, it's common knowledge that Nutter will be the best for businesses and new growth in Philly, so why does Fattah condescend to us and ask why Nutter doesn't care about the jobless? I think actually creating jobs would be better than whatever Fattah wants to do instead.
Posted by Anonymous | May 5, 2007 6:25 PM
And Nutter's kid go to public school.
Sorry, but Fattah is either an idiot or a liar.
Posted by Anonymous | May 6, 2007 10:23 AM
For the record, Fattah had a son in public school. He graduated Central 2004. That said, I don't think that having a kid in public school should really be the criteria for picking a mayor (otherwise we'd have a whole lot of people considered qualified). Rather, I want someone cabable of doing something: Enter Nutter
Posted by p | May 6, 2007 12:14 PM
It's not that Fattah is an idiot; it's just that he's really, really overrated. It's why he's losing now...he's not that good and as more and more people hear him talk, the less support he gets. Now he's a little frantic because he's going to lose the Mayor's race and somebody will probably challenge him - seriously - for the 2nd Congressional District seat, now that he's let his employers (us) know that he's looking for another job.
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