Second Mayoral Debate Way Better Than First

While you were asleep Sunday morning, 6 ABC aired the second official mayoral debate. In this debate, the five candidates sat around a table with Action News morning hosts Matt O’Donnell and Tamala Edwards. (Yes, if you’re wondering, the hosts of a show in the same genre — “morning” — as Good Day Philadelphia, which used to feature the anchors dancing with mascots, hosted a mayoral debate.)

The debate taught me a lot of things; namely, the five candidates for mayor all creep me out. (That’s Bob Brady and Chaka Fattah in happier times in the photo; namely, the time they presented a check to the park ranger to find out who was swiping all those pic-i-nic baskets.) They’re politicians, so that’s normal, but, yeesh. Starting below, a recap of some sort.

Best Use of Language: Chaka Fattah wins this award for beginning every question with “When I become mayor.” He’s apparently using the technique of confusing voters to think he’s already won, then picking him in the voting booth since they don’t want to be different than the cool kids.

Best Quote That Makes No Sense Without Context: From Bob Brady, “You know how we would have found out if this expiration date was true? If he got shot!”

Best Tom Knox Bashing: It’s a tie between Dwight Evans and Brady. Evans on Knox: “Tom is trying to sell himself as the David Cohen of the Rendell administration…. it’s clear to me tom Knox is not the person he’s telling people he is.” Brady went off on Knox in his closing statement and sounded actually pissed.

Best Tom Knox Rebuttal: To Evans: “I’m not going to listen to your lies.”

Worst Hair: I don’t think Tom Knox has a toupee, but since his hair looks like it might be a toupee it might be time for a new ‘do. (Yes, somehow Dwight Evans and Michael Nutter didn’t share this award.)

Best Facial Expressions: Michael Nutter pretty much had an awesome bemused look on his face when certain people were talking — namely, uh, the other four candidates.

Guh-Wha Moments? Apparently, Chaka Fattah has set up a scholarship to pay for college for every public school kid. But that’s okay, because apparently Philadelphia schoolchildren are crammed into one classroom which has several different grades in it.

Best Exchange: After Michael Nutter says he successfully kept the old Adams Mark Hotel (becoming a Target) site from becoming a casino spot, Chaka Fattah goes next: “I just want to say: Target is wonderful.”

Best Comment on Casinos: Tom Knox, “I don’t like the things they bring: prostitution, crime, dirt, traffic.” DIRT!

Best Invocation of 9/11: Dwight Evans, “I’ve said this before. After 9/11 — Both of our congressman should know this — After 9/11. After 9/11.” (Everyone was talking at this point, which allowed him to keep repeating his intro to quite everyone down.)

Best Part, Hands Down: Bob Brady slamming his hand on the table to make everyone shut up. It was totally warranted, too.

Best Host-Candidate Exchange: Bob Brady and Tamala Edwards. Brady was busy answering a question when somehow Matt O’Donnell started talking and then everyone started talking.

Brady: “Did you ask me the question? Can I answer the question at least!”

Edwards: “When you took a pause we thought you were done.”
Brady: “I didn’t take a pause!”

Best Question: The question about what was the biggest failure in each candidate’s life led to some choice moments.

• Tom Knox: “I haven’t had any failures in my life.”
• Bob Brady talked about when the ball went through his legs in Little League — one of the hosts then asked what sport it was — and how they would have won the game had he not messed up. By far, this was the only time during the debate I could say with 100 percent certainty a candidate was not spinning or trying to win votes. Because any person who’s played sports feels the exact same way about some mistake he or she made in the past.
• Chaka Fattah went on and on about… I dunno, something, definitely not any of his failures, though. After he was done, O’Donnell looked and him and said: “Again, the question is: Do you have a failure that you’d like to bring back.” Fattah: “Not now.” Brady: “You missed a shot in the gym, I saw ya.”

Closing Statements: Nutter’s was pretty solid, Evans’ was not so great but he did get Faheem Thomas Childs’ name correct this time, Fattah talked about his opponents and said no, you voters should pick me.

Tom Knox literally just said his campaign commercial. He actually said: “Good morning Philadelphia… I’m Tom Knox and I’d like to tell you a little bit about myself. i grew up in public housing… I’m running for mayor for my mother and for every woman, for every mother, who has worked hard for this city.” Hey, remember when those early Tom Knox ads were charming? His closing statement re-iteration has pretty much made me forget that time.

And, finally, Bob Brady went off on Knox:

“There are four candidates sitting at this table that all their life helped working men and women. There is one candidate, Tom Knox, that has not. [He's been] ripping off men and women, working men and women… Predatory lending, insurance scams, attacking pensions. Now, I’m going to get a lot of negative ads coming back to me, probably a million dollars negative on me. … my vision is too important for this city to have Tom Knox become the mayor.”

Brady had the big advantage of going last, since he ended up bashing Knox. Since he followed Knox in the order of closing statements, he seemed actually really pissed off instead of just reading a statement like Knox felt like. But, eh:

Debate Winner: Dwight Evans pretty much dominated every question, especially in the early-going, and went hard on Tom Knox from the start of the debate. If people tuned out after 15 minutes, they pretty much only knew who Dwight Evans was and that he had been bashing some skinny dude for the part they watched. Eh, I never know who wins these things, so take this with a giant grain of salt.

Hopefully, the trend of the debates getting better will continue, and by the time Chris Matthews is hosting a debate, there will be fisticuffs.

[Image via USHistory.org]