Mr. T To Face Mix Master Mike In Primary

As you may have heard, there was some sort of election last night. And in the Republican mayoral primary, mayoral hopeful Al Taubenberger easily defeated his many, many challengers and will move on to face the Democratic nominee in the November election.

Taubenberger, who the Inquirer notes has an answering machine in Fox Chase as his campaign headquarters, is running an uphill battle, as the Taubenberger is one of only 115 Republicans in the city, and like half of those are pro-lifers who are happy to vote for Democratic candidates for mayor.

Meanwhile, in the other primary, the smart guy outsmarted everybody, which is apparently shocking.

For GOP, an uphill battle begins [Inquirer]
A pugilist’s sensibilities score a KO [Inquirer]

Republican Mayoral Candidate Declares Race ‘Exciting’

The text of the web site (mayoral2007.com) of Al Taubenberger, running unopposed today for the Republican nomination for mayor, in full:

I’m as curious as you are in who I’ll be running against in the Fall.

It’s exciting.

We can bring about real change.
We can attract more jobs.
We can have better policing.
We can better fund the arts.
We can stop waste and have a scandal-free government.
There’s a lot of things we can do, and I’ll be talking about all of them.

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Which Rich Guy Will Lead The City For 8 Years?

And here we go.

We’ve been through Milton Street singing on top of a casket. We’ve had Bob Brady tell us elephants will return to the zoo in his administration. We’ve had Tom Knox promise not to show movies at Dilworth Plaza. We’ve had Dwight Evans ask us not only where the beef is, but also tell us his crime record is beefy.

Michael Nutter told us he’d be opening up a shop to sell Philly-themed merchandise. Chaka Fattah brought out Shaft to attempt to win our votes. Bob Brady didn’t know how a pension works. (That’s okay, Bob, most of Philadelphia doesn’t know what “vested” means either.) Tom Knox didn’t know what Gilligan’s Island was.

A guy in a shark costume told us not to vote Tom Knox. (He disappeared after Frank Keel got in the way and is presumed dead.) PW told you to vote for the mayor that looks good with a big nose and glasses. Jim Kenney predicted voters would vote for the guy they saw on the teevee most, and he may have been right.

The gay newspaper endorsed Brady. The bilingual one endorsed Knox. Every candidate told us he was just like us! Queena Bass continued to run for mayor while homeless man Jesus White took his first shot at the ballot. People got angry on messageboards and blogs. Websites were trolled. Accusations of racism were flung. These things happen.

Sam Katz told us the mayor’s race would be close, then positioned himself for an independent run, then told us it’d be Nutter in a landslide. Sam Katz will be here to kick around for a while.

Fattah told us Mike Nutter had to remind himself he’s African-American. (And Milton Street said Nutter was the Watermelon Man.) Somebody told us Knox was a good Catholic while Brady and Nutter didn’t go to Catholic church anymore.

After today, it will — let’s pray — all be over and some rich guy will be in position to lead the city for eight years, unless Al Taubenberger has photos of the eventual winner with a donkey who is not his wife. It might be the union guy or the poverty guy or the smart guy or the really rich guy or the “Who’s the beef?” guy.

Hey, look at it this way: It won’t be John Street.

It’s election day! If you see anything exciting at the polls, notice a news anchor flashing viewers, find a funny campaign sign and/or anything else ridiculous, drop me a line at dmac [AT] philadelphiawilldo [.] com. If the day is exciting enough, I’m hoping youse can do my job for me. Then I can put my feet up.

[.pdf of Milton logo]

Dwight Evans’ Best Candidate Comparison Yet

And what a nice group of multicultural children Dwight Evans has helped.

Bob Brady’s Education Record — A Bunch of Nothing! [Evans for Mayor]

Desperate Fattah Complains About Cartoon Violence

Taking a page from the principle textbook from the Sylvester Johnson School of What’s Really Important, Philadelphia mayoral candidate Chaka Fattah just sent an email out complaining about the above cartoon in the Daily News.

Fattah isn’t complaining about what you’d think — “Waah! They made fun of me! And I don’t have a blog to whine on!” — but he’s calling the cartoon “offensive,” because it trivializes something or other. He also says Nutter’s stop-and-frisk plan will search “our sons, daughters, grandchildren, nephews, nieces and neighbors.” But not our uncles and aunts! (They can have all the illegal guns they want.)

Fattah’s apparently been searching his soul for a way to stop violence, and he’s spent his entire career helping children, and to poke fun at him in a cartoon is just awful or something. How dare a satirical cartoonist use her trademark drawing style to comment on the plans of a public official running for office!

Full letter after the jump.

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Nobody Will Help John Street Do Anything

As the anti-Michael Nutter ad begins to air on some TV stations — there are now two versions of the ad, too! — the One Step Closer Nü-Metal PAC are beginning to attempt to find funding to keep that ad on the air ’til election day.

Of course, they didn’t exactly call on the best person to help. John Street attempted to do some fundraising for the campaign, and here was the result.

Shawn Fordham, a paid consultant to the “527″ group and a top adviser to Street, said yesterday that the mayor had made at least three telephone calls “a few days ago,” soliciting money for the group, known as One Step Closer.

Street’s spokesman, Joe Grace, confirmed that Street had made the fund-raising calls - though Fordham said no one Street had contacted agreed to donate.

Gee, the unpopular mayor — who most people probably don’t even know is still alive — couldn’t get people to donate to an anti-Mike Nutter group? No!

Anti-Nutter group has ties to the mayor [Inquirer]
The edited One Step Closer ad [The Next Mayor Blog]

Ed Rendell In A Track Suit!

Maybe Dwight Evans needs to use this photo in an ad. I have to imagine there are plenty of people who would vote for him because of a photo from the Broad Street Run with Ed Rendell in a track suit! Plus, isn’t that why Evans gained weight? To be more like Ed Rendell?

Broad Street Run with Dwight Evans and Gov. Ed Rendell [Flickr]

Entering Pixelated Photoshops Portion Of Mayor’s Race

DWIGHT EVANS DISCUSSES FATTAH’S AGENDA FOR TAX INCREASES [The Next Mayor Release Archive]
I’m doing everything I can… and stop calling me Shirley [The Next Mayor Blog]

Dwight Evans Narrowly Holding Off Queena Bass

The latest poll is out, and apparently the electorate has decided it doesn’t like Dwight Evans anymore. I mean, if it ever did.

The big news the Daily News is touting is Michael Nutter’s surge to the front of the race. Apparently, we white people are all racist!

But the real news in the poll is Dwight Evans’ plummeting stature. In the new Daily News/Keystone poll, Evans’ is in last with just three percent. Three percent! Did Dwight Evans murder a hooker and I didn’t notice? Aren’t all the state legislators who endorsed Evans like at least five percent of the voting public?

Only two percent of males surveyed said they were voting for Evans. The total three percent number means about eight people surveyed said they were voting for Evans. Yikes. Dwight Evans doesn’t really do much to incite scorn, right?

Evans, though, continues to soldier on in the campaign, continues to, uh, win debates and continues to have virtually no support. His new tactic is saying Mike Nutter’s crime record has no sizzle — “All sizzle! No steak!” — whereas Dwight Evans has personally saved at-risk youths from a life of crime. Three children who used Dwight Evans’ programs went on to become the Boy Wonder, Robin.

Evans is continuing to use the food metaphor with the description of his own record on crime “beefy.” He didn’t go to Wendy’s this time to do it, but hopefully his next campaign stop will be Morton’s of Chicago on Walnut Street. I know it’s a little pricey, but a trip there would really feed the reporters well and then they’d write nice things. I think this is how it works.

In backstretch, Barbaro Nutter gallops to lead [Daily News]
Keystone Poll, May 2007 [The Next Mayor]
Michael Nutter’s Crime Record: All Sizzle, No Steak! [Evans for Mayor]
April 25: Fear And Loathing At Wendy’s

Green Party Candidate Wants You To Waste Energy

Brett Mandel and Philadelphia Forward released the “R.E.F.O.R.M. Ballot” today, and the results are pretty confusing, if you look at it a certain way. Dwight Evans hates SEPTA! Jesus White wants to hire his relatives! Fattah likes PGW just the way it is!

But most telling is this question, which I’ve excerpted below.

Yes, you read that correctly. The only candidate for mayor who does not want to encourage homeowners to use energy efficiently is Kerry Foster of the Green Party.

Vote Summary [R.E.F.O.R.M. Ballot]
Mayor’s Race [R.E.F.O.R.M. Ballot]