Philadelphia's Mayoral Forums: The New Opium of the Masses

After watching WHYY-TV's live Philadelphia Mayoral Forum this evening, I am absolutely convinced that Karl Marx was dead wrong. Religion is NOT the "opium of the masses," as the German philosopher famously said in 1843. No, I realized this evening that the true "opium of the masses" is the unending, uninspiring series of mayoral "debates" that has been presented to the City's voters in place of a true election campaign, over the past several months.

By now, most of us have sat through so many of these things that we've memorized every candidate's key talking points and even find ourselves reciting them along with the candidates, when it's their turn, once again, to share their qualifications for the job. The script, to our continuing disappointment, almost never changes.

The process, perhaps by design, has bored many Philadelphians, confused most and caused a substantial percentage of the City's voters to be absolutely unable to choose among the candidates.

I must admit that, like the incumbent mayor, I really do miss the campaign buttons, the brightly colored political posters on virtually every utility pole and construction site wall and the appearance of actual political engagement by the citizenry that used to mark our election campaigns. But new legislation has outlawed most of that, making this election especially difficult for "challengers" and "killing the political mood" out on the streets. Web sites and e-mails are wonderful, of course, but something is still clearly missing in this year's campaign.

In a perverse approach to the electoral process, virtually all of the City's major, mainstream media outlets have already chosen their mayoral candidate, while huge and potentially decisive segments of the electorate apparently won't make their choice until Election Day, assuming that they care enough about the outcome to show up, at all.

For me, the reasons for all of the indecision have become crystal clear over the past few months: Candidates, pundits, pollsters and mainstream media outlets seem to be sadly incapable of dealing with the reality of the City's new demographic profile. With more than 61 percent of Philadelphia's population now comprised of blacks, Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans, it really does have to be o.k. to have meaningful discussions about their issues as a primary focus of the mayoral election process. It's not a distraction; it's not a diversion. It's simply called democracy and we, our media outlets and, regrettably, our candidates, seem to be fundamentally uncomfortable with the "new political math." Candidates seem to be struggling with whether they should be representing the very different interests of the voters or their campaign contributors, and that's not been fun to watch.

Over time, all of the parties will necessarily become more comfortable with all of this but, for now, it's been a difficult and awkward transition.

As an example, the media and candidates continue to speak effusively to mainstream voters and business interests, stressing the future need to deliver such things as support for the arts, business-friendly tax strategies, hospitality industry initiatives and transportation funding. By comparison, the only public services the candidates have clearly agreed to focus on black and Hispanic neighborhoods are increased police patrols, surveillance cameras and harsher judicial treatments.

How's that for helping the new majority of voters make up their minds about supporting your candidacy?

Don't the candidates yet realize that the primary reasons that black neighborhoods are run-down and susceptible to crime and drug infestation is that no one has figured out how to extend workforce preparedness and training programs into those communities(especially to black males), and that no one has expanded job creation in those same communities through effective minority business development efforts? Do even black candidates really believe that African Americans CHOOSE to be more impoverished, unemployed and residentally discriminated against than whites? Have even they forgotten that, when blacks moved from the agrarian South to come north to Philadelphia and other northern cities, they did so to find WORK? Have they seen how well African Americans live and how well they take care of their families when they have access to the comparable economic resources to do so?

I must admit that, given Tom Knox's track record, I have a genuine concern about whether he will really be open to African-American input, or any input, if he were to be elected mayor, but he was the only candidate, at Sunday's WHYY event, who had the "heart" and good, common sense to speak with conviction about the virtual lack of minority business participation in the City, the need to, finally, put some "teeth" into the City's minority business agency and the need to create real jobs for neighborhood people--immediately.

At the same time, it was bizarre and deeply disappointing to see the three African-American candidates dance around the issue of black economic development, or pass on the topic, entirely.

And will someone, please , remind Bob Brady that, with the broad support he enjoys from his fellow, card-carrying union members, he happens to be the best qualified of all the candidates to "fix," once and for all, the ongoing pattern of race-based exclusion in the skilled trades unions.

With the unions having virtually every City-based construction project committed to a "union-workers-only" project labor agreement, the African-American kids that the Congressman wants to send to "vo-tech" schools will also be doomed to unemployment, if they can't have access to a union card. I wonder why the Congressman, who says at every forum that he's the person who gets called to resolve all of the City's important issues, has been so strangely silent on this one?

Well, just a few more days and all of this will be over and, so far, I still count myself among the 32 percent of black voters who are "undecided." Like the rest of those voters, I'm still waiting for a sign, from any of the candidates, that they understand the precise need for economic and "quality-of-life" improvements in the City's African-American community--and that they have a specific plan to make those things happen.

Perhaps, one of the candidates will figure all of this out before next Tuesday, so that I and the other black "undecideds" can go out and vote intelligently for the candidate who is committed to including our issues in his overall, city-wide agenda.

If not, Election Day and the next four years are likely to be very "ugly" for the City, as a whole.

Will the real mayoral candidate please stand up?



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