Hey, Inky, Nutter's Win Made Black Voters a Winner, Too

It was interesting to read the Sunday Inquirer editorial wherein they named the "winners" (including themselves, profusely) and the "losers" in the recent Philadelphia Mayoral Primary Election. It was curious and deeply disappointing to see that, among all of its "other winners," the Inquirer's editorial board didn't even mention African-American voters, who did a remarkable job of sorting through five Democratic candidates, including three capable black contenders, to cast the lion's share of their votes for Michael Nutter.

I must admit that, as an African American, it was getting a bit tedious to have to constantly hear that this Primary was going to be done in such a way that candidates would be able to "stick to the issues" and not have to resort to "playing the race card" to garner popular support. The tedious part was realizing that, when mainstream media use the phrase "stick to the issues" they really mean the issues that are important to the City's white minority, not those that may be prioritized by the majority of the population that happens to be black, Hispanic or Asian.

Those who read Sunday's editorial know that, in addition to Michael Nutter, himself, the paper's "winners" included: 1) The New Philadelphians, who make "well over the City's median income" and who also happen to be "young professionals or players in the creative community;" others were described as "affluent empty-nesters moving into Center City to savor the City's cultural scene;" 2) Latino voters; 3) The William Penn Foundation and 4) The working press.

Ranked as "losers" were: 1) The Democratic Party Machine; 2) John Dougherty; 3) Jannie Blackwell; 4) Fattah's Street Machine; 5) Latinos (again); 6) Critics of the new campaign finance rules and 7) The Race Card. As the Inquirer noted, "It didn't get played much and, in Philadelphia, that's big news."

How disturbing that Philadelphia's black residents, who comprise 45 percent of the City's population, and who gave Michael Nutter more support than any other voting bloc, were not mentioned at all.

Was that an oversight or, simply, "Old Philadelphia" rearing its ugly head, once again?

This is a most egregious error when you consider the following facts:

--Michael Nutter won 39 of the City's 66 wards and, of those, 30 were
predominantly comprised of African-American voters,

--Those 30 wards constituted 81 percent of the City's 37 predominantly
black wards. This compares to the eight out of 27 predominantly white
Democratic wards(29.6%) that Nutter also carried. The City's two
heavily Hispanic wards, by the way, went overwhelmingly for Knox,

--Aggregating the City's wards by neighborhoods, as the Committee of
70 does, shows that Nutter won eight out of 11 City neighborhoods but,
contrary to the Inquirer's "New Philadelphian, high median income"
spin, it also clearly indicates that Nutter did especially well in black,
working-class and low-to-moderate income communities, taking each
of the eight wards in "West Philadelphia," all four of the wards that comprise
"Southwest, Grays Ferry and Point Breeze," eight out of 10 wards that
constitute "North Philadelphia" and all five black-dominated wards in
what "70" calls "Mt. Airy, Germantown and Logan."

In summary, contrary to the skewed version of the election results presented in Sunday's paper, the African-American vote--across all income/educational/geographic sectors--turned out in a surprisingly strong and emphatic way for Michael Nutter in the five-way race. The only failure by black voters was the notable reduction in their turnout, from more than 41 percent in 1999 to less than 34 percent last Tuesday.

While Nutter did perform well in higher-income white wards, the numbers also tell us that, over all, in the City's 27 predominantly white wards, the candidate with the highest vote tallies was Tom Knox(35.5%). Among voters in those wards, Knox's votes beat out Nutter, at 34.2 percent, Brady at 23.2 percent, Fattah at 4.5 percent and Evans, at 2.4 percent. Knox's previously mentioned heavy support in the substantially Hispanic 7th and 19th wards increased his margin over Nutter, not counting the African-American vote, to nearly three percent.

All of that being said, it is clear that, in rushing to make its unsubstantiated case that "'New Philadelphians' formed Nutter's core constituency," the Inquirer seems to have overlooked some really important information and an0ther critically important group of "winners."

I trust that none of this is lost on Michael Nutter, or on anyone else who really cares about the future of Philadelphia, whether they happen to be "new" or "old." After all, this is the part in the process when we get to tell the winning candidate where his/her mandate is coming from. Let's make sure the next mayor's agenda really is comprehensive, this time.

To reiterate, we can't expect to make Philadelphia the "Next Great City" if we continue to pretend that 45 percent of its population doesn't exist. Even worse, we won't even have a "shot" at curing any of our lingering citywide problems if we continue to trot out the "anti-race card defense," each time, instead of engaging in reasonable dialogue and concerted action on quality-of-life issues, such as workforce development, employment, expanded construction industry opportunities, access to legitimate financial services and reductions in recidivism.

Usually, I tell myself that we're much too smart, as a City, to continue to ignore these family-building and citywide economy-building issues but, then, I'll see a commentary such as the one in Sunday's Inquirer, and I'm not so sure.


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