For Both Williams and Specter the Black Vote Was Never Really Engaged

Maybe the recent, Pennsylvania primary elections for governor and for the U.S. Senate, really had nothing at all to do with race.

There must be at least an outside possibility that the race of the candidates was not a factor, at all, on Election Day. It really is possible, I'm sure, that the voters simply went to the polling places and cast their votes for the candidates they knew best, the ones with the most experience, and the ones with the best ideas for addressing their issues.

It’s conceivable that politics in this city and in this state – unlike public school students’ demographics, residential housing patterns, access to mortgages and other bank loans, unemployment data and incarceration rates - is one of those rare things that is not impacted at all by the race or ethnicity of the participants.

Na-a-a-a-h!

I don’t believe it.

After reviewing the Primary Election results, I’m beginning to get suspicious that, in this case, the time-honored tradition of southeastern Pennsylvania Democrats voting overwhelmingly for one of their own during a gubernatorial primary, was blatantly disregarded. Regrettably, in this election, the otherwise qualified, and certainly uncontroversial, Anthony Hardy Williams, was largely overlooked by too many southeast Pennsylvania and Philadelphia voters, simply because he happeneed to be the black candidate.

The old adage --“all politics is local”-- had certainly been a guiding philosophy for electoral politics in this country, including Pennsylvania statewide elections, right up until May 18, Primary Election Day.

After all, the thinking always went, why would any sane, southeast Pennsylvania Democrat ever want to take the chance of nominating a candidate from the other side of the state and risk having reduced access to a new governor, whose longest-standing relationships and highest political priorities were in Allegheny County, or some other godforesaken part of Central or Western Pennsylvania?

It was an unwritten, but widely understood rule, and most voters and political operatives functioned accordingly, campaign in and campaign out.

If you think I’m kidding, check out what happened when Ed Rendell, the southeastern Pennsylvania/Philadelphia candidate, generally unknown outside of that part of the state, decided to run in the 2002 gubernatorial primary, against the best judgment of his own party.
What happened was that Rendell drew most of his victory margin in that primary over Robert Casey Jr. by winning just 10 out of 67 counties, in southeast Pennsylvania and in the Lehigh Valley area.

Subsequently, with the solid backing of that same part of the state, Rendell went on to win the general election in 2002 and to be re-elected governor of Pennsylvania in 2006.

Informed by that time-honored piece of political wisdom, the Williams camp didn’t expect political miracles from voters in the western part of the state, but they did assume they would receive the same levels of hometown and regional solidarity that the southeast always seemed to provide for one of their “favorite sons” in previous elections.

It didn’t happen.

In fact, when the polls closed on Tuesday, Allegheny County's Dan Onorato, a virtual unknown on this side of the state, who visited very infrequently here and whose campaign commercials failed to shed much light on what he actually stands for, had won the election very handily, with 45.1 percent of the statewide vote, far outdistancing second-place finisher Jack Wagner (also of Allegheny County), at 24.2 percent, Williams, at 18 percent, and Joe Hoeffel, at 12.7 percent.

The key to a Williams victory, said his campaign “handlers,” was to have him come out of Philadelphia with 250,000 votes – enough to overcome an expected weaker showing out west.

Williams did, in fact, win among Philadelphia voters, gaining 51.3 percent of the votes cast in the governor’s race, here in the city. But that represented only 79,968 votes, rather than 250,000. In addition, the entire Philadelphia Democratic turnout that day, at 18.8 percent, only amounted to a total of 155,678 votes being spread among all four Democratic candidates. By comparison, the rest of the state’s turnout has been estimated at about 25 percent--not good for Williams.

Also disappointing for Williams was the fact that the two western-based gubernatorial candidates – Onorato and Wagner – together walked away with 35.2 percent of the Philadelphia vote, numbers that were uncharacteristically high for out-of-region gubernatorial candidates.

In Tony Williams’ own southeast Pennsylvania "back yard," outside of Philadelphia, Onorato only lost one county, Montgomery, which gave 50 percent of its vote and a first-place finish to hometown favorite, Joe Hoeffel. It was the only county, statewide, that Hoeffel won.

Onorato also managed to place first in Bucks, Delaware and Chester Counties. Williams, by the way, finished third in Bucks, Chester and Montgomery, and second behind Onorato in Delaware County.

At that point, the case was clearly closed-- especially, when we realize that the Philadelphia vote, itself, seemed to break down largely along racial lines. In Philadelphia, wherein African Americans constitute about 60 percent of registered Democrats, Williams won 51.3 percent of the vote, and 44 out of 66 wards – most of those in predominantly black areas.

At the same time, however, Onorato was able to come in and claim 40,009 votes, or 25.7 percent of all those cast and to win 20 out of 66 wards.

Not entirely surprisingly, the 20 wards won by Onorato included those in the farthest reaches of the Great Northeast, those along the “river wards,” in Center City and in southeast Philadelphia. Whatever their reasons, they must have been strong enough – in those specific communities – to cause the residents to vote against their own regional interests, in a way that Philadelphians and southeast Pennsylvanians generally never do.

By the way, in Onorato’s own home county, Allegheny, the voters didn't bother to return the favor. Williams finished third out of the four candidates, there, with just 6.7 percent of the vote, while Onorato rolled to first place, with 52.3 percent.

At the end of the day, it will have to be said that Tony Williams started late, raised a good deal of money and ran what seemed to be a professionally managed, if not engaging, campaign.

In a gubernatorial race that was notable, primarily, for its general lack of drama, or voter interest, Tony Williams absolutely had to mount a campaign that moved beyond routine and formulaic. He also had to say and do enough to engage and excite the black electorate, without which he absolutely could not win. With some street-level "buzz," a "crusade" undercurrent and a sense of urgency driven by his campaign, it could have happened.

It reminds me of the first mayoral campaign between John Street and Sam Katz, whom some suspect is actually planning to run, again, for mayor of Philadelphia--this time as a Democrat. In any event, it was 1999, Street was the Democratic candidate and Katz was the Republican candidate, in a city wherein Democrats held a 5-to-1 registration advantage.

Black Philadelphians went to the polls and gave John Street 96 percent of their vote and, yet …. Street only beat Sam Katz by 9,000 votes. Since that time, I’ve heard John Street, curiously, say that he couldn’t have won that election without the support of the building trades unions. I say now what I said to Street then: Without a highly engaged black electorate, and an exceptionally high turnout by those voters, John Street would have lost that election. Period.

At the end of the day, too many African-American voters in Philadelphia didn’t show up last Tuesday to ensure an Anthony Hardy Williams or an Arlen Specter win. Too many perfectly good votes were left on the table in a political environment wherein Senator Williams couldn’t even trust his long-time, Democratic colleagues in neighboring counties to support him on Election Day--even when it was clearly in their own best interest to do so.

In retrospect, I’m sure he agrees.

Hey, even John Street probably agrees with that.



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