OUT & ABOUT: Running The Racial Math In Philadelphia Mayor’s Race – 2007 And 2015

by Denise Clay
When Philadelphia went looking for a new Mayor eight years ago, the Democratic primary was chock full of people.

Among the folks applying for the office on the Second Floor of City Hall were State Rep. Dwight Evans, businessman Tom Knox, Congressmen Chaka Fattah and Bob Brady, and then-City Councilman Michael Nutter.

There were a lot of assumptions that people made about this race. One assumption was that the Black vote would be so split up that one of the two white candidates would get the Big Chair.

What those making that assumption didn’t count on was (a) The mistrust Evans had earned due to some of the stuff he did as a State Rep, like giving control of the School District of Philadelphia to the Commonwealth; (b) Fattah running a lackluster campaign; (c) Brady being mistrusted by the very whites he needed to win; and (d) Knox being unable to win enough votes through spaghetti dinners alone.

Most Blacks voted for Nutter, who eventually became Mayor.

I bring this up because I’m starting to notice some of the same assumptions are being made in this year’s Mayor’s race.

There are three Black candidates: Street; Doug Oliver, former VP of communications for the Philadelphia Gas Works; and State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams; one Latino candidate, former Court of Common Pleas Judge Nelson Diaz; one white woman, former District Attorney Lynne Abraham, and…

City Councilman Jim Kenney, the White Guy of Campaign 2015.

Some folks will look at that sentence and swear up and down that I’m being racist.

But I’m only repeating what the African American Political Chattering Class has been saying since Kenney hinted at his mayoral ambitions during an interview with host Vincent Thompson on 900-AM WURD’s “City Council Live” broadcast.

If we look at electoral history, Kenney’s presence is designed not to mobilize whites, but to mobilize Blacks enough to go to the Black candidates and say, “If one of you doesn’t drop out, the vote will split and the white boy will get in!”

It also assumes Philadelphians of color won’t vote for a white candidate, something that Kenney dismisses.

“I reject the racial mathematics of elections,” he said in a press conference announcing his intentions.

But I’m sure the people who have convinced him to run have figured out the math.

It’s going to be interesting to see who’s right.