CITY HALL SAM: Farnese’s Father Passes; Lynne Abraham’s Hidden Trump

The beloved father of STATE SEN. LARRY FARNESE, LAWRENCE FARNESE, was laid to rest at the Baldi funeral home in South Philadelphia. Many well-wishers from the Philadelphia political community paid their respects to the Senator and his lovely mother MADELINE.

STATE SEN. Anthony Williams, who is running for Mayor, gave impassioned speech in support of Councilman Curtis Jones’ accomplishments.

Among them were former City Councilman and mayoral hopeful JIM KENNEY, STATE SEN. and mayoral front-runner TONY WILLIAMS, former CITY COUNCILMAN FRANK DiCICCO and his son CHRISTIAN DiCICCO, as well as COUNCILMEN MARK SQUILLA and KENYATTA JOHNSON, just to name a few. Also paying their respects were attorneys GARY DeVITO and MITCHELL KAPLAN.

The aforementioned Jim Kenney and Tony Williams traded jabs over education funding last week, spicing up the mayoral race. It’s always fun when there’s plenty of snow on the ground and the heat gets turned up on the political contest. These two will have plenty of time to trade barbs, with the election scheduled for May 19.

Former Inquirer writer TOM FERRICK has been analyzing the demographics of Philadelphia for purposes of the upcoming mayoral election. Part of his analysis is that LYNNE ABRAHAM has a puncher’s chance of winning because Philadelphia has 189,000 people who are over the age 65. This group votes at the highest rate and if they are for Abraham, she is in.

In this game, many of the pundits still engage in discussions of racial politics. The handicappers are saying Tony Williams is in trouble with the entrance of a number of African American opponents. But none of them has the remotest amount of credibility anywhere.

The case is often made that the race is analogous to when ED RENDELL emerged victorious from a crowded Democratic primary field that consisted of three African American candidates. That was in 1991 and all three of the African American candidates were not only credible but excellent. In that race, the African American candidates were JOHN WHITE, the former managing director of the City; GEORGE BURRELL, a highly regarded Councilman; and LUCIEN BLACKWELL, a Congressman.

In the current race there are two candidates with no basis whatsoever, including one candidate who may not even legally be able to run, REV. KEITH GOODMAN. Also getting ready to enter the race is MILTON STREET, who served time in federal prison and is not perceived as a huge vote-getter.

What will really be interesting to City Hall Sam is the number of slates that form for City Council with the mayoral contenders. Stay tuned.

Expect the slate of candidates for state judicial races to start taking shape over the next few weeks.  The Democratic ward leaders helped contribute to this slate shaping by meeting on Monday.  At that meeting, the ward leaders voted to endorse JUDGE KEVIN DOUGHERTY for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. CONGRESSMAN BOB BRADY and LT. GOV. MIKE STACK spoke in favor of endorsing Dougherty.

One last tidbit relates to the special election for the 170th legislative seat formerly held by CONGRESSMAN BRENDAN BOYLE. CITY COUNCILMAN ED NEILSON accompanied the Democratic nominee SARAH DelRICCI as they went door to door in the district. The temperatures were at a record low with blustery winds, yet the people they greeted were most impressed by their commitment and toughness. Those are traits held in high regard in the Northeast Philadelphia blue-collar tradition.

   Send article as PDF