Katz handicaps the field

Metro reporter Brian X. McCrone turned to Sam Katz yesterday to get some local insight into the Chinese financial meltdown. The two-time Republican mayoral candidate has business interests in the country.

Along with Katz's input into yesterday's crisis, the man that finished second to Mayor John Street twice handicapped the Democratic mayoral field.

Among Katz's observations:

He calls the overall field "disappointing" and laughs at the fact that ideas he was attacked for when he ran (like Chaka Fattah's thought to put GPS devices in students' backpacks).

He wants to pay for it by selling the airport. I’m thinking to myself, holy moly. And all these liberals talking about stop-and-frisking suspects.”

Katz says Bob Brady will have a tough time with Tom Knox in the field and that Michael Nutter and Dwight evans "are very similar." Both have similar-sized voting bases, Katz says.

He says Fattah is the only one with a clear message.

"he’s committed to helping the have-nots. He stays on message, like proposing to tax people who come into Center City in their cars in order to pay for SEPTA. That idea goes over well in the neighborhoods of West Philadelphia and North Philadelphia. But it’s a disaster for Philadelphia and completely unnecessary. And it’s a racially divisive policy.”