FightforRoom215

Fattah takes me to church

Went to church with Chaka Fattah this morning after the Wimbush breakfast at Triumph Baptist Church on Hunting Park Avenue off of Broad Street.

"The city can’t be disconnected from our citizens," he told parishioners. "You can’t build this city by building Comcast towers and Convention Centers and stadiums. You have to build our people. ... What we have to do is beyond politics, it's beyond the next election, we have to think about the next generation.

"If you want business tax cuts and convention centers there’s some other people on the ballot."

Fattah does call for business tax cuts, of course, but he says his will be revenue neutral. He explains that to accomplish this the city would have to begin taxing the income of some currently exempt institutions.

Fattah stood up for the "Fattah Machine" in his SUV* afterwards, pointing out that the Greg Naylor-Tom Lindenfeld operation has been involved in every major GOTV operation in recent memory round these parts. Opponents say Fattah's folks are better at getting out the vote during general elections against Republicans than in primaries. Guess we'll see Tuesday.

*Yes, all of the candidates except for Michael Nutter (Acura) and Tom Knox (Cadillac) travel by SUV.

First Obama, now God

If the 2007 Philadelphia Mayoral Election Wikipedia page is to be believed, Chaka Fattah has picked up some pretty serious endorsements today.

First, it was Barack Obama. Then, apparently, Fattah picked up the backing of the police department, department of education...

• Parking Authority, City Council, John F. Street, Water Department, PECO Energy, Streets Department, Comcast Inc., Sanitation Department, United States Congress, Office of the President of the United States, the FBI, CIA, and God.

That's a pretty good day of endorsements.

So wonderfully reliable, Wikipedia.

ACORN falls for Fattah

Chaka Fattah continues his campaign of aligning his supporters.

Yesterday it was a group of black clergyman, today it was the anti-poverty group ACORN. From Mayorpalooza:

About 250 ACORN members are formally trained in get out the vote efforts - meaning they are skilled at knocking on doors and walking voters to the polls, said spokeswoman Ali Kronley.

Fattah's show of force comes as Tom Knox appears to be strengthening (read: building) his get out the vote operation. Knox has plenty of cash obviously to get on TV, but insiders question what he'll be able to do on May 15 to get his supporters fired up and to the polls.

Fattah has his well-tested machine and Bob Brady has the levers of the Democratic party behind him. Dwight Evans has his Northwest Philly workers and Michael Nutter has a group of backers, as well.

But Knox, what about Knox?

Campaign manager Josh Morrow says they'll compete, that they're going to surprise those that question their Election Day ability. Knox's seeming alliance with Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell (the next Council president?) should get her West Philly troops behind him and then there's the possibility (likelihood?) of a Knox-Johnny Doc alliance that puts the electrician union's minions in his corner.

Don't throw Republicans in glass houses

We pointed to Chaka Fattah adviser David Axelrod's e-mail to supporters yesterday, which was kinda an attack against Tom Knox. Not like Dwight Evans giving out burger buns, but probably as much of an attack as the Fattah campaign is going to give us.

One thing Axelrod noted was that Knox has contributed to both George Bush and Rick Santorum. Not something a good Democrat would do.

Meanwhile, as one campaign observer points out, Fattah's big visitor to town this week — Richard Roundtree, the star from "Shaft" — is, wait for it, a Republican.

Gasp!

Roundtree's last political visit to Philadelphia was to speak at the 2000 Republican National Convention.

UPDATE: Fair and balanced, fair and balanced...From Fattah senior adviser Rebecca Kirszner:

Roundtree supports Fattah because he believes Philadelphia needs a true advocate for our neighborhoods – something that Santorum and Bush have not been.

Fattah's sights set on Knox, too

This might be the closest Chaka Fattah's campaign comes to attacking Knox...

An e-mail sent to supporters from Fattah media consultant David Axelrod paints the May 15 primary as a race between Fattah and Knox ("Fattah Can Beat Knox," says the subject line) and then paints Knox as a rich guy with no public service background who's donated to Republicans.

"Chaka is locked in a tight race against a millionaire insurance executive who's never served in elected office. Chaka's opponent has not been shy about spending his own money in political campaigns. In fact, a few years ago, Knox directed some of his dollars to the campaigns of Rick Santorum and George W. Bush."

It then points out Knox's ability to spend his fortune as the other candidates are limited to the new campaign finance limits as it looks for donations.

Fattah's campaign team are steadfast in their rule not to go negative on any of Fattah's oponents, no matter how much I'm sure many of them would like to. This might be all we get.

My money's on that changing the last week or so of the campaign.

Consider: Since the Tom Knox Bashfest began with Sunday's debate, the press has been dominated with Knox stories. Dwight Evans puts out a handful of policy papers hoping for media attention and how does he eventually get it? With $7 worth of hamburger buns from Wendy's for his "Where's the beef?" press conference.

Bloomberg likes Fattah idea

It's the idea that Chaka Fattah's not supposed to talk about anymore: the Center City congestion charge.

Before there was controversy over Fattah's idea to lease the airport, there was controversy over his idea to study putting a congestion charge in place for cars entering downtown.

Fattah doesn't talk about that idea much anymore. He said at his environmental announcement that his campaign told him to shut up about it. The voters weren't too keen on the idea, you see. Pay to drive downtown? Fuggedaboutit.

Now, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is proposing the same thing in NYC. From Newsday:

Trucks would pay $21 and cars would pay $8 to enter Manhattan below 86th Street on weekdays between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. The major thruways along Manhattan's east and west sides would still be free. Also, commuters who already pay a toll to come into Manhattan via tolls and tunnels would pay the price of the new fee minus that previous toll.

Shut yo mouth, Chaka

This proves we're hitting the homestretch...

The final weeks of a campaign are typically marked by candidates rolling out the big guns in terms of supporters coming to town to tout a candidate.

In the 2003 mayoral race, John Street welcomed visits from Bill Clinton, Al Gore, James Carville, Jesus, Abraham Lincoln, and Betsy Ross. Well, the first three, anyway.

On Monday, Chaka Fattah is bringing the first big visitor to town: Shaft.

Richard Roundtree, star of the blaxploitation masterpiece, is going to join Fattah on visits to, among other places, a senior center and an anti-youth violence program.

Roundtree has been traveling the country to spread the word about health education, including male breast cancer awareness. Roundtree was diagnosed with breast cancer a few years ago.

Fattah gets second endorsement of the week

Chaka Fattah will pull down a big endorsement this afternoon when AFSCME D.C. 47, the union representing the city's white-collar workers, announces its backing the congressman.

Fattah got the nod from SEIU Local 32BJ earlier this week, then wore the purple shirt the union gave him for the rest of the day, as he tried to bring some Vegas-style debauchery into the mayoral race.

AFSCME D.C. 47 represents some 3,500 members, all "taxpaying Philadelphia voters," according to Fattah's campaign.

Union leader Tom Cronin told Metro last week that the endorsement was down to either Fattah, Bob Brady or no endorsement.

"We have had a very good relationship with both men in the past, which is why the no endorseement option is a possiblity because you don't want to make enemies," Cronin said.

When the dirt isn't as dirty as opponents would like it to be

For both the Committee of Seventy's Zack Stalberg and Philadelphia Forward's Brett Mandel, Chaka Fattah's punishment from yesterday's Ethics Board decision would come mostly from the embarrassment factor from stories in the media.

With the Virginia Tech massacre dominating the headlines, stories on Fattah being forced to pay back more than $36,000 to his exploratory committee for expenses racked up for his mayoral campaign were pushed inside.

The story got unanimous Page 4 treatment in the Big Three: Metro ("Ethics board steps in"), Daily News ("Fattah campaign 'misbehaved'") and Inky ("Fattah will refund contributions," on B4, with a tease on the front of the local section).

Stalberg and Mandel were probably hoping for a lot more ... as was at least one other campaign.

A campaign (it will remain nameless, because the information was provided "on background") sent out its own analysis of Fattah's quarterly congressional filing and more than $100,000 in charges it believes Fattah's exploratory committee wrongly spent for mayoral campaign expenses.

The campaign questioned Fattah's purchase of $4,000 in "tokens" from the Fresh Grocer in Drexel Hill between January and March by the congressional campaign:

Never before has he purchased transit tokens with his mayoral account – let alone that many.  Clearly these tokens are being used by the paid canvassers in his mayoral campaign to travel between neighborhoods.

Well, not really. According to the Fattah campaign, they were actually tokens as in gift certificates for Fattah's "Guns for Groceries" program. Fresh Grocer confirm that the store sells tokens, rather than gift cards. They're available in denominations of $1, $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100, if you're interested.

"There go our opponents — trying to smear us for getting 600 guns off the street!" Fattah adviser Rebecca Kirszner wrote in an e-mail.  "Very nice." 

Some would question the benefit Fattah gets from congressional actions while he's also running for mayor, but the fact is that he is still a sitting congressman and should be serving his constituents. All of the press releases about the Guns for Groceries program have come from Fattah's West Philly congressional office via former Daily News reporter Ron Goldwyn, not the mayoral campaign. (He just sent one this afternooon, actually, for an event happening Saturday.)

(You could question why he bought the tokens in Drexel Hill and not in Philadelphia.)

As to the charges that Fattah should have been held accountable for $100,000 in exploratory committee spending, ethics board interim executive director Shane Creamer says that he "demanded and received an explanation for each expenditure immediately before and immediately after" Fattah's Nov. 18 declaration that he was running.

"Some of the items are covered in our agreement, and others, in my judgment were legitimate exploratory committee expenses," Creamer said.

The attacking campaign points out nearly $21,500 in charges for staff paid for by the exploratory committee after Fattah entered the race. Fattah's campaign points out that the law doesn't take into account when the payments are made, but when they're incurred.

"We worked with the ethics board on a thorough review of the matter and came to an agreement," said campaign spokesman Solomon Jones. "The ethics board said that the Fattah campaign provided extraordinary detail and did everything that was asked."

Creamer was running over to the board's training session at CCP this morning and unable to review the charges line by line. More later if he deems anything questionable.

Fattah to pay back money to exploratory committee

The ethics board made a bit of a splash today, agreeing to a settlement with Chaka Fattah over money raised by his exploratory committee and spent by his mayoral committee.

Fattah has agreed to return $42,000 $33,251 $36,767.34 to donors from the exploratory committee. Money was used for Fattah's Web site, computers and Fattah's announcement when he entered the race. (Both sides miscalculated the money in the settlement at first; the $36,767 figure is based on the agreement obtained from the board at 6 p.m. tonight. Should be final.)

The money in the exploratory committee will be returned to donors, not put into Fattah's mayoral warchest as he had hoped to do earlier.

Good government activists Zack Stalberg and Brett Mandel attended the ethics board's hearing and applauded the decision, which they consider an embarrasment to Fattah's campaign.

"If the media pays attention to this stuff then the voters see who is playing by the rules and who isn't," said Stalberg, head of the nonpartisan Committee of Seventy. "I think, clearly, Fattah was not."

Fattah's attorney, Greg Harvey, maintains that Fattah believes that he didn't officially become a candidate until his actual announcement. Thus, Harvey says, it was OK that the Fattah campaign used items from the exploratory committee prior to the announcement. Fattah's mayoral campaign began purchasing the items on Jan. 9, Harvey said.

The board's executive director, J. Shane Creamer, said that Fattah's campaign was very open with providing the requested information.        

"I do think it's important to demonstrate that the board is actively engaged in its oversight function of the law," said  Creamer.

The board decided against fining Fattah, both because he was cooperative and because it doesn't yet have the proper powers in place to adjudicate decisions. The board is working on drafting its adjudication powers now.

Also at the hearing, it was announced that the state Supreme Court has agreed to hear Fattah's appeal of the city's new campaign finance rules, but the court won't put the appeal on the fast track. Harvey conceded that it was "unlikely" that a decision would be reached prior to the May 15 primary.