By Jehron Muhammad
Asked after being beaten handily by incumbent Mayor John Street what are his future plans Sam Katz, the three-time loser of Philadelphia's top political job, stated they include working on easing the racial divisions that characterized the campaign. "There's a very serious problem here," Katz said. "It's got nothing to do with Street or Katz. There's a lot of racial dysfunctioning in Philadelphia."
Is this racial dysfuntioning or voting as a political block as most ethnic groups do in Philadelphia according Street for Mayor consultant, Bruce Crawley? "When Black people start to gain the kind of sophistication to vote as a block and then to form coalitions with other people outside of their own ethnic coalition then they say were playing the race card which isoutrageous," said the President of Crawley Haskins & Sloan an ad and public relations agency located in downtown Philadelphia.
"The most disturbing aspect of all
this is that when you examine the history of voting patterns in
the United States you see that voting patterns are always local
and are always ethnic," said Crawley during an exclusive
interview in his downtown office with the Final Call. "The
Italian ethnic coalition played a big role in getting Frank Rizzo
elected. He could always count on that block (of votes) and nobody
ever said they were playing the Italian card. When Bill Green
was elected (in 1980) with strong support from the Irish community
nobody said he was playing the Irish card."
With Street handily beating Katz on November 4 by nearly 80,000
votes in the midst of an FBI probe and Katz and his surrogates
accusing the Street campaign of polarizing the City contrast that
with the 1988 mayors race between Black candidate, W. Wilson Goode
and the former mayor and police commissioner, Frank Rizzo.
Katz who once "loathed" Rizzo was found doing campaign ads for the former mayor. "I didn't have any false illusions about Rizzo," yet he signed a controversial mailing suggesting that Goode had links with Nation of Islam leader the Hon. Min. Louis Farrakhan. In effect according to the Chair of the Philadelphia based Grassroots Political Network, Omjasisa Kentu "trying to polarize the Jewish and Black community."
But it's the FBI probe that represented the main hurdle for the Street campaign. Starting with the discovery of a FBI planted bug in Streets private office.
"The bug coming when it did (in the heat of the campaign) was suspicious," said Crawley. In fact even at this late hour in the election with the poles starting to shift towards Street according to the pundits there was still a lot of undecided voters. According to Crawley who Chairs the African American Chamber of Congress, "Even those people said this is suspicious." He added, "I think(the FBI probe) helped galvanize the African American and Hispanic base but it also swung some whites of good conscience who had been undecided up to that point over to the Street side of the ledger because they said this is too much to be coincidental."
To add insult to injury Attorney General John Ashcroft shows up in Philadelphia during the mayors race after the discovery of the bug on three separate occasions only to deny the request of three Congresspersons who wanted a sit down to discuss the nature of the FBI probe.
Many in Philadelphia felt that the probe (directed principally at Blacks receiving city contracts) was a part of a larger Republican plan to win in the upcoming presidential election. Not only did the Republican Party donate $800,000 to the Katz campaign but according to a recent Philadelphia Inquirer story the mayor's race could determine the winner of Pennsylvania's 23 Electoral College votes. "The Republicans already control the State House and the State Senate," said Kentu, who has worked on many local and statewide political campaigns "it would be much easier to win the state with a republican mayor."
Asked what the plans are of the two-time winner of Philadelphia's top job? Crawley addressed his answer towards Streets nasayers, " John Streets vision was always a two term vision. When you say your going to tackle 75 years of neglected blight and clean up all these neighborhoods and your going get drug dealers off the street corner don't say you reasonable expect him to do that in one term.