So I says to my friend Looie, the world’s foremost authority on Philly politics, "Looie," I says, "does this Nutter have a chance to change things?"
Looie, who truth be told looks a lot like Danny DeVito, takes a puff on a cheap cigar whose fumes bring tears to my eyes. "Oh we’re gonna get change," he says. "We’re gonna see change like we never saw before." And then Looie delivers his punch line: "The question is, will it be good change?"
Looie likes the energy and enthusiasm of Michael Nutter, but he can’t quite shake his misgivings. You can’t change this town by going it alone and Nutter sometimes is like the Lone Wolf. "He seems to be reaching out," I say.
"Reaching out before you’re the mayor and reaching out after you become mayor are two different things," Looie cautions. Nutter is a reformer and reformers tend to think they know better than everybody else. "Reformers," says Looie, "are normally not very good at reaching out."
I chide Looie, "You just don’t trust reformers."
"And with good reason," he replies. "Reformers sometimes don’t live in the real world." Looie reminds me compromise is the grease that gets thing done in politics. Nutter will have to learn to compromise. John Street came into office with energetic promise, but he treated City Council like an illegitimate child. Looie thinks despite the rivalry between Nutter and Street, they’re more alike than different. Nutter will have to learn to schmooze, something not usually inherent in the personalities of high-minded reformers.
Looie has an open mind on the new police commissioner. He knows I was longing for the triumphant return of John Timoney. Looie points out if you’re going to implement a stop-and-frisk policy, while at the same time developing a bond with the community, white skin is not an asset. You don’t need the additional hurdle of race. Looie says it’s common sense. It will be difficult enough to convince African-Americans in the inner city the policy is being applied even-handedly. The plain truth is stop and frisk will go down harder in those neighborhoods and an African American mayor and police chief may be the only ones who can gain trust in, at best, a rough situation.
Looie doesn’t use words like "malaise," but that is what has gripped this city during the last eight years. At first when the violence spread, most of us looked at it as happening in the other person’s neighborhood. When it inevitably spread to our own neighborhoods, police reaction was, "Well it’s not as bad as what’s happening in the rest of the city." In our neighborhoods, law enforcement often blamed the victim. When people began seeing that reporting crime did not bring a response from the authorities, they stopped reporting.
Although Nutter faces huge financial challenges, Looie believes his biggest challenge is in changing the culture of this city where crime and corruption are often winked at. Looie flings a few ashes from his cigar, which float down and land on my new walking shoes. "In a way," he says, "crime has brought us together. We’re all in the same pot, black and white, and this is what gives Nutter a shot.
"We’re like a lobster and the pot is boiling and we want somebody to turn off the gas. But can Nutter pull it off?"
It is my turn to remind Looie 16 years ago when Ed Rendell became mayor, there were a lot of naysayers, too. People thought this town was history. Rendell brought the city back from the brink. Looie’s skepticism is hard to shake.
"Rendell is a political animal," Looie responds. "He is the natural extrovert who enjoys the push and pull of politics. He knows when to compromise. Nutter is an introvert. He probably has more on the ball intellectually, but sometimes that even hurts him when dealing with people less bright."
Nutter’s window of opportunity is small. He must quickly get control of the homicidal streets. Nothing is more important. Everything will flow from that success — people and businesses moving back into the city and improving the tax base. Somehow he has to do it while decreasing taxes in order to make the city more attractive. According to Looie, the challenge is bigger than the one faced when Rendell took charge of City Hall.
Looie remains ever the skeptic. I am cautiously optimistic Nutter can pull it off. We’ve got a box of cigars bet on the outcome. The city has much more at stake.
