Well…we were having a nice little primary on the issues. The race for the Democratic nomination for mayor of Philadelphia had been remarkably free from rancor, race-baiting, and dirty politics. That has all changed in the last couple of weeks. It started with Rep. Chaka Fattah suggesting that Michael Nutter isn’t black enough. It ramped up considerably yesterday. Self-financed millionaire Tom Knox and fourteen-year city council veteran Michael Nutter had been getting on famously and seemed to genuinely like and trust each other. No More:
…flyers were distributed outside at least two Catholic churches early yesterday accusing Nutter of changing his religious beliefs for political reasons…
“Remember that Democrat Tom Knox is a practicing Catholic,” the flyer reads. “Michael Nutter? He was Catholic when it was convenient for him, so he could get a quality Catholic education. Now? He quietly left the Catholic Church to become a Baptist, probably because his polls told him it would be a smart move.”
The flyer had a red headline and Knox’s name at the bottom in red, but there was nothing on it to indicate who was responsible for the literature. It was placed on car windshields outside at least two Catholic parishes in opposite ends of the city…
… Nutter, 49, was raised Catholic but started attending Baptist churches in the mid-1980s.
“It’s clear to me, based on the other filthy literature Tom Knox has been mailing out, that this is clearly more of his nasty tactics,” Nutter said, brushing off Knox’s denial.
Then, standing in front of the Philadelphia Zoo, where he had gone to meet voters, Nutter put both hands in his pants pockets and calmly disparaged Knox in the most brutal language of the campaign.
“Tom Knox is a low life and a scumbag for being associated with this kind of vile, vicious kind of literature,” he said. “It is an absolute insult to all churchgoers and Christians that this kind of literature is handed out in front of churches. All we are left to ask is this question: Tom Knox, have you no dignity?”
It’s hard to picture Michael Nutter using the word ‘scumbag’. He’s obviously angry as hell. Meanwhile, Tom Knox is clearly desperate. The cars outside my house are littered with anti-Nutter fliers paid for by the Knox campaign.
Something about Knox has always bothered me. This latest attack on Nutter’s religion should backfire. If Joe Trippi is behind this, he should never be hired again by anyone, and John Edwards should fire his ass.
The primary is tomorrow. I hope Knox gets slaughtered.
Religion and politics are like peanut butter and pickle relish: neither is improved by the addition of the other.
I am reminded of the Ford/Corker contest here in Tennessee. I was originally inclined to hold my nose and vote for Ford despite his coming from one of the most corrupt political families in the South. Corker’s ads, even before the famous race-baiting bimbo ad, were so offensive that it was hard to imagine anything could get me to change my mind.
Then Ford started running ads shot from inside a church, wherein he blathered on about his religious convictions and high morals.
Now, I’m used to the disgusting spectacle of election year piety, but inside a freaking church? I can’t even remember a Republican doing that in an ad.
When I finally got to the polls, I ended up skipping the Senate race altogether. I just couldn’t bring myself to vote for Ford, though it will be a cold day in hell before I vote Republican as a protest. A lot of local Dems I know felt the same way. Most held their noses and voted Ford anyway, but a surprising number just skipped the race.
It was a close race, too, and ended up being about the only thing Republicans had to celebrate that night.
The long and the short of it is that Dems, even in red states, tend to be either opposed to mixing religion and politics or else secular altogether. Ergo, if your campaign demonstrates a complete contempt for the separation of church and state, you better win a hell of a lot of swing and moderate Republican votes, because it is possible to disgust Dem voters to the point that they simply will not vote for you.
The flaw in DLC-style triangulation is that the country is, at present, split almost evenly down the middle between left and right. To win, you must appeal to swing voters, but you also have to keep your own base. It does no good at all to peel off a few percentage points from the right if it comes at the cost of losing even more from your base. They were able to pull it off with Clinton and the wave of “New Democrats” who rode in along with him, but we’re wise to that shit now (at least outside of the confines of the big orange). We’ve been burned too many times and had too many of our rights sold off by “moderates”.
So yeah, even though I’ve never been to Philadelphia, I hope this Knox guy goes down hard.
I’m so shouldn’t comment on this, but whatever. The fliers look like they came from Knox ally and all around sack of shit Johny Doc. I was willing to give the rich kid the benefit of the doubt and at least consider his candidacy until his garbage attack fliers started showing up in my mailbox a week or so ago. At first I thought it was some shit produced by Brady’s shop as a way of tarnishing both Nutter and Knox. It was just so nasty that I couldn’t believe that the rich kid (Knox) trying to play act the reformer shtick was so stupid that he mailed out that kind of bullshit. Fuck him. Until last week I was all about anybody but Brady. Today, it’s anybody but Brady or Knox.
My first thought was that it was Brady. I don’t know if Knox would do that, that’s pretty low.
Brady or Doc, I can see.
The flier attacked Brady too, and repeated some talking points Doc had made in the past. A Knox win is the worst thing for Brady.
Where does that kind of stuff come from. I have trouble believing that Knox would stoop that low. Almost wonder if they are being put out by someone else, either without his knowledge or to make both of them look bad.
Then again, someone put up those Redell-Santorm signs on the boulevard…
why is this so hard to believe?
nutter by 10 points
Johnny Doc was behind the Rendell/Santorum signs. That was acknowledged.
I really have had it with electoral politics.
Just sayin’.
I know somebody’s gotta do it, but, man…