Word count: 1042 | Reading time: 5 min read
Pretzel Logic
Why the Rendell-Street team are the Maddux and Glavine of Philly politics.
The last several years have been kind of frustrating for us looking-for-scandal types.
Oh, there have been plenty of scandals.
Plenty of dirty deeds dug up by the local media. Or, in the case of the New Era charity debacle, deeds dug up by former local reporters working for national media after the local media gave New Era glowing reviews.
But the really big prize — knocking off an Ed Rendell or a John Street — has been elusive.
No videotapes of the mayor smoking crack with a hooker. No paper trail to prove that the City Council president is rigging bids.
We even went as far as stealing the mayor’s trash in search of dirt.
And found exactly that.
Dirt. A couple cans of Slimfast. Some airline tickets.
But no smoking gun.
There have been rumors. Innuendos. Whispered sweet nothings from sources trying to grind axes into the unlikely dynamic duo of Rendell and Street.
Some stories that have seen the light of day hint at minor league wrongdoing.
There have been stories that some of the mayor’s low-level campaign people helped Bill Stinson rig an election. There have been stories about the City Council president’s penchant for rewarding his friends with lucrative contracts.
And there have been mistakes.
Like the mishandling of the Eddie Polec tragedy. Rendell never should have jumped in with a promise to fire the 911 operators before investigating the matter fully. And Street never should have fanned the flames of racial tension by blasting Rendell for picking on the operators because they were black.
Rendell should have taken stronger action against his prison chief, whose proclivity toward sexual harassment is costing the city millions in lawsuits. And Street should never have been allowed to wield so much influence in development projects like the Apollo arena.
But despite all our efforts, all the digging and sniffing and snooping, Rendell and Street have been as unhittable as Maddux and Glavine.
Which is certainly something to think about when you go to the polls.
Another thing that I’ll think about when I pull the levers next Tuesday is a comment from someone in my neighborhood.
Grays Ferry is hardly Rendell Country. And John Street is hardly the most popular guy.
The reasons?
Rendell and Street don’t care about the neighborhood.
And they pushed the liquor-by-the-drink tax.
But one of the guys, discussing politics over beers at a party to celebrate the purchase of a tavern by my neighbor, made the following admission.
Overall, things aren’t too bad in Philadelphia.
A strange comment, considering the guy comes from a family of tavern owners.
Who are really suffering from having to pay thousands of dollars more in taxes.
A real burden considering that the heyday of neighborhood taverns open round the clock ended when the jobs left the neighborhood years ago.
A burden that is magnified because these are small business owners who have not seen the rebirth of Philadelphia trickle down to their tappies, whose friends and neighbors take it upon themselves to maintain city-owned lots because no one from the city ever comes out this way to clean them.
But this guy, who gets out and about, looks around and sees new growth and new hope and figures that, at the very least, Ed Rendell as mayor never bombed the city (even if he was DA at the time Wilson Goode bombed the city).
He sees that there are new businesses, offering new jobs. Notices that there is a small, if tenuous, surplus and that the city once again has an investment-grade bond rating that allows Philadelphia to borrow money at a much lower cost.
These things are good.
Maybe even good enough to warrant a vote for Rendell over Joe Rocks.
I must say that it was a pleasant surprise, indeed, to be granted 90 minutes of John Street’s precious time.
And I say that without any facetiousness implied.
It was a Tuesday, the day Street meets with Rendell to talk about how to run the nation’s fifth-largest city. And he came to a paper that has been less than kind to him.
Not that we have been unfair — or inaccurate.
When we have had the chance to give Street a tweak, or question the way he runs the city, we have taken it because that is our job. Street is directly responsible for controlling billions of dollars that flow through city coffers and someone has to watch him. Especially because Street acknowledges that his friends are rewarded.
The vast majority of the times we have written about Street, it has been without a comment from the man.
Tuesday, he told us he gets the messages, but has elected to ignore them.
Which is certainly his right.
But a right exercised that, I think, has contributed in large measure to the public’s misunderstanding of Street.
For sure, he can be arrogant and full of himself. But that has never bothered me because Street has more than proved he can deliver the goods, which is all you can ask for in an urban pol.
What the public has missed, I think, is the maturation of a fist-swinging angry young man into a master of the art of the deal who is succeeding at the nearly impossible: working the all-too-divergent world of poor black Philadelphia and well-too-do white Philadelphia at the same time.
Street likes to give much of the credit, and rightly so, to the people around him.
I’d like to give a lot of the credit for Street’s visit to my office to Bruce Crawley, owner of the city’s largest black-owned public relations firm and Street’s media advisor. Crawley is one of the smarter behind-the-scenes characters in the city.
Like a great swordsmith, Crawley has tempered Street without dulling him.
John Street is still as razor-tongued as ever. But it appears from now on that he’ll be sharing his thoughts more regularly with more Philadelphians.
A smart move for Street, considering his chance to be mayor is only four years away.
And a smart move for the city, considering that John Street, despite his image, has been instrumental in making Philadelphia a better place to live.
