Landslide: Kenney romps in Philly mayor's race

[brooklynite]

Source: Philadelphia Inquirer

James F. Kenney, a 23-year veteran of City Council and true son of South Philadelphia, rolled to an easy victory Tuesday in the Democratic mayoral primary, making him the odds-on favorite to become Philadelphia's next chief executive.

Backed by an impressive coalition of organized labor, progressive groups and key African American political leaders, Kenney, 56, overcame a field of candidates that included former District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham, former Common Pleas Judge Nelson Diaz, former PGW executive Doug Oliver, former state Sen. T. Milton Street and the candidate once seen as the frontrunner - state Sen. Anthony H. Williams.

With 98 percent of the vote counted, Kenney was leading by a better than two-to-one margin over Williams, his closest challenger. The remainder of the field trailed far behind.

Kenney ran strongly in all sections of the city, and showed remarkable strength among African American voters, a sign that Philadelphia's traditional racial voting patterns may be eroding. That crossover vote proved decisive as a healthy margin of black voters rejected Williams, the most prominent African American in the race, in favor of Kenney, an Irish Catholic and former Mummer.

Read more: http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/elections/20150520_Kenney_wins.html

[bluestateguy]

1. Is he for ending Broken Windows policing?

Do the police hate him? That would be the sign of a mayor I would support.

[Dawson Leery]

2. +1,000,000,000

Is he anti-FOP? Hopefully.

[fbc]

3. He is progressive.

https://kenney2015.com/issues

[fbc]

4. He beat a "democrat" sponsored by libertarian republican contributors

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/14/philadelphia-mayor-super-pac_n_7268872.html

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

5. A vast majority of black voters backed him. They (we) are intelligent and made the right choice.

[starroute]

6. Here's Decarcerate PA's scorecard on the candidates

Kenney looks pretty good.

http://decarceratepa.info/content/mayoral-candidates-mass-incarceration

[rpannier]

7. Good

Williams was supported by pro-charter Libertarians

[BumRushDaShow]

8. I heard one former candidate describe the results as - "went left"

Not just at the mayoral level, but also City Council. It was a sound defeat of those pushing for Charter Schools (Williams) and win for those pushing for more support of public schools and funding of them (Helen Gym, an Asian American public schools activist who grabbed an at-large Council seat), although Allan Domb (another at-large newcomer who was pushed by the DLC Rendell, belies the shift a bit). And the irony is, Williams' father (Hardy Williams) was a political bulwark in the city as a State Rep, yet produced a son who went corporate. Other sons - notably of former mayors (Wilson Goode, Jr, Frank Rizzo, Jr, and earlier in the year, William Green, IV) are out -although the media is pushing the now-SRC head Green (who changed parties from (D) to (I)) to run as an independent in November for Mayor. IMHO, he would be toast and wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell if he tried.

And for those who pushed for the "hanging judge" Abraham to be the first woman mayor - someone who cost the city millions upon millions of dollars for the many lawsuits brought and settled by the city due to false arrests, police misconduct, and other police malfeasance against blacks encouraged by her while DA, good riddance

Kenney invoked much of what you saw DeBlasio do in NYC - reaching across demographics. So after 16 years straight of a black mayor (2 terms of John Street and 2 terms of Michael Nutter), Philly will have a white one once more. I expect there will be crickets out of Limpballs and other RW blowhards who claim that blacks only vote for blacks (ignoring all the whites who only vote for whites).

I remember when Kenney was debating getting into the race meaning he had to resign his Council seat right off the bat, with the danger being that if he lost, he would be completely out of elective office. But he did comment before election day, that although he originally didn't like the "resign to run" requirement, he realized that there would have been no way to effectively campaign and also try to handle his Council duties at the same time. He pushed big for public schools and ending "Stop and Frisk" (!!!!!!).

But as a note - Philadelphia has a "strong City Council" system here so there is a check and balance to tyrannical mayors if they should pop up (like Nutter and Rizzo, Sr decades ago).

From the article, the following comment was apropos -

"Skin color didn't make a difference," said Drakeford, who is African American. "I voted on the issues."

[Ruby the Liberal]

9. He sponsored the decriminalization bill

that is now in effect. Campaigned heavily on that - because of the disproportionate number of minorities being targeted by the insane war on weed.

Here is the Philly420 blog from Philly.com on the candidates:

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/mayor/Philly420_Will_Philadelphias_next_mayor_keep_marijuana_decrim.html