Early this morning I interviewed former Philadelphia Mayor John Street, now an adjunct professor of political science at Temple University. I was speaking to him for my honors thesis, which is focusing on the viability of the Republican Party in urban America, particularly Philadelphia.
Not surprisingly, Street said a number of interesting things regarding his two high profile elections against Republican businessman Sam Katz.
In many respects Sam Katz was more liberal than I am… I have no proof of this, but I think if Sam had won in 1999, by 2003 he would have run as a Democrat.”
I thought it interesting that during our conversation, Street seemed to avoid using his mayoral successor Michael Nutter’s name. He would either say “the mayor,” or a pronoun, never Nutter’s name. I didn’t ask, but Street and Nutter are known to be, at the least, political adversaries, considering Nutter ran his entire campaign on reforming the Street administration. Street’s presumptive endorsement was for U.S. Congressman Chakah Fattah.
On that note, check out this video of Street discussing some of the challenges his successor, now Nutter, will face.
Photo courtesy of OneCrazyFan.com.