Matt Taubenberger the replacement for George Kenney

It didn’t work out for his father, Republican Mayoral candidate Al Taubenberger.

But, Matt Taubenberger, the failed candidate’s only son, will run unopposed in April’s Republican primary for the chance to do something his father has never done: win public office. Republican Matt Taubenberger is hoping to succeeed Rep. George Kenney in his 170 State Legislative House district, encompassing parts of Northeast Philadelphia and Montgomery County.

Taubenberger, who has previously worked for Kenney’s legislative staff, was chosen by GOP general counsel Michael Meehan at CafĂ© Michelangelo, in the Somerton neighborhood of the Northeast, at 11901 Bustleton Ave. south of Byeberry Road, as reported by the Northeast Times.

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Post-racial urban politics: hardly

We have called for and expected the end of mainstream institutional racism in the United States since about the third day after it was exported to this country, maybe 400 years ago.

Back in 1999, when white Republican Sam Katz was challenging black Democrat John F. Street, Katz’s surging success in a city that had nearly as large a black population as white seemed to embolden that notion. Indeed, Katz seemed to make inroads in black communities that hadn’t voted more for a Republican than a Democratic mayoral candidate since 1972, when W. Thatcher Longstreth took on legendary Frank Rizzo, often derided as an outright bigot. Katz won the endorsement of John White Jr., a black former City Council member who lost to Street in the Democratic primary, as reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer.

When less than two months before the 1999 election, Martin O’Malley, a white Democrat, won over black voters in his party’s primary to beat out a field of mostly black candidates, the comparisons were sure to be made, as was done by the New York Times.

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