Philadelphia Democratic Ward Leaders to Choose Next President

This is sad:

One of the first skirmishes of Pennsylvania’s presidential primary is set to take place here Friday, when the campaigns of Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama vie for the endorsement of this city’s ward leaders.

It may sound like a parochial affair, but Mrs. Clinton is sending her husband, Bill, and Mr. Obama is sending one of his prominent supporters, although it’s not clear yet who that will be. The attention of a former president to a group of ward leaders is an indication of the stakes here in Pennsylvania, the biggest state, with the most delegates, that has yet to vote. The primary is April 22.

Sad, but a necessary step in winning Philly. Philadelphia is an object lesson in the danger of one-party rule. You can't win here without bribing the local party officials, like the ward leaders, and the mayor.  Who is Mayor Nutter supporting?

There's your answer. Will Bunch explains:

As for Nutter endorsing Clinton, well that die was pretty much cast the day that Barack Obama made the boneheaded move of backing the clearly loser candidacy of Rep. Chaka Fattah, thanks to their mutual close ties to Obama's chief advisor, David Axelrod. Nutter's countermove is Politics 101 -- the friend of my enemy is my enemy -- and not at all surprising.

If only Obama had not made that mistake, he'd have Philadelphia, and Pennsylvania, and the nomination in the bag. Weird.

As it is, Fattah lead the cheers at the Obama afterparty in West Philly on Tuesday - which was attended almost solely by black ward leaders.  (I know, because I was there.) But Fattah is not the mayor - the mayor was at Clinton's afterparty, at a faux-Irish bar where a lot of cops hang out, Finnegan's Wake, in the whitest part of town. The mayor has some control over the spigots on the city's patronage system. So who do you think ward leaders who backed him are going to want to support?

There's another key player, Congressman Bob Brady, the local party chairman, who is overseeing the presentations by Bill Clinton and Obama's spokesperson, whoever that is, to the ward leaders:

Brady, in an interview, said the committee also will hear from a surrogate for Obama, but the Illinois senator's campaign has not yet confirmed who it will be. Among the possibilities, he said: wife Michelle Obama, or Sens. Edward Kennedy or John Kerry.

Brady said there will "not necessarily" be a vote to endorse in the presidential primary. "I'll know tomorrow when I get there," he said. Asked whether there was sentiment among his ward chieftains to make a committee choice, he said he would find out at the meeting.

Brady, a superdelegate, has undoubtedly been pursued by both candidates for a long time now. But Brady is also the most powerful politician in Philadelphia, more so than the mayor, because he controls the vast majority of the money. Now they have to offer him whatever he wants in exchange for his support.

The good news for Obama is that Brady and Nutter are not exactly best friends. The other good news is that the city of Philadelphia is 46% African-American.

Update: Welcome, Eschatonistas! Susie, in comments, corrects me by saying that Nutter has almost no control over patronage, compared to Brady. Also, Nutter and Brady are allies at least to the extent that Brady stayed in the mayoral race to ace out Tom Knox and install Nutter, who is from a different part of the machine than Brady, but is still of the machine.

Another person who knows more than me is Chris Bowers:

I expect the ward leaders to have about as much of an impact on this election as they had in the 2007 mayoral primary, which was next to nothing. The power of ward endorsements comes largely in lower-information primaries, where the people who show up to vote are handed an "official Democratic ballot" of the local ward endorsements that was also sent to them in the mail a week or two earlier. These voters generally are willing to vote for any Democrat, and the one they see on the "official Democratic ballot" sounds about as good as any other Dem. In low turnout, low-information elections where the voters don't know much about the candidates in the primary, this is devastating (and also the source of ward power, since it is through these lower-information offices that jobs can be doled out). However, in hotly contested, high-visibility primaries where all of the voters know more about more than one candidate, it plays virtually no role.

I think there is a lot to this, but on the other hand, turnout in the black wards will be crucial in this primary, and the ward leaders have a big impact on GOTV, whether voters get rides to the polls, whether voters can find the polling place, whether machines "break", etc. If Clinton can get those ward leaders to dog it on election day, it would be to her advantage. Bowers says the stakes come down to a swing of 6 delegates:

There are four congressional districts in Philly, two of them entirely in the city. Those two congressional districts, PA-01 and PA-02, have seven and nine district-level delegates respectively. Obama's margin can be anywhere form 9-7 to 12-4.

One other thing about Brady: He's a big part of the local union scene, and the unions will also have a major impact on turnout, both in terms of endorsements and providing muscle for intimidation purposes, ripping down signs, etc.

Comments

[Soullite]

Even if Clinton wins Penjn, it doesn't matter. She can't make up the delegate lead.

Make no mistake, those of us who support Obama will burn Denver to the ground before we let Clinton steal the nomination if she doesn't have the lead among pledged delegates.

[Barry]

Soullite.....I don't know why you would says such things, as it shows you to be a complete idiot if you really believe that.

Make no mistake. It will be possible to elect a Republican President next November, if that is what the Barack people (or the Hillary people, for that matter) really want. The big question is what sort of country we will have left after another 30 years of a Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, Alito and their BFFs to be appoint in the next four years.

Burn Denver down. What sort of people would even threaten to do that in fun?

[Susie from Philly]

Where did you ever get the idea Brady and Nutter aren't friends? That must be some other Bob Brady who stayed in the mayoral race so Nutter could win.

And Nutter doesn't control much patronage. Brady does.

[Joe]

"Make no mistake, those of us who support Obama will burn Denver to the ground"

Um, could you confine the burning to a couple mile radius around the Pepsi Center? And in no case burn south of Alameida or East of University?

Thanks...

[TheDrizzle]

-Barry
The kind of person who wants a revolution. Some see Obama as being able to keep it bloodless. However if Hillary try's to stop it (the bloodless revolution)then some will take it by force. Hillary has only one chance at the nomination which is to completely destroy Obama. If she succeeds in that then many Obama supports will start the revolution in Denver and it won't be bloodless. People want their country back.

[Joe Klein's conscience]

TheDrizzle:
Did you read Rick Perlstein the other day at HuffPo? he echoed Soullite's thinking. Not that Rick would be in the streets, just that if Clinton stole the nomination, he's heard from people he talked to that it will get ugly in Denver(yes, that means riots and the like). You are right, a lot of people out there want their country back.

[DR]

Soullite,
WTF? Where is it written in stone that "Pledged Delegates" get to determine the nomination? What if Hillary leads in the popular vote? The rules are that the nomination is determined by pledged delegates plus super delegates. If you have a problem with that, form your own party.

It is funny how much complaining I heard from Kos about the popular vote not determining the election when it was Gore vs. Bush, but now that it is Obama vs. Clinton, it is the almighty electoral college.

[DR]

Joe Klein's conscience,
And in the unlikely case Clinton pulls it off by winning the pledged delegates? Then what? You guys still gonna burn Denver down?

[tockeyhockey]

the people on here who think that obama is some sort of revolutionary need to have your heads checked. my god. none of the three candidates who are currently running for president are revolutionaries. they are all about as main stream, middle of the road as you can get. the differ on a few issues, but for the most part they will keep the status quo moving forward in washington.

if you want to start a revolution, elect members of the green party to local government. no matter who you elect president, none of them are going to even try to tap on the brakes when it comes to the run-away train that is congress and the federal taxation and appropriations systems. the only way you can really start a revolution is to build a viable third party that does not take corporate interests above individual interests. and the only way to do that is by electing green candidates in your boroughs, towns, cities, and counties.

mccain, clinton, or obama = better than bush, but no fix to the system. and certainly no revolution!

[sg]

"...Make no mistake, those of us who support Obama will burn Denver to the ground before we let Clinton steal the nomination if she doesn't have the lead among pledged delegates."

I'm certainly glad that I saw Obama in person, and wasn't relying on his supporters for any kind of intelligent input. They are becoming more like the Dallas Cowboy fans every day...and that's why everybody wants to see them lose.

[ws]

If threats of violence back the bloodless revolution, then dear readers, that's just organized crime and gang talk and KKK cross burnings, extortion and protection rackets, ya know, like the Godfather or CheneyBush, not Dr. King, or Gandhi or Krishnamurti, Mandela & Tutu or Christ's truly bloodless revolutions of love, forgiveness & reconciliation.

Promising me a job would probably be more effective and less terrorizing than threatening to "burn, baby, burn."

I wonder what Barack has to say about Soullite's strategy to win the nomination:

"Vote for me or I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll burn your house down"?

That means only one among us gets to the mountain top.

[sebastianz]

good god. the obama campaign has to do something about its supporters. they are an embarrassment. burn denver down? you and how many bags of Cheeto's?

so you had 8 years of the worst administration in history to get mad, but are going to burn denver down because a centrist democrat beats another centrist democrat in a razor sharp election? loser.

[UltraPrime]

If only the popular vote counted, Al Gore would be president.

[john doe]

Oh, c'mon, Clintonites. A little hyperbole never hurt anyone.

Obama is going to lose Pennsylvania, but it is not going to matter in the end because she cannot catch him among pledged delegates, and the super delegates are NOT going to overrule the pledged delegates, no matter what tortured arguments the Hillary camp makes.

But Hillary is going to lose black votes in Philly and lose badly. Just look at South Carolina. She had the support of lots of black leaders, but he crushed her among the actual black voters. You guys are acting like black people are sheep who all follow their stupid ward leaders, and frankly it's a bit offensive.

[msalley]

If black voters aren't sheep why are they voting overwhelmingly for Obama? He policy positions are very similar to Clinton's so it can't be policy differences. They are voting for him because he is black but it is apparently forbidden to say so.

[lutton]

What's funny - to me at least - is my theory that this circus is the real reason that Pennsylvania hasn;t moved it's primary towards the forefront of the nominating process.

I don't think the local machine here in Philly - and various others throughout the state - want to be subservient to presidential politics. They don't want the attention, they don't want the scrutiny. I suspect they would much prefer to control their little fifedoms quietly, without the weight of national campaigns pressing in on them.

It'd be so much easier to throw a bone over there, or send some rowdy poll watchers over to that division if the big contest were already over.

[ws]

Oh, c'mon, john doe, what you call a little hyperbole hurts Barack Obama, even if he winds up winning the nomination.

Oh, c'mon, john doe, what you call a little hyperbole hurts the Democratic Party, if you care about winning the national election.

Show me some Clintonites threatening violence or waxing hyperbolic nonsense and I'll be happy to call them out on it, too, but not with promises of physical domination or personal cultural wars of aggression. I want to do better than neocons and fascists.

Do you?

I hope that's a big enthusiastic "YES!"

[TheDrizzle]

msalley:
Why is it 'sheep like' to vote for Obama just because he is black. By your own admission his positions are “very similar to Clinton's" so why do you claim it is intellectually inferior to vote with your race. Using your faulty logic if you’re a women and you vote for Hillary because she's a woman you acting like a sheep, just following around all the other women sheep? If all things (policy wise) are equal why is it sheep like to move onto other criteria for making your choice?

[tom.a]

Seems Obama could have trumped the Bill Clinton effect a little by actually appearing there himself. Who'd you rather have, an ex-President or the next-President? It might do him some good to be seen as being able to take on BOTH Clintons at the same time.

[john doe]

ws, I guess you take everything everyone says literally, but what some random anonymous person posted on some random blog is not going to hurt anybody, not Obama and not the Democratic Party. Give me a break.

What will hurt the nominee and the Party is when Hillary says that she and John McCain are qualified to be Commander-in-Chief and implies that her DEMOCRATIC opponent is not qualified. I guess she is saying that voting for the Iraq War qualifies you on the theory that it's better to be Strong and Wrong, as Bill Clinton likes to say.

If she wants to endorse John McCain's qualifications, that's her business, but she should be thrown out of the DEMOCRATIC Party for that Joe Lieberman-like comment. It's not going to help her win any super delegates over to her camp, and it's certainly not going to help lay the groundwork for her 2012 campaign.

[Joe Klein's conscience]

SG & DR:
If Clinton were to be in the lead with the pledged delegates(which is damn near impossible now barring a Gary Hart type meltdown), it would be okay. What was being talked about was if Obama had the pledged delegate lead. Also, saying Obama supporters need to get a grip? One could say the same about Hillary's supporters as well. Take Taylor Marsh as example number one and go from there. Both campaigns have their over anxious supporters.

[liberal]

tockeyhockey wrote, they are all about as main stream, middle of the road as you can get. the differ on a few issues, but for the most part they will keep the status quo moving forward in washington.

I agree that both Hillary and Obama are not that liberal; at best, slightly left of center.

But McCain? Mainstream? AFAICT, McCain thinks that if a woman is raped and gets pregnant, he thinks she should bear the rapist's child to term.

I don't think that's "mainstream."

Nor is "we'll stay in Iraq 100 years if we have to" mainstream.

[Joe Friday]

Ah, hate to break it to you folks, but Clinton has already PASSED Obama in the national primary vote:

13,609,945 - Clinton

13,575,302 - Obama

And, after she wins Pennsylvania, her lead will only get larger, and there is no way for Obama to catch up with any of the TEENY TINY states he might win, to add to all the previous TEENY TINY states he has already won.

[RoughRider]

Ah, hate to break it to you folks, but Clinton has already PASSED Obama in the national primary vote:

13,609,945 - Clinton

13,575,302 - Obama
Posted by: Joe Friday

So, Joe-sounds-like-a-Republican-whether-Friday-or-any-other-day, are those numbers inclusive of the Michigan and Florida primaries? If that's the case, then you would be full of shit, wouldn't you? It would also be true that you and your cohort think it's OK to punish Obama for basically taking Howard Dean and the DNC at their word and playing by the rules. It would be stealing, too, but, well, you get the point.

[jill]

Finnegan's Wake is not in the "whitest part of town".

[mdhatter]

Burn Denver, etc.

Does anyone here actually think that's an honest Obama supporter?

Really? Are you sure?

If that guy swayed you either way, you should just plan to support the nominee and step away from the keyboard until November.

I think that Supporters IP address belongs to Rove or some-such trixter.