Is This the Moment? Can We Make It So?

Feb. 18, 2007
Chris Satullo
Inquirer Editorial Page Editor

Eagles fans know the feeling. You've dreamed of The Moment, imagined it. You can almost feel the tingle of vindication in your gut, the flutter of confetti on your hair. And then you sense The Moment is near. Yet you're a Philadelphian, so that stubborn hope is matched by an equal dread: It's all just another tease, another setup for a letdown.

Over the last months, I've listened as more than a thousand Philadelphians spoke of the state of their city. The forums of the Great Expectations project reached into every corner of the city and near suburbs. Most of these people are dreaming of a Moment, too.

For them, too, the dream is tinged with a parallel dread. That many are also Eagles fans makes the situation all the more poignant.

At the forums, each participant was asked to name one hope, or one fear, he or she had for this election year. The obvious issues - crime, schools, jobs - got their due. But the predominant theme that emerged was this: "My hope is that this is The Moment for my city. My fear is that we'll blow it."

What moment? The moment to drive a stake through the heart of pay-to-play. To create a politics worthy of the city's promise, not enslaved to its corrupt and contented past. The moment to choose leaders who will govern for the good of the whole, not the interests of the narrow tribe. To begin running the city as though its citizens, not the players and the pols, were the ones who mattered. A moment to nurture diversity, not exploit it as a bloody wedge.

Why do so many folks believe this is The Moment to end "business as usual"? Because, from The Bug to the Fumo indictment, eyes have been opened to how bad the same-old-same-old actually is. Because the city, catching a wave of urban chic, has an infusion of new residents who view the city with fresh eyes. They see a fetching bride worthy of love, not (as so many natives do) a dark and tired hag.

From the Klein Jewish Community Center in the Great Northeast to the Point Breeze Performing Arts Center in South Philly, similar phrases of hope and fear came tumbling forth:. "My fear is that people won't vote, then complain afterward." "My hope is that we can channel all the great progressive energy in this town right now into reform." "I fear that the election will be all about race." "I hope Philadelphia can become a shining national example of how to end pay-to-play." "My fear is that, though the city is like a Ferrari, all ready to race, we won't find anyone who can drive it." "I'm a conservative guy, but my hope is that we get a truly revolutionary set of leaders." "My fear is politics as usual will win out."

Granted, folks who trudge out in the cold to attend citizen forums are a self-selected group, more likely to tingle at words such as ethics and reform. That said, I was struck by how nearly everyone - from leafy blocks or troubled ones - seems so disgusted at the antics and arrogance of the city's Democratic Party machine. But most are Democrats; the GOP of George W. Bush holds scant
appeal as an alternative. So they seek reform from within, but have little doubt how tough that road can be.

They know the tricks the machine has used for years to protect itself: the phony "reform" candidates who siphon votes from the real ones; the timely grants to co-opt key activists; the street money and large men in windbreakers on Election Day. They know that changing the status quo is not just about electing the right guy as mayor, important as that is.

It's about changing City Council, the true belly of the beast. The machine has set up three fat targets - the three ward leaders (Carol Campbell, William Greenlee, Daniel Savage) to whom it handed empty Council seats last fall without a whiff of public input.

City folks have taken hope from the pay-raise revolt vs. Harrisburg. Once a couple of the old guard there lost elections last spring, everyone in the state Capitol suddenly discovered his reform gene. The same thing has to happen May 15 in the Council primaries.

One of the usual suspects has to lose. The machine may be arrogant, but it's not deaf. If it loses one of its own, it'll start to listen.

It may be listening already. Two weeks ago, a Council majority seemed to have lined up dutifully behind a blatant bid to change the finance rules in mid-campaign to benefit the mayoral candidacy of party boss Bob Brady. Howls of protest from the city's growing Party of Reform, highlighted by a photogenic show of force by a passel of Council challengers, intimidated the incumbents into backing down.

Hmm. Maybe this is The Moment after all.