Nutter: A Time for Hope

Nov. 4, 2007
Tom Ferrick Jr.
For The Inquirer

Now comes Michael Nutter's moment.

The charade of a fall campaign will end this week. Election Day will come and go. On Wednesday, he will be mayor-elect of Philadelphia.

Just one step away from the office he has wanted since he was learning his life lessons from the Jesuits at St. Joe's Prep.

Maybe it is time to recall the Jesuit motto: Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam, "For the Greater Glory of God."

Nutter knows the meaning behind the words. Working for the betterment of humankind is God's work, and those who devote their lives to it are blessed.

He'll need those blessings as he enters City Hall.

The polls tell us the city is in the civic equivalent of depression. Most people think Philadelphia is worse off today than it was four years ago. Only 20 percent believe the city is on the right track. The numbers, as relayed in a recent Keystone poll, are the lowest in at least a decade.

What's the cause of this case of the blues?

Certainly there is fatigue with the Street administration. The crime numbers play into it; the shootings of police officers drive the point home hard. Perhaps the local mood is partly a reflection of a nation sick over Iraq and worried about the economy.

It would be comforting to think that Nutter could dispel this fog simply by showing up to work the day after his January inauguration.

But it is going to take more work to sway the disaffected and the disengaged. Remember, Nutter may have won the Democratic primary, but his total was only 107,000 votes.

On Tuesday, I expect fewer than 200,000 of the city's 900,000-plus voters to show up.

It is going to take more than an Election Day to boost the city's collective morale.

Nutter does have tools to do it. He has the backing of the reform wing of the Democratic Party, activists whose sustained interest in politics and the city make them valuable allies.

He is popular, the polls tell us, among three out of four Philadelphia voters, even though they may not actually show up to vote on Tuesday.

More than that, he embodies the feeling that the city, especially in recent years, has pulled out of its 50-year tailspin and may be poised for growth and revival.

I wouldn't exactly call that feeling optimism, so much as hopefulness.

As someone who has spent much of the last year listening to Philadelphians talk of their hopes and fears, I can testify to the intensity of that feeling. If it could be added to the water supply, it would boost everyone's mood a couple of notches.

The trick is to take that hopefulness and spread it out. A few wins would help: an uptick in the number of jobs coming into the city, a drop in the homicide rate.

To make the hope lasting, we would need a genuine sense that the city is - in fact, at long last - headed in the right direction.

For Nutter, that mission should begin with a city government that is honest, transparent, efficient and responsive.

When all is said and done, reversing historical tides - of job loss, of poverty, of violence - are beyond the reach of a single mayor's power.

But, that journey has to begin somewhere, and that somewhere is City Hall. It always has been in this city.

The government and the politicians who lead it set the civic tone.

That is what was so damaging about The Bug scandals of recent years. They reinforced the belief, already widely held, that in Philadelphia the fix is always in.

If you look at the poll results, you will see that modern Philadelphia isn't corrupt and contented. It is cynical.

At its roots, cynicism is a form of hopelessness. It smothers the belief that things can get better.

In Philadelphia, cynicism is no surprise. What is a surprise is how many people still refuse to embrace it.

I have found them in every neighborhood, in every walk of life. They actually get up every day and try to do some good. Some for the entire city. Some for their neighborhood. Some for their block.

Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam.

They constitute the constituency of hope. Tuesday is their moment. Their expectations for the next mayor are high - perhaps too high.

At the very least, people expect him to be honest and they expect him to be smart. They expect him to deliver the goods when it comes to city services.

But, maybe more than anything else, they want him to embody their hope for the city.

And if he does that - and does it well - there is a chance that this hope for Philadelphia will spread and grow until it defines this city.

And what a glorious thing that would be.