Unpopular political candidates in Philadelphia will always include Republicans and conservatives. Democrats in Philadelphia outnumber Republicans on a scale of more than seven to one, and it’s been that way for over 70 decades. Can this be healthy? There are barely 120,000 registered Republicans in Philadelphia which means that a Republican stands little chance of winning a major election in Philadelphia.
“No opponent, no problem: How Philly Dems spent more than a million bucks against no one,” ran a Billy Penn headline in its election 2018 coverage. “Uber rides, theater tickets, political largesse — here’s how candidates paid their way to uncontested reelection. “
So what’s wrong with this city? When incumbents win year after year, doesn’t that pave the way for corruption? Mayor Frank L. Rizzo’s death in 1998 while running for mayor as a Republican and not a Democrat was one of the saddest days in Philadelphia politics. It was sad not because Frank Rizzo was a flawless visionary leader but because had he been elected he would have effectively overturned almost a century of Democratic feudalistic control. (The last Republican mayor of the city was Bernard “Barney” Samuel (1941-1952). Occasionally, of course, there have been glimmers of possible change. Thacher Longstreth, who was instrumental in streamlining Edmund Bacon’s vision for the city, ran as a Republican candidate for mayor in 1955 and again in 1971.Another city Republican who refuses to give up is the 27th Ward leader (attorney) Matt Wolfe. Wolfe will run in the May 21st primary in hopes of attaining a City Council seat. Wolfe ran but lost for a Council at-large seat in 2014 and 2015. On Wolfe’s website one can read the message he’s been giving for years, namely that the city is doing itself a disservice by electing only Democrats.
Philadelphia did not
become the poorest big city in America due to a
natural disaster. There was no Superstorm Sandy. Philadelphia’s disaster
was man-made. Bad decisions made by politicians for whom reelection trumped
good government. The status quo is slowing Philadelphia’s growth
down and hurting our most vulnerable citizens
*
One of the ugliest races in the November 2018 was
between Patty-Pat Kozlowski ® and Joe Hohenstein (D) for the 177th
Pennsylvania House District seat which covers part of the Riverwards and lower Northeast Philadelphia. That seat was
held by Republican John Taylor for three decades in a district where Democrats
had a 2 to 1 majority margin. When Taylor announced his retirement, Kozlowski decided to run
for the seat as a Republican. Kozlowski’s years in public service included
working for former Councilwoman Joan Krajewski and lately as director of Park
Stewardship at the City Department of Parks and Recreation.
I asked Patty-Pat Kozlowski why she ran as a
Republican.
“For 32 years Taylor
was a good representative for our area, he never asked your affiliation and his
office helped everybody. For the past 10 years, I was asked as a Democrat, to
run against him and I always refused because the Dems wanted the seat to turn
blue-but here you had a guy who was a great public servant-our district was
better because of him-why would you want to change that? He never had a
scandal, did excellent constituent service and this guy would come back from Harrisburg
on a Wednesday night and actually show up at community meetings and not just
send a staffer.”
Kozlowski says that
when Taylor announced his
retirement he knew she was interested in running but that he also reminded her that
the State House was overwhelmingly Republican and to go up there as a Democrat
she would probably be spending all her time playing on her phone while the
majority pushed through legislation. Taylor
told her, "If you want to bring home the bacon for your District and the
City of Philadelphia, you're not
going to do either as a Democrat......"
Kozlowski says she
didn't want the $85k year job just to cut ribbons and get the summer off. “I wanted
our seniors to get more services to subsidize their food, utilities and medical
needs and do away with their property taxes. When a senior citizen has to go on
a payment plan to pay off their $1500.00 a year property taxes while shopping
at the dollar store for their food we have a problem in society. Meanwhile we
let huge hospitals, universities and big corporation big tax breaks and no
property taxes, that's ass backwards.”
Kozlowski lost the
election to Hohenstein although she had been ahead in the polls up until
Election Day. “It wasn't R versus D for me, elephants against donkeys, it was
all about the community and getting us the best services and a bigger piece of
State dollars. I promised not to take a state vehicle and believed that voters
would vote the person not the party.” Not in this day and age, however, and not in Philadelphia.
“…The anti-Trump vote hurt us in the 31st ward,”
Kozlowski told me. “People were voting straight D no matter what and in the
Mayfair section where I knocked on doors up until Election Day, visited senior
centers and community events it was unbelievable the vote from absentee
property owners who don't live in the City but they were bussed in to vote from
New York. On election day, before noon,
we took 6 calls from our poll workers that buses and vans were pulling up to Lincoln
High School, Mayfair
School etc
with a translator because they didn't speak English and they were voting
straight Dem. We asked for help for-election lawyers to be on site but they
were all at Samuel Rec center at Gaul and Tioga Streets
with a measuring tape making sure my niece was more than 30 feet from the
entrance because she was wearing a Patty-Pat shirt.”
Kozlowski says that
the Friday after Election she and Taylor had lunch and he showed her a folder
full of the numbers which showed an unusually high voter turnout in the 31st
ward.. Taylor then told her,
"Patty, I don't know if I would have survived this one.....wow."
I asked Kozlowski if
she thinks she lost the election because of the Republican identification with
President Trump.
“There were mailers
linking me with Trump and his policies. Planned Parenthood and Philadelphia
Teachers' Union didn't even give me the courtesy of
asking me my views before endorsing. LGBTQ organizations ignored me because
apparently you can't be gay and have an "R" next to your name.”
Telling it like it is
Then there was a
firestorm of sorts when Kozlowski’s encounter with a drug dealer near her
property in Bridesburg went viral. The news she had threatened him with a baseball bat and used the word junkie. The
Hohenstein campaign went to town lambasting Kozlowski for her choice of words,
as if the word ‘junkie’ somehow linked her with the KKK and violated the Left
Progressive code against so called hate speech.
What I didn’t tell
Kozlowski was that I decided to vote for her as soon as Hohenstein’s team
condemned her for her language choices.
“When a Democrat grabs a bat and chases the drug dealers off
their corner and tries to rid their neighborhood from drugs they get a movie,
staring Morgan Freeman as a kick ass savior made about them. But when a
Republican does it,” she added,” they are called racist, uncompassionate and
ignorant. They publish your home address and tell social media to go swing a
bat at this ‘fat dyke’ and her dogs. It's a double standard. The leader of
Angels in Motion, (an organization I respected but didn't agree with their end
game of constantly giving food and clothes to addicts but not successfully
getting them into rehab) went on Facebook and called me a racist (because the
drug dealer was Hispanic) and then campaigned for Hohenstein. Again, it's all
part of the game.”
But calling
Kozlowski a racist on Facebook wasn’t enough. The next day she says a KKK image
of a cross burning showed up on her page. “The only thing I burn is the toast.
But I was a Republican, so it was OK.”
The irony here, of
course, is that the majority of Bridesburg residents were with her. “The City
and the news media do not pay attention to that stuff. The robberies, the car
break-ins, the muggings, the stripping of any metal from your homes and cars
and the hundreds of addicts living under tunnels with no bathrooms and no
running water…”
Kozlowski will run
as a Democrat against City Councilman Bobby Henon (D-6th district)
in the May 21 Democratic primary.
“I switched back
to Democrat to run for this City Council seat because Henon has to be defeated
in the primary,” Kozlowski said. “That’s how you stop his corruptness and
greed. That’s how you stop a guy from Pennsport who lives on Moyamensing
Avenue controlling what happens on Richmond
Street, Cottman Avenue
and Torresdale Avenue.Everyone is afraid of these guys and their union power and
bully tactics. They have millions of dollars to blow in this election….
“But guess what?
They don’t own me or my family. They never did a favor for me and can’t
blackmail me”
Thom Nickels
Contributing Editor
