Politics: Anne of a Thousand Dreams

One could not conjure a more diametrically opposed candidate than Dicker, a former economic analyst for rubber-chicken-and-edible-underwear purveyor Spencer’s, who left her job in 2004 to pursue activism and politics here, who has never held elective office (she lost a bid for a State House seat in ’06), and who lives with Simon in a stark one-bedroom, second-floor Queen Village rental that receives little natural light and appears to contain almost nothing of significant monetary value.

The first time Dicker ever visited Philadelphia — the first time she’d ever visited a big city — was as a sophomore in college, accompanying her roommate home for a break. It was, she says, “love at first sight.” The eldest of five children, Dicker grew up in Oak Harbor, Ohio, a 2,800-person farming village 10 miles from Lake Erie. Her father worked as a store manager; her mother was a teacher until six years ago, when she had her marriage annulled, took vows of chastity, poverty and silence, and became a nun at the Monastery of the Visitation, in Toledo. Dicker says her mother lives “just like The Sound of Music,” praying all day, and playing violin in her free time alone in the crypt.

Dicker betrays little emotion discussing her mother’s transformation, saying only that she admires her guts in pursuing a lifelong dream. Pressed for more, she called me one evening to say that she’d been thinking about her mother, and, “Yeah, of course, I was a little bit saddened that I don’t get to see her as much as I did before. She used to spontaneously drive 500 miles just to say hi, and I do miss that.”

In nonpolitical settings, Dicker comes across as impassive and impenetrable; a longtime friend confided that the candidate is close to few people other than her husband, and that he finds her “inscrutable” in conversations involving anything but politics. When I accompanied her to a large public event at which many of her compatriots in the crusade against casinos were present, she was recognized by almost no one, and stood quietly minding her business, making no effort to glad-hand or politick. She is, in short, a stark contrast to the classic Philadelphia politician — elected, it would seem, as much for ability to entertain as to govern — and if she is to connect with voters on Primary Day, she will, like Nutter, need to find some way to exude charm, even if it’s a wonkish and dorky brand.

After high school, Dicker found her way to tiny, prestigious, ultra-liberal Middlebury College in Vermont, through a special rural-outreach program; she earned a degree in economics and underwent the most serious metamorphosis of her life. She was, at first, shocked and dismayed by the school’s liberalness, the students’ stances on politics and religion, and especially gays, who were readily accepted. She reacted by groping back to what she knew, searching out conservatives, attending mass, joining the campus’s Catholic Newman Club and the Right to Life Club.

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