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Power: The Dwight Stuff?
By Gregory Gilderman
IF YOU'RE WONDERING how I learned about this moment, the answer isn’t that I was there in 1999, or that one of Evans’s enemies slipped me a DVD. I was slipped a DVD — but it was by Evans himself, in January, during an interview at his West Oak Lane office. For Evans, it was evidence that he had offered solutions to the city’s most pressing problems — illegal guns, poorly managed schools and pay-to-play — long before it was fashionable to do so. That he didn’t offer those solutions elegantly is beside the point.
The whole episode might not even be worth mentioning except that it seems to have repeated itself eight years later. At a recent mayoral forum at the Academy of Natural Sciences, Evans arrives late, as does Chaka Fattah. The other candidates have answered the first question — how would you prioritize the Next Great City coalition’s environmental recommendations? — and now it’s Evans’s turn.
“What I want to first and foremost say,” Evans begins, “is just imagine. Just imagine. Just imagine a city which doesn’t have the level of violence that we have. … ” He describes a Philadelphia with a low crime rate and good schools. An international destination. After nearly two minutes, there’s the ding of an electronic “your-time-is-up” bell.
“What should an education system do?” Evans asks, undeterred. “First and foremost, it should reduce violence.” The bell double-dings. It doesn’t matter. The List is a train pulling out of the station, and no double ding shall slow its mighty rumble.
“The second aspect that it should do is reduce poverty,” Evans says. “The third aspect of an education system … ”
And so on, over the objections of the moderator, the consternation of the audience, and the quiet glee of his rivals.
To people whose knowledge of Evans comes only from television, it may be a surprise that this purveyor of lists has received the endorsement of three of the city’s most important unions. Or that such influential insiders as Bruce Crawley and Carl Singley are behind him. Or that Philadelphia’s Black Clergy have given him a nod. Even more interesting, perhaps, is what political consultant Larry Ceisler and many others — Democrats and Republicans — say about Evans. “If you ask people who deal with state and city policy,” Ceisler says, “most of them would say Dwight Evans would make the best mayor.”
The problem for Evans is that people in the policy business don’t decide elections. Voters do, and in that area, Evans — ahead of the curve on issues or not — has often struggled to make a connection. In the 1999 Democratic mayoral primary, for instance, he finished an anemic fifth in a five-person field, and in this spring’s primary, things look only slightly more promising. In two recent polls, just 10 percent and 12 percent of respondents said they’d vote for Evans. He remains hopeful that the public at large will come to view him the way the policy wonks do, but in this town, history shows that’s a risky gambit.
“My assumptions were always predicated on the belief that the electorate could see through the smog,” says Sam Katz, drawing parallels between his losing 2003 mayoral bid and Evans’s campaign now. “The last 30 days of 2003 didn’t give any plausibility to that assumption. You had people with master’s degrees who thought a conspiracy at the White House is the reason a listening device was planted in the office of the Mayor. So if you’re predicating a campaign on the savvy of the electorate, that’s probably a bad calculation.”
The whole episode might not even be worth mentioning except that it seems to have repeated itself eight years later. At a recent mayoral forum at the Academy of Natural Sciences, Evans arrives late, as does Chaka Fattah. The other candidates have answered the first question — how would you prioritize the Next Great City coalition’s environmental recommendations? — and now it’s Evans’s turn.
“What I want to first and foremost say,” Evans begins, “is just imagine. Just imagine. Just imagine a city which doesn’t have the level of violence that we have. … ” He describes a Philadelphia with a low crime rate and good schools. An international destination. After nearly two minutes, there’s the ding of an electronic “your-time-is-up” bell.
“What should an education system do?” Evans asks, undeterred. “First and foremost, it should reduce violence.” The bell double-dings. It doesn’t matter. The List is a train pulling out of the station, and no double ding shall slow its mighty rumble.
“The second aspect that it should do is reduce poverty,” Evans says. “The third aspect of an education system … ”
And so on, over the objections of the moderator, the consternation of the audience, and the quiet glee of his rivals.
To people whose knowledge of Evans comes only from television, it may be a surprise that this purveyor of lists has received the endorsement of three of the city’s most important unions. Or that such influential insiders as Bruce Crawley and Carl Singley are behind him. Or that Philadelphia’s Black Clergy have given him a nod. Even more interesting, perhaps, is what political consultant Larry Ceisler and many others — Democrats and Republicans — say about Evans. “If you ask people who deal with state and city policy,” Ceisler says, “most of them would say Dwight Evans would make the best mayor.”
The problem for Evans is that people in the policy business don’t decide elections. Voters do, and in that area, Evans — ahead of the curve on issues or not — has often struggled to make a connection. In the 1999 Democratic mayoral primary, for instance, he finished an anemic fifth in a five-person field, and in this spring’s primary, things look only slightly more promising. In two recent polls, just 10 percent and 12 percent of respondents said they’d vote for Evans. He remains hopeful that the public at large will come to view him the way the policy wonks do, but in this town, history shows that’s a risky gambit.
“My assumptions were always predicated on the belief that the electorate could see through the smog,” says Sam Katz, drawing parallels between his losing 2003 mayoral bid and Evans’s campaign now. “The last 30 days of 2003 didn’t give any plausibility to that assumption. You had people with master’s degrees who thought a conspiracy at the White House is the reason a listening device was planted in the office of the Mayor. So if you’re predicating a campaign on the savvy of the electorate, that’s probably a bad calculation.”
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