The Maybe Mayor

For Brady, fate intervened in the form of City Council president George Schwartz, for whom Brady did some odd carpentry work. Schwartz got him a job as Council sergeant of arms, meaning Brady essentially became Schwartz's driver. Eventually he became Wilson Goode's deputy mayor of labor. By that time, he'd become well-known — and maybe more important, well-liked — among diverse groups of city Democrats. In 1984, he ran for Democratic Party chairman, and won. In one fell swoop, Brady became one of the most powerful men in Philadelphia, king of the only real party in town. It's a job he's relished for the past 22 years.

In 1997, Brady easily won the First Congressional District seat, becoming the only white member of Congress to represent a majority minority district. He has used his position as party chairman back in Philly to leverage considerable influence beyond the city, given that any pol with presidential aspirations knows his support is vital to carrying Pennsylvania; it was Bob Brady whom Vice President Al Gore famously sought out during a rare visit to the House floor as he prepared to run for president in 2000. The Democratic leadership named Brady a senior whip in 2002, an important position that had him rallying the troops to vote with the caucus and enabled him to get to know — and endear himself to — nearly every other Democrat in Congress.

But making it so far doesn't particularly impress Brady, who has made the 135-mile trip back home almost every night he's been in Congress: "Somebody had said that they wrote their mother, 'I'm in Congress. How did I get here?' And then three weeks later they wrote her again and said, 'Mom, I don't know how they got here.' That's me. All right? I was told that I was going to get this major thrill and all that. I haven't got it yet."



STILL, THE CONSENSUS OF OPINION until late November was that even though his name had come up among the potential mayoral candidates since the day John Street was re-elected, Bob Brady would not run for mayor. Even Governor Rendell weighed in, speculating in the press that the "lifestyle" issue would keep him out. This enraged Brady, who read the comment to mean Rendell thought he was lazy. Though Rendell says he won't endorse any candidate, conventional wisdom has it he's behind Congressman Chaka Fattah. Brady has taken notice: "It was okay when I sat out there and supported him under some duress times. It was okay when I sat out there and stood in front of the Convention Center, one of three people, when he was 29 points behind running against Bob Casey. ... " Of the lifestyle comment, Brady said specifically: "When I worked with Ed Rendell, I put him to bed every night and woke him up in the morning. Ed Rendell don't know what he's talking about. Ed Rendell called me and apologized for that remark."

But it seems that Brady has misconstrued Rendell's point. Rendell, like many others, meant the lifestyle issue as something broader, a means of expressing his difficulty reconciling why a man with so much political influence and success — Rendell calls him "one of the top three or four or five politicians in Pennsylvania, and one of the top 25 in Congress" — would want to risk it all, particularly given that Philadelphia mayoral races are hugely unpredictable and often bruising demonstrations of injustice. Put more plainly: He could lose. Lose not only the mayoralty, but along with it his power and influence — in short, everything. Which helps explain Brady's bizarre conduct these past few weeks, his evasiveness and frequent flip-flopping about whether he really wants to run.

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