| Posted on Fri, Sep. 26, 2003 |   |
 |
|
||
|
John Baer | STREET PINNING HOPES ON NUMBERS?
BLACKS, DEMS OUTNUMBER WHITES, REPUBLICANS baerj@phillynews.com MAYBE THERE'S a reason John Street's campaign so often seems in fiery freefall. (Phony letters, alleged firebombs, brother boil ups, alleged gun goons, mayoral meltdowns, etc.) Maybe when Street snarls at AFSCME saying he's gonna win, "with you or without you," he knows whereof he speaks. And maybe the reason this unlikeable pol down in the polls runs and rants the way he does is simply fact he knows...ta da!...da numbas! In other words, maybe the maybes are all in the math. A close look at city census data, and the most recent voter registration figures, makes it easy to argue for Street's re-election. I went over both sets of numbers with the non-partisan political watchdog group, The Committee of Seventy. Census data, of course, is never dead on. It is estimates and trends. But from April 2000 through July 2002 (the most current numbers available) it says more white folks left the city than blacks, and - for the first time - more blacks live in Philly than whites, 43 to 41 percent. (Hispanics, counted separately, account for 9 percent.) If this mayor's race is like others and breaks sharply along racial lines, this is not good news for white Republican Sam Katz, who narrowly lost to Street in 1999 when the census showed more whites than blacks, 47-42. Also, not good for Katz are voter registration numbers released this week. They show 709,412 registered Democrats, 75.8 percent of the vote, and 162,105 Republicans, just 17.3 percent of the vote. This is a bigger spread than in '99 when the Democratic edge was 74.5 to 19.4 percent. Want more? Among 23,705 new registered voters since April, more than 20,000 are Democrats, only 354 are Republicans. The rest are independent or third party voters. Katz lost by just 9,400 votes. And Republican registration actually declined slightly this month, apparently because people died, moved or met Rick Santorum. Can Democrats vote for Katz? Can, did and will. And it's possible Republicans are holding off a big delivery of new registrations until the Oct. 6 deadline. But The Committee of Seventy's neighborhood-by-neighborhood analysis of current registration shows more gains in areas that supported Street in '99 than in areas that supported Katz. "Clearly, the demographics play in Street's favor," says a Democrat who worked for Katz in '99. Insiders in both parties insist Democratic registration gains are inflated, the product of paid efforts to juice the count for the '04 elections. "There's a big push out of D.C.," says a veteran city Democratic operative, "to protect Democrats in the city and the state next year." Two operatives say up to half the Democratic increase might come from re-registrations or "new" registrants living in shelters, working in welfare-to-work programs, who never will actually vote. Also, Katz supporters point to recent internal and independent polls, such as a KYW/Temple poll this week, showing Katz winning with double-digit support among black voters. (He got 7.5 percent in '99.) If that holds, it's hard to see how Street wins. But if the Democratic push for registration and turnout continues, da numbas could weave a safety net to keep John Street from going splat. Send e-mail to baerj@phillynews.com. |
||