Tonight's 2nd to last mayoral debate had to have been one of the more exciting hours of television I've seen in a long time. Between the poor moderation, questions designed to put the candidates at each others' throats, and lack of organization, I really thought this was planned as a part of sweeps week.
My personal favorite moments are as follows:
-Fattah saying that 'stop and frisk' requires 'probable cause'...any first year law student or avid Law and Order viewer knows that its 'reasonable suspicion!'
-Brady saying that he wants all of the 'ladies' in the city to be able to get degrees in nursing and cosmetology
-Nutter going "I thought this was the mayoral debate, not WWE Smackdown"
-Knox asking if his 'team' could applaud like Brady's did, thus coaxing the entire panel entire panel into berating him and suggesting he buy the audience
-Knox closing with mentioning removing the 'For Sale' sign up at City Hall...wrong imagery for a guy accused of trying to buy the job
-Evans and Brady using the "Got a bone to pick with your fellow candidate?" question as platforms to needlessly pick on Knox
-and finally, Fattah's constant mischaracterization of Nutter's policies in an attempt to make an eloquent 'dis'
It saddens me that no one cares what these candidates are saying. Brady would have absolutely no support if not for his Philadelphia equivalent of pandering to special interest groups. No one would know the name Tom Knox if not for the millions he's spent on TV advertisements. My applause goes out to Fattah, Nutter, and Evans for building their campaigns on messages as opposed to pageantry. I'm still a big Nutter supporter (tonight only emboldened me on that), but I have a lot of respect for Evans and his record. Fattah lost any respect that I had left for him by constantly bickering. However much I hate to say it, it was very obvious which of the men on that stage tonight were college educated and it worries me to think that there is a strong possibility that one of the others might become mayor of Philadelphia for the next 8 years.
ABCNews has the entire debate online in case you missed it.
And as always thenextmayor.com has tons of great information if you need to catch up.