I have more reason than most people to want Jim Kenney put in a bad light, as I’m running for a position he holds, Council at Large. And I strongly disagree with the legislation he proposed, to eliminate all spending limitations in the Mayoral election when one candidate spends a large amount from his own resources. But I think we ought to be fair to Councilman Kenney in two respects. Continue reading
Jim, I have agreed with you that democracy is undermined when, due to a misguided interpretation of the US Constitution, millionaires can spend unlimited sums of money in support of their own political campaign. That is not the issue here. The issue is how to deal with this problem. Continue reading
Campaign finance reform is only one, limited way, of fixing our broken politics. But it is one we have to save. If, however, we look at all the goals of campaign finance reform, we will see that the folks concerned about Tom Knox’s ability to spend much more out of his own pocket than other candidates can raise and spend is a serious problem. But there are ways of fixing that problem now that would improve our campaign financing system rather than taking us back to the dark ages. Campaign finance reform has a number of goals. One goal of campaign finance reform is to limit pay to play—the practice of big campaign contributors getting benefits from the city in return for their contributions. That is the prime reason that Jim Kenny’s proposal to eliminate all limits on campaign contributions in the Mayoral race is a really terrible idea. (And… Continue reading
By AC Missias from A Smoke Filled Room January 19, 2007 As long as we’re coming clean with early picks, let me say I strongly support Marc Stier for City Council At Large. It’s not just because I’ve enjoyed his lengthy chewy blog posts, but because I’ve been able to see him in action on the Neighborhood Networks Steering Committee (and on several critical early subcommittees), and he’s one of the most impressive folks working in the political and activist realms right now, and extremely dedicated to the principles he propounds. He seems to work 36 hours in a day, and yet still bring a sense of humor to difficult discussions, and all of those things mean that causes in which he is involved simply make progress faster than they would without him. Marc seems always to be incredibly well informed on every issue facing the city (he picks the brains of the experts… Continue reading
My absence from the blogosphere has been noticed far and wide—my mother called me the other day to ask if I’m feeling well. Actually I’ve been surprised by how many people have asked me about what happened to my blog in the last few weeks. The explanation is quite simple. After I got back from a brief vacation at the end of August, and got my classes rolling at Temple, I was first distracted from the blog by the effort to get Neighborhood Defense.org off the ground. And then, I did some speaking on public transit issues both in general, and as they affect the proposed casinos. I’ll be blogging about this very soon. But the main distraction is my nascent campaign for City Council. Continue reading
I have been so busy organizing around the 193 issue—about which much more later–that I didn’t notice I had been nominated as a featured blog at Philly Future. And, I won. I hope this is an omen for future elections. Thanks to all of you who nominated and voted for this blog. I’ve only been doing this since February, but it seems that the little essays I post here, essays that A Smoke Filled Room frequently calls “long but chewy,” have found a niche in the blogosphere. I know they are not for everyone all the time…I don’t always have the patience for reading them myself, which probably accounts for all the editing mistakes. And I certainly can’t write them everyday. So I encourage those of you who are new to my blog to dip into the archives. Aside from the posts that are announcements of political events, few of… Continue reading
I will be out of town for the next two weeks so blogging may be less frequent than usual. This is, however, a working trip. We will be traveling to Cape Cod where I hope to explore ideas for how best to use waterfront properties. Perhaps I will come up with something better than casinos. I may also start posting some of the ideas I have saved up that have little to do with politics, such as the last post. Or, if after a week of R&R I have the energy to think about politics, maybe I will get back to some of the more general ideas about how to improve our political life that I was writing about two months ago. We shall see. At any rate, I just check the stats for my blog and I was surprised to find out that a thousand or fifteen hundred of… Continue reading
I have seen the future of progressive politics in Philadelphia and her name is Cherelle Parker Cherelle won a special election for State Representative in the 200th district in September. Come see her tonight (Thursday, February 9) at her reelection campaign kick-off at 7:00 pm at Lakey’s Restaurant, 8215 Stenton Ave, Philadelphia, PA. Continue reading
When I first started thinking about blogging, I asked some friends who blog what to do when I am too busy or tired to post anything. They said, “No one expects a blogger to post every day.” “Nonsense,” I replied, “I expect you to post at least six days a week and am very disappointed with you when you skip a day.” Continue reading
Welcome to my blog which is going to be somewhat unusual, as it is written by an active and aspiring if, so far, not all that successful politician who is also a teacher and writer about politics. Continue reading