Today's Wall Street Journal editorial page rails against a proposed state funded loan to bailout the owners of the DN and Inky.

I don't want to rehash the shear stupidity of having tax dollars invested in public newspapers, which have been poorly managed and not responsive to the reality of the Internet's effect on that business model. (Or that how many better sources of that money exist. I am sure Pittburgh's papers will want their piece of the pie.)

But another larger question, is how has the possibility of begging for money from the government affected their past coverage. If you know that you will need money from someone, you may think twice about badmouthing them in public -- which is kinda what the Press is supposed to do.

Tuesday was a great day -- if you are a young progressive. One of us, maybe a bit long in the tooth to be a young progressive -- was elected President of the United States.

I am an African American and to say that I thought that this would never happen in my lifetime is an understatement. I wasn't sure that Philly would elected a second Black mayor, or that Pennsylvania would elect a Philadelphia mayor governor, so this is almost revolutionary.

I don't want to rehash all of the good feelings that I have, as tempting as that is to do. But Obama's victory is a victory for community organizers everywhere, and that's good for Philly politics.

Since I was bold enough to make predictions, I figured I'd be bold enough to recap them.

For Mayor, I had:

1. Nutter
2. Knox
3. Fattah
4. Brady
5. Evans

Pretty easy call when the polls weren't moving. The undecideds didn't vote which is why the numbers remained the same. After Olivia Nutter's commercial, I was a believer -- a doubter before -- and his numbers skyrocketed up. The numbers stopped moving, which told me that the undecideds would drop out and the ranking would remain the same.

For District Council, I had:

1. DiCicco (I didn't think Vern had enough support.)
2. Verna (Easy call. I said that I didn't think Damon would crack 25%. Folks like Verna.)
4. I had McClure, and Curtis won. I could tell that the electorate turned against Campbell, and it was close, but I did not think that Curtis was going to have enough support to win, b/c of Fattah. I think that when Fattah's camp realized he was out of the money, folks began to focus on Curtis.

These are not endorsements, but who I think will win.

Mayor:
1. Nutter
2. Knox
3. Fattah
4. Brady
5. Evans

Given that that's what all of the polls say, not really displaying a profile in courage.

District Council

1. DiCicco
2. Verna
3. Blackwell (again not a profile in courage either)
4. McClure (Campbell before, electorate has turned. High voter turnout in Roxborough and East Falls and Nutter's surge has it. Also, perception of missing community events.)
5. Clarke
6. Krajewski
7. Too Close to Call. Leaning Savage.
8. Miller/Bass/Irv/Paulmier (This is volatile, so I may change with information.)
9. Tasco

Council At Large

1. Blondell/Kenney (Electorate turned from my prior #1 of Goode).
3. Goode
4. Greenlee
5. Street (Sharif)
6. Stier
7. Ramos
8. Toy
9. Green

I have read with great interest the phenomenal dialogue about issues of race and ethnicity and ethnic identity on the comment Fattah made about Nutter.

I would like to offer two points.

If I were w/ the Ackelsberg campaign, I might have an issue with the Inquirer's endorsement for Cindy Bass. Not because she is not a candidate worth endorsement, but in how it was written.

It said that there were two outstanding candidates -- I am sure it meant Bass and Ackelsberg. However, it points out Bass and endorses her and then comments negatively on Irv. Then, it says a non-committal comment about Paulmier.

If I did not know better, it looks like the second candidate who the Inquirer thought was a standout was Paulmier, b/c it did not say who the second candidate was. And b/c Paulmier did not get any negative treatment, other than not being practical, it suggests he could be the second almost endorsed candidate.

In commenting on Ackelsberg's candidacy, it should have highlighted his impressive time at CLS, w/o the negative comment. That would have better achieved their goal of noting the candidates it thought was best.

Here's a thought for those running campaigns or running for office. Focus on Crime and Crime in Schools. While people do care about pay to play and corruption, it is not nearly as important to most voters as the perception that crime is everywhere.

Here's a couple of candidate specific suggestions. (Sorry for the patronizing tone, its for rhetorical effect.)

Nutter: Great ad with your daughter. Bad ad telling people to vote for someone else. As much as some Philadelphia voters intensely dislike John Street, he is not running for office.

I would point out again and again that you are the only person directly affected by having a kid in public schools. So to combine the message, complain about how you would fight crime differently. Talk about how you are going to fix the City by being tough on crime and school violence. (Good example, Mayor Street's refusal to put armed cops in schools.)