Something I never understood, and frankly still do not, has been the steep rise of John Dougherty. Yes, we all know he is a big power broker in the City. We all know his GOTV votes helped Rendell and Street. Fine. But, his rise in the first place has puzzled me. I think I was out of the City for the four years where Doc really grew in stature- to the point of Treasurer of the party, chairman of the RDA, etc. But, it is not like the IBEW was always such a powerhouse. I can only assume that through a mixture of intelligence, hard work, good luck, and other less charitable descriptions, Dougherty turned his leadership in the IBEW into something so powerful.

But now, it looks like the world is crumbling around Johnny Doc.

Dougherty is head of the City’s Redevelopment Authority. The RDA is especially powerful because it is the only City agency that can claim eminent domain over properties. That is a huge amount of power and leverage to wield. It turns out though, that Mayor Street is of the opinion that the in the grand scheme of the City’s dupilicative and overlapping housing structure, the RDA is largely unnecessary, he wants it absorbed within the City’s other housing agencies.

Whether Mayor Street has personal motivations against Dougherty, or not, there is no disputing that something has to change with the City departments. The Bush administration has slashed the funding for the City’s housing needs. The City, unlike the Pigs at the trough in DC, cannot simply run up debt.

The hard part from my perspective is that it is painful to remove good paying jobs from the City. Period. It is terrible to take a 50 something employee, and tell him to reapply for a new position, which he may or may not get. From everything I have read, I think Mayor Street has unequivocally botched the way this is being handled. Given the obvious uproar that was going to come, especially given that this was clearly going to be a turf war, the Mayor has basically let his housing plan come out in drips and drabs. As a result, he has ceded control of the debate. That said, the housing departments do need to be condensed. And, when you condense a variety of departments, someone is going to lose. That someone is Dougherty, and his RDA. Take away Dougherty’s leverage and power at the RDA, and you have taken one of his three pieces of power away from him. (The other two being his position as treasurer in the Philly Democratic Party, and of course, as the head of his union.)

A potential insult was added to the potential injury, when it suddenly became clear that not only was the mayor going to lessen the power of Dougherty at the RDA, he might simply eliminate him from his position as Chairman:

Mayor Street can advance his plan to reorganize the city's three housing agencies and remove electricians' union leader John Dougherty from the levers of power at the city's Redevelopment Authority in one fell swoop.

Yesterday, the method of Dougherty's ouster as RDA chairman became clear. Housing Secretary Kevin Hanna and Joyce Wilkerson, Street's chief of staff, met with RDA board member Paul D. Sehnert, whose term is expiring this week.

Sehnert could be replaced by Hanna, strengthening board support for the mayor's plan, which Dougherty opposes.

Within this context, after Mayor Street has kicked out the first leg of Dougherty’s stool, Bob Brady is ready to kick out the second:

Sometimes in politics, when you want to get rid of somebody, you just pave him over.
That seemed to be the case early yesterday, when a handful of Philadelphia Democratic Party leaders - and some influential campaign donors - quietly gathered to establish a new fund-raising committee that will essentially duplicate the job of party treasurer John Dougherty, the electricians' union leader who is likely to run for mayor next year.

The maneuver took place at the Four Seasons hotel, where 18 members of the newly formed Philadelphia Democratic Executive Finance Committee held their first meeting.

It appears what has crushed him in the eyes of the party is his attempt to encourage those loyal to him to run for committeepeople, to further swing the structure of the party apparatus in his direction. Whether more Doc-friendly people get into the wards or not, his attempts to consolidate power have only seen him fall further and further.

And then, to top it all off, Dougherty has continued to put his name in the news, by suing Channel 6.:

The electricans' union yesterday filed a lawsuit against WPVI-TV, Channel 6, alleging that a recent report on the station falsely claimed that union leader John Dougherty was being investigated by the feds.

The suit targets a report that the station aired March 17 about Councilman Rick Mariano's conviction on corruption charges.

The story, by reporter Dann Cuellar, said federal authorities were pressuring Mariano to give them information that would help their probe into the relationship between John Dougherty and electrician Donald "Gus" Dougherty, the suit says.

Gus Dougherty, who is not related to the union leader, runs Dougherty Electric, from which documents were seized in late January by FBI, IRS and Labor Department agents.

The suit, by Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, claims that Cuellar's report had been "fabricated purely for sensational purposes.

First, the idea that a reporter hinted that Dougherty is a target of a federal probe cannot really be too surprising. I have had Dougherty described to me by someone as a “walking RICO violation.” My point is not that the allegation is true (Don’t sue me, too!), but that the general sense that a lot of people seem to have about Dougherty is that there is something potentially illegal beneath the surface.

Second, I don’t know if Frank Keel and Dougherty’s PR people have ever studied linguistics, or simply the last few presidential elections, but I don’t think this lawsuit is a very good idea. WPVI intimated that Doc might be crooked. Doc is answering by suing them. What is his best result? That he can look forward to lots more news stories that can reinforce the image that people already have of him? As George Lakoff said, the minute Richard Nixon went on TV and said “I am not a crook,” the image of Nixon as a crook was permanently put in our heads. The same goes for John Dougherty. If I were him, I would seriously consider, given his ambitions, whether this lawsuit is a good thing in any way.

That brings us to the final point- Dougherty’s supposed run at Mayor. At this point, with no party backing, with potentially no power to wield from the RDA, what is Dougherty using to run for office? How many of his IBEW members even live in Philly? Has anyone seen Doc speak in public? I have. And while he is assuredly no dummy, he is also no great orator. What is the base of strength that he can tap? This is the era of TV, and while Dougherty may be powerful, there is only one politician strong enough to overcome those deficiencies and still have a good shot at becoming Mayor. (Hint: His initials are ROBERT BRADY.)

The bottom line is that when you take away two legs of a three-legged stool, you know what you get? A quick fall. That is not a position from which you run for Mayor. And so, in the end, seeing the signals, I think that Doc will forget running, and instead try to rebuild what he has so quickly lost. On a personal level, given that Dougherty scares the living crap out of me, I can't say that I am upset by it all.