Dear John and Larry,

Well, it’s over. Months of campaigning, a lot of money spent, and you, Larry Farnese, beat you, John Dougherty, in the 1st senate race. So now what?

Well, John, you sent out an email last week that left me wondering. You said:

We will continue to be a force to be reckoned with and will demand accountability and transparency from those elected officials who represent us, here and in Harrisburg. In other words, we'll be watching. And waiting.

Does that mean you are going to run again in 2012?

The count in last week’s election was close, but it wasn’t that close: Larry won the race decisively. It’s your right to run for office, but if you already know you plan to run again, it means you are going to spend a lot of time in the next four years trying to run Larry down.

And that is business as usual right? Dougherty vs. Fumo (with Larry as a proxy)?

That may be the way things have always been, but this fight is getting really, really tired, mostly because you both have more much important stuff to be doing:

Larry. Nobody was harder on you in 2006--at least online--than I was (except maybe Dan). I did not want to see you unseat Babette. And since then, I have gotten to know you better, and I like you--I’ll never forget how you went above and beyond for Philly Against Santorum from tabling in the square to getting me into highrises to speak (your help was especially notable to me as I had written some pretty harsh stuff about you in your 06 election).

So, among the folks who will crawl out from under rocks to tell you, soon-to-be Senator Farnese, how great you are, you can trust me to tell you the truth.

Here it is: there are voters who worry about your ties to Vince Fumo. He is in fact being indicted. Although I think there is a real argument to be made that, despite skimming some off the top for himself, Fumo ultimately brought more money and services to his district than any other Senator in the state, the fact is there is a significant cohort of voters who are tired of Fumo's fiefdom. Fair or not, you are going to need to prove that you are not beholden to Vince Fumo and his political supporters.

Beyond that, you need to vote for, sponsor and shepherd good legislation through the Senate (something Sen. Fumo was often a leader on), and you need to help elect other progressives. There are after all big fights coming up in the State Senate this year like the Philly gun laws, a same-sex marriage ban, healthcare, property taxes, and hey, maybe you can do something about that stupid uniformity clause.

Most important, you have a district that contains some of the wealthiest zip codes in the city, and some of the poorest, and a lot of people in the middle. They all want more services and amenities. But there are some competing interests that have produced racial and class tensions that need to be addressed and, as much as possible, healed.

Your attention being diverted to the Fumo-Doc feud can’t help that healing, or enact any of the other goals above.

As for you, Doc...you have a lot of hiring to do!

According to Tom Ferrick, if we leave out the Laborers, only 1/3 of all building trades members live in the city, and 80% are white, and nearly 99% are men. Meanwhile, 1/3 of all Philadelphians, a larger proportion black than white, live in poverty.

What is wrong with this picture?

I can’t get over the fact that a guy as powerful as you, who built up a union whose membership had been falling, hasn’t done more to hire women and people of color. I know you’ll tell me you’re doing better than some, but the fact is you lead one of the most powerful local unions, (in a sector of employment that’s not portable) and you owe it to the residents of this city, many of whom subsidize local development through their tax dollars, to hire many, many more women and people of color.

Since you won’t be going to the Senate, maybe you can focus all the extra time you had set aside for that on this problem? In this arena, you are more powerful than a State Senator and have the privilege to make real change.

Here are some other things you can do now to demonstrate your leadership:

1) Get all the trades in the state to stop opposing RxforPA. Elected officials listen to you. Lots of people don’t have healthcare. Something needs to be done.

2) Stop propping up Republicans like Mario Civera and Rick Santorum. Your support of Santorum, for dredging or not, was unforgivable in my eyes.

3) Withdraw your current challenge to campaign finance laws, and don’t challenge any more.

Doc, before you pick up the phone to call me, I am not writing this to communicate between you and me, so much as to air the thoughts and ideas I have been hearing from a lot of people in the past few days. I had plenty of chances to say what I thought to your face during the campaign, but speaking on behalf of a larger set of interests, I do challenge you to make significant progress on these issues before you raise the specter of running against Larry in 2012,

The bottom line is that, if you Larry, and you John, both do your jobs well, the people who live in the 1st will benefit. And those citizens need help from both you much more than they need a constant skirmish lasting until the next election (whether for Larry’s seat in 2012, or in a proxy like the 1st councilmanic seat in 2011, DA next year, or maybe a fight against Brady in 2010).

After all, no matter what Anne Dicker did or didn’t do well or right in her own campaign, the 18% of voters who supported her mostly did so because they were sick of voting for either Jets or Sharks, and they want and need real change in their neighborhoods.

The district you live in, and the city you both want to serve, needs more action, and less feuding. As wounds are still healing from the campaign, I hope you’ll both consider that.

Respectfully yours,
Ray

I am still reeling from the events of this weekend in the 1st state senate race. (Click here for background.) Anne says she is still in this race to win, but her staff and volunteers who quit say that she has changed her campaign strategy to focus on Center City wards only to help John Dougherty, and to secure a 2nd place win for herself.

I am not sure what the truth is, and Anne has not called me back yet, but apparently she was shown a poll by Larry Ceisler that puts her in 2nd place, and she has said that her decision to change strategy is about using resources as effectively as possible to move up, and win 1st place. This poll has not been publicly released, nor has any poll been released that shows Farnese in 2nd either.

Even without polling, or knowing the whole story about Anne's staff quitting, Farnese still has a huge money advantage over Anne, and for anyone who has ever worked an election you'll know that without a serious volunteer army, (in a district like like you'd easily need 2,000-5,000 voter IDs + 250 or more Eday volunteers) it is hard to win without money to pay field staff. That means Anne could be in serious trouble and is unable to win even 2nd place.

Accept that possibility as a reality for a minute. An important question for Dicker supporters and undecideds then becomes:

Is there a difference to you between Dougherty and Farnese?

I have heard every possible answer in on and offline conversations with folks, from Dougherty is the one who can amass power in Harrisburg the quickest, and do good things for the city, to Dougherty is corrupt and will be indicted, or that Dougherty does not have any progressive credentials to draw upon from his labor leader resume. Farnese on the other hand has been around groups like PFC and Liberty City, and done real work to support them, and developed a progressive platform, say some, whereas others think he is beholden to Vince Fumo, and still more think he needs to demonstrate more of an understanding and commitment to liberal ideals.

A real conversation about the issues are important, and some sense of metrics should be used to get to produce a real analysis of the two.

• At the end of the day, if elected, which of these two has the most in common with the ideals of the progressive community?
• What are the issues the state senate is likely to consider in 2009, and what lead will the Guv or new leadership in the House provide?
• Which of the two would best lead the fight for progressive legislation?
• Which would be the most effective in actually passing it, and why?
• And what do we expect realistically from a newly elected city-elected state senator?

For as much talk as there has been about this race, there's been little real substantive talk about the issues. Who is up for a conversation about them?

(warning: spin will be heavily moderated, so keep your comments on track! There are other forums in which to talk about the political intrigue, I will heavily moderate this particular post to guarantee that folks are only talking about policy issues by candidate.)