The Man Who Would Neverbe

The Man Who Would Never Be INMAYOR THE RACE FOR PHILADELPHIA’S BY TREY POPP TOP JOB, MICHAEL NUTTER W’79 WAS DISMISSED AS THE CANDIDATE WITHOUT A CONSTITUENCY. As career suicides go, Michael Nutter’s HIS JOURNEY FROM LAST PLACE was a uniquely Philadelphian affair. On June 27, 2006, the four-term City TO LANDSLIDE VICTORY HAD THE Councilman walked into the City Hall MARKINGS OF A POLITICAL MIRACLE. chamber where he had spent the last NOW THE PUBLIC EXPECTS MORE. 15 years. Fresh from spearheading a widely praised ethics-reform bill and a citywide smoking ban, the reform- minded Democrat was higher on the legislative hill than he’d ever been. Even for a man whose hands had never quite touched the levers of the city’s political machine, the view was now one of virtually unlimited job security. Then he spoke a dozen words. “I love this place,” he said, “but it is time for me to leave.” 32 JAN | FEB 2008 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE PHOTOGRAPHY BY CANDACE DICARLO On theTHE move: PENNSYLVANIA Nutter andGAZETTE aides JAN outside | FEB 2008 City 33Hall. The announcement shocked many of by tapping into such deep hopes that “What happens at the Prep is that it’s the politicians and reporters in atten- by the time he reached the general elec- almost like neighborhoods,” says Jerry dance. Resignations have their place in tion after walloping the primary, the Taylor, who still teaches history there the city’s politics—former Councilman groundswell beneath him produced the and remembers Nutter fondly. “The kids Rick Mariano had just submitted one city’s largest margin of victory in more from Jersey hang together, the kids from ahead of a 6½ year jail sentence for than 75 years. It’s the story of the North Philly hang together, the South selling his office to pay off credit-card mayor Philadelphia never thought it Philly kids hang together, and then they debt—but they are typically preceded would get. mix according to circumstances. I don’t by disgrace. Nutter was so clean he think there was a lot of racial tension in practically squeaked. Forget about cor- the school, but there was an awful lot of ruption; this was a man who didn’t ichael Nutter grew up racial tension in the streets, and that car- smoke, drank no caffeine, and ate no in West Philadelphia, ried over into the school. So the ability to meat. The only reason he would step but there’s something live in both worlds was sort of unusual.” down would be to run for another office, about the bespectacled Chris Hannum, one of Nutter’s old since city law prohibits elected offi- M50-year-old he has become that makes stickball pals who also attended the cials from seeking other posts. it hard to picture him as a kid. True, his Prep, and now practices internal medi- And as Nutter went on to say, that’s slightly nasal voice can recall Kermit cine near Philadelphia, describes his exactly what he had in mind. He was the Frog, as the Daily News once put it. old classmate as someone who fit into quitting what he viewed as a dream job And there’s definitely something playful all molds by accepting none. in order to take a shot at the mayor’s about a new mayor-elect who uses his “He wasn’t rambunctious, he wasn’t office 10 months down the road. celebrity turn as a TV weatherman to tell the life of a party, he wasn’t the class A legislator at the top of his game, viewers, “Bottom line, it’s cold out there. clown,” Hannum says. “He wasn’t a nerd, unsullied and well liked—there are plenty Wear a coat.” But it’s a particular kind of he played football but he wasn’t a typical of cities where this move would have playfulness, a parental kind really, and jock—he sort of had qualities of all those made perfect sense. Philadelphia was that’s the vibe Nutter gives out most. different types. That’s why he could not one of them. The reasons were all too Even reminiscing about his days play- relate to so many types of people, obvious to the local punditocracy. Nutter ing stickball at 55th and Larchwood, the because he’s like an Everyman.” was too intellectual. He couldn’t raise picture he paints has a way of centering By his own reckoning Nutter “wasn’t a money. He didn’t have a natural constitu- on grown-ups. “You really kind of belonged stellar performer in high school,” but his ency. He was on the outside of the ulti- to every parent on the block,” he recalls. grades were solid enough to win him a mate insiders’ game. And most damn- “If anybody got in any trouble, I mean, scholarship to Penn in 1975. He was ini- ingly of all, the opinion-makers asserted they could discipline you or certainly tell tially interested in the business side of in so many words, he might be black, but you to stop doing it. They’d let your par- medicine, but the pre-med curriculum he wasn’t black enough. ents know. It was a real sense of commu- proved no match for life outside the class- Nutter’s announcement made him nity. And I loved it.” room. As a freshman Nutter kept his job at the first official candidate for mayor, It isn’t every Catholic boy who remem- the neighborhood drug store. After that he but the smart money stayed put behind bers communal discipline so fondly, started working at the Impulse Disco on four other men. “Only in Philadelphia,” but Nutter was well served by it. His North Broad Street, which probably shaped Nutter later quipped, “can you be the father was a plumber and salesman. his future more than the University did. first person in the race and already be His mother worked for the telephone When the topic turns to Penn, Nutter in fifth place.” company. Neither of them tolerated ducks for literary cover. “Mark Twain A week is a long time in politics, the “ghetto talk” in the house, as Michael’s once said, ‘Never let your schooling get saying goes, but for Nutter the next half sister Renee has said, and both had in the way of your education,” he quips. a year changed nothing. Three months high expectations of their children. “When I was in college I didn’t know before the Democratic primary, he was After attending grade school at that he had said that, but I certainly polling a scant 8 percent, the only one Transfiguration of Our Lord just a few was a follower of that philosophy.” of five candidates in single digits. One blocks from his house, Nutter won a There is no telling whether Twain would month later his pole position was no partial scholarship to St. Joseph’s Prep, have amended his advice if he’d lived to different. Finally, in April, he bested all a prestigious, predominantly white Jesuit hear the 1976 disco classic “(Shake, his previous marks—and vaulted into … high school in North Philadelphia, famil- Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty”—the fourth place. iarly known as “the Prep.” By this time he only number-one song title in history There were 28 days left until the pri- was working at a drug store a block from to feature a word repeated four times— mary. The only political analysts inter- home, and coping with the gang wars but the Impulse was much more than a ested in Michael Nutter’s campaign afflicting the city in the early 1970s. The place to groove to KC and the Sunshine were the ones who specialize in autop- Prep was in some ways a world apart, but Band. It was ground zero of a new gen- sies. This is the story of the man who by most accounts Nutter had a knack for eration of black leaders whose members defied all those sages. It is the story of finding his comfort spot no matter where would help to shape Philadelphia politics someone who came from so far behind he happened to be. for the next 30 years. 34 JAN | FEB 2008 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE “People expect that he won’t even need a city car to get to work—he’ll just be able to walk on water to get there.” At the nightclub’s frequent political primary on his own account. Clinching campaign-finance law he had helped to fundraising events, Nutter met the play- the general election later that year, he push through as a councilman. Yet this ers. He had worked for Xerox after gradu- won the only job he would want until the worked to his advantage. The new, lower ating from Wharton, and then spent a mayor’s office beckoned 15 years later. fundraising caps forced Nutter’s oppo- spell as an investment banker, but he was nents to play on a flatter field. There was still searching. “I may have been either too With 28 days left until the 2007 primary, no stopping Knox from spending as much young or too stupid to have any fears,” he Philadelphia’s mayoral race was all but of his own money as he desired, but estab- says about those days. “I knew I would be sewn up. According to an April 17 opinion lishment favorites like Fattah and U.S. successful at something. It was really just poll, a multi-millionaire businessman Representative Bob Brady could no longer a matter of working hard to make sure I named Tom Knox enjoyed a nearly two- tap the city’s traditional power brokers as stayed focused.” When his elders at the to-one lead over his closest challenger, deeply as they could have in the past.

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