So, in a big victory for the City and for campaign finance, the City kept its right yesterday to regulate its own elections. Whether you like the current law or not, if you believe in the home rule of Philadelphia, you should be happy that the City won this case. Why? Because over the last ten years, the City has seen its ability to self-govern severely limited in guns, schools, gambling, zoning (billboard law and its effects), lending and parking. What Fattah was arguing was that the City also didn’t have the ability to regulate its elections. He lost. However, now, Fattah is still going to appeal. Ugh.

It is not like I don’t get why Fattah and Brady want the limits lifted: here they both are, thinking they have a history of service, thinking that they will ably serve the City and help people, and now pompous Tom Knox swoops in with his millions, runs commercials over and over, and catapults himself to the top of the polls. Put simply, it is not “fair.”

Of course, fairness is not why we have campaign finance regulations. If this was all about fairness, we would have strong, public financing of elections, free TV time, and other things like that. Fattah told me that he is for public financing, and, that may be true. But, it seems like a more abstract “I am for it” than anything else. His policy proposals, which lay out all these wonderfully ambitious programs that may or may not be able to be implemented, say he will study public funding. Given how hard it will be for Fattah to put into place all the programs he pledges to accomplish, I am not exactly confident that something he wants to “study” is exactly going to be a priority. So, if he got his way, his appeal wins, the City no longer has a right to regulate campaign finance, Gerry Lenfest cuts him a half million dollar check, Jonathan Saidel gives Brady 2 million dollars, and the Wild West begins.

Strategically, I don’t even get why Fattah would appeal. At this point, the Supreme Court probably wouldn’t hear the appeal for weeks. And then a decision takes a while, meaning that Fattah, who is doing OK in polls, but at 18 or 20 percent, is not where he needs to be, needs to expand his base of voters. Now all he is going to do is piss people off.

I dislike Tom Knox, a lot. And so, the argument from Fattah (or from Jim Kenney) is, “your principles are going to land us Tom Knox.” And, I get that concern. But, as much as I dislike Knox, we cannot do public policy that way. If they were really concerned with this- Kenney could have proposed a real compromise to his bill. I might have not liked the compromise, but it would have been pretty hard to argue and organize against it. Instead, he went for broke, as Fattah is doing now. Bad idea.

The best part about Fattah is that he is incredibly ambitious. The worst part about him is that is so confident in himself, that he thinks the appearance of a couple Gerry Lenfests giving half a million are not a big deal, because he thinks he has enough personal integrity where it doesn’t make a difference. (John Dougherty had a similar argument for ignoring the Committee of Seventy, saying that ethics were inside of him, or something like that.) But, its not like everyone in the City magically trusts Fattah. If he wins, he will win with 70 percent of voters going for someone else. Being self-assured in his own ethical stances is simply not good enough.

I don’t think Fattah will be John Street, version 2.0. But, given that he has gone out of his way to show Street love at forums, given that Street clearly wants Fattah in office, etc, the perception that he is another Street is at least understandable. The last thing we need is another 8 years of a Mayor with a sub 30 percent approval rating. But given Fattah’s now close associations with Street, I don’t understand how he doesn’t get that people don’t magically trust him to properly deal with people who make 50k, 100k, and one million dollar donations. Or, why people don't simply "get" that he won't do what John Street did, and just put his head in the sand as corruption flourished around him.

Does this whole thing make me definitely vote against Fattah? No. But, does it make me more likely vote for someone else? Yes.