Ray and I went to the Seth Williams fundraiser to retire his campaign debts last night. I thought I would quickly post my thoughts on it:

First, it was good to see the next DA of Philadelphia. He looks a little more rested than at the end of the campaign season. He still has "it," and is still an incredibly nice guy, and still clearly is running for DA in 2009, a real lifetime away.

Second, there were a few of the party big wigs in attendence, though generally they mostly seemed to sign up on the invitation, probably write a check or two, and then were not there. People who I did see were Jannie Blackwell, Mark Cohen, Sharif Street, and suburban Congressional candidate, Patrick Murphy, who will be taking on liberal blogosphere darling Ginny Schraeder in the primary.

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It is interesting to see all these politicians, ward leaders, labor leaders, etc., who now seem to love Seth, a few months too late. That said, as someone said to me, this was essentially also a retirement party for Lynne Abraham, four years in advance. If she runs again, I don't think there is any way Seth will not destroy her in a re-match. Especially as all of her "reforms" fade into oblivion, and the DA and Philly criminal justice system continues to have systemtic problems that she either cannot or will not solve. In fact, I think Seth's best chance is simply a one on one rematch, no other contenders to screw things up.

What struck me last night, just as it did at our blogger happy hour, and at the election night party, was that Seth really does draw a very diverse, eclectic crowd, from bloggers to FOP-ers, from black to white, from ward leaders to the unconnected. I hope that as the four years go by, he doesn't lost that outsider's mentality that he had, that allowed him to press for bold change. He is a dynamic young man with one hell of a future, so here is to hoping the Philly Democratic party is not able to extract enough promises and chits out of him that he cannot continue to run campaigns on the issues, with bold ideas for desperately needed reforms.