Whoever this Ed Rendell dude is, we need to put him in front of the cameras:

"She [claims to be] a reformer," said the Pennsylvania Democrat. "And yet she is being investigated on the charge that she used her power as governor to fire someone who was going through a messy divorce with a relative of hers. Could you imagine if I was doing the same thing in Pennsylvania? You would be calling for my impeachment."

Zing!

In between getting lessons in how to dress from Vaughn Hebron, Big Poppa Rendell also said this:

"[The McCain camp] has tried to again obscure the facts about Gov. Palin. 'She is a reformer and against earmarks.' No she isn't, when she was mayor of that town she hired a lobbyist to get earmarks... 'She was against the bridge to nowhere.' No she wasn't. She was for the bridge to nowhere first... She is a budget balancer. But she left the town in greater debt then when she became mayor, so she is not a budget balancer."

And this:

"First of all, let me say it should be embarrassing for the Republican ticket that Rick Davis, Sen. McCain's campaign manager, said 'this election is not about issues.' Good lord, with all the challenges facing America it has to be about issues...They don't want to talk about issues because when the truth comes out about issues the American people will favor Sen. Obama tremendously."

The Republicans, he added, "would make the all time all-star team for spiders the way they can spin."

Get this man a hoagie and lots of national camera time, because it is about time Democrats started dealing bluntly with McCain/Palin.

As an Obama delegate candidate in Bob Brady's First Congressional District (Button 23, Second Column), I have been closely assessing the Obama campaign's role in the context of Philadelphia politics and Philadelphia history as I have been participating in it.

No campaign has ever had the potential for voter mobilization that this one has.

Ed Rendell set the recent record for driving up voter turunout when he got over 220,000 votes for Governor in 2002, beating Bob Casey by over 3 to 1.

Look for Obama to far exceed Rendell's total, and Clinton to far exceed Casey's total.

This race is going to change assumptions about Philadelphia voter apathy for years to come. It is going to show that if you give people a chance to vote for something meaningful, they will take it.

I have issues with both Ed Rendell and Mike Nutter, but, generally, they are pretty likeable guys. And so, when they- and our City- get national attention, during the presidential race, I feel stirrings of pride.

As most know, in this campaign, Rendell and Nutter both endorsed Clinton. Rendell is close to the Clintons, making his endorsement pretty unsurprising. Nutter's endorsement has set off all sort of questions and theories. Personally, I really don't care why he, or Rendell are endorsing Clinton. She is a qualified candidate for President.

But, boy, I wish when they were being interviewed they wouldn't enforce stupid frames when talking about the race:

First, there is Nutter. His new line is subtly stirring the Jeremiah Wright controversey.

Obviously, the above interview is heavily edited, and at some point the reporter mentions that Nutter thought the Obama speech great. But, come on. When this controversey started, Clinton basically ignored it. After all, this was a fox news, right-wing controversey being fed in the conservative echo chamber. But, when the reality of her 'sniper fire' visit to Bosnia started to hurt her poll numbers, all of a sudden, Clinton became chatty about Wright:

"We don't have a choice when it comes to our relatives," she said. "We have a choice when it comes to our pastors and the churches we attend. Everyone will have to decide these matters for themselves. They are obviously very personal matters."

It clearly became the campaign spin, and Nutter basically repeated it. Stupid move. This is the same crap that we will be hearing from the GOP and Fox, over and over, come the fall. Obama's speech was a watershed moment in our national discourse. Muddying it like this is just plain stupid.

Then, there is Rendell...

One nice thing in recent years is that Democrats have started to debunk any notion that Fox is a legitimate news source. But, there is Fast Eddie, praising Fox News, with a straight face as 'fair and balanced.'

Yeah, real fair, real balanced:

Why would a Democrat legitimize an organization that puts out right-wing propaganda? How about when they told us all that Obama attended a Madrassa? Was that cool? Or how about when they go after African-Americans? Down with that?

It doesn't bother me that these guys are endorsing Clinton, and I don't care why they chose her. I loved when Nutter said that Clinton and Obama needed to focus on urban issues. But, I really wish they would just leave it at that- pushing their candidate, and pushing issues that matter to Philly and PA.

Obama is going to be our Presidential nominee. It makes me cringe to see our biggest political leaders use right-wing frames in an attempt to help Clinton.

This is a post that's been a long time coming. Here is part of its history.

During the Mayoral primary campaign, YPP hosted a post by a young woman named Renata Neal. Renata grew up in Germantown, and attends West Chester University through the Core Philly Scholarship program. Her mother worked as a volunteer for Chaka Fattah's mayoral campaign, and Renata likewise voiced her support since Fattah had helped create the program.

But one of the questions that came out of that post was why a talented young Philadelphian had to leave the city of Philadelphia to get an affordable education at a public university. Philadelphia has many prestigious and wonderful colleges and universities -- but most of them are private, which makes their tuition steep, especially for first-generation college students who are unwilling to take on debt or who can't easily navigate the scholarship system. Temple, which like Penn State is a public/private commonwealth university, has undergraduate tuition twice that of West Chester. If Renata, who as a young, full-time student had been offered scholarships, had to look elsewhere -- what opportunities were there for nontraditional students, finishing their degrees part-time, or trying to return to school after a long absence?

Mark Cohen noted then that he was working with the state university system to try to bring a new four-year state university to the city of Philadelphia. I've had this in my mind ever since then. And I think it's a wonderful idea -- for college students like Renata, for students nothing like Renata, for our schools, for our neighborhoods, and for our city. What's more, it's a project that in principle all of our elected officials, from city office to Congress, can work to make happen. If you want to know more, read after the jump.