Trying To Boil New Frogs

(I know that’s a strange title for a post – I will do my best to explain it later.)

So now that Kevin Kelly and Richard Barbato have come forward to slime Patrick Murphy on behalf of Mike Fitzpatrick, I think it’s appropriate to dig up what we can on these two bottom-feeders (I ordinarily wouldn’t use language like that towards a veteran, but when it comes to “swiftboating,” all sorts of decorum gets thrown out the window as far as I’m concerned).

I haven’t found anything on Barbato, but I did manage to find this opinion column written by Kelly that the Inquirer published a couple of months ago (full of the Repug rah-rah rhetoric that warms the cockles of Brian Tierney’s and Bruce Toll’s coal-black hearts, no doubt).

COMMENTARY - PHILADELPHIA REPUBLICANS

The party needs to stop thinking it can never win
By Kevin Kelly

My high school football coach would always tell us, "Gentlemen, losing is a habit." With those sage words in mind, look at the inability of the Philadelphia Republican Party to win a mayoral election over the last half-century and you'll quickly realize that we are, indeed, in the habit of losing.

The last time we were able to hang the banner of victory was in 1947, when Bernard Samuel defeated Democrat Richardson Dilworth, 413,091 votes to 321,469. Since then, city Republicans have been on a losing streak that makes our beloved Eagles look like the New York Yankees (sorry about mixing sports leagues in my metaphor).

Oh, you’re now guilty of a much greater wrong than that, you creep.

Excuses abound: Democratic registration outnumbers Republican 4 to 1; Philly is a union town and always will be; a Republican mayoral candidate could never get the black vote. But here's one I've never heard: We can't win because the Democratic leadership in our city is just too good, too outstanding, too competent.

Yes, I know some legendary clowns have strutted in City Hall, but it would be too much to ask of you to take a minute and consider how Mayor Ed Rendell, David Cohen, and then-City Council President John Street straightened out the city’s finances after the debacle of the Wilson Goode administration, wouldn’t it?.

Until someone convinces me that our city, the birthplace of the greatest nation in history, is being governed in a fashion that would please our Founding Fathers, I refuse to believe that a change in leadership is impossible.

Typical Repug agit-prop (and by the way, here comes the explanation for the post title).

I always liken Philadelphia voters to frogs. If you put a frog in a pot of boiling water, he'll leap right out. But if you put a frog in a pot of cool water and slowly turn up the heat, he'll stay there until he boils to death.

Kelly betrays more than he realizes with this sick analogy.

Philly voters have been slowly boiling in a tub of systemic corruption, patronage, pay-to-play, cronyism, fiscal mismanagement, intolerably high crime, poorly performing schools, and business-killing taxes. Grab a voter from somewhere else and plop him into today's political cauldron. He'd scream bloody murder and jump right out. Not us. We let our political class keep us on slow burn.

What colorful writing..and so far removed from reality also - as always, no examples. And “we let our political class” keep us down?

When you say, “political class,” are you referring to career politicians? No, of course not, because that would include Mikey Fitzpatrick, your new client, or Crazy Curt Weldon, Gerlach, Pancake Joe Pitts and the rest of the sorry Repug lot, wouldn’t it?

On the heels of one of the city's biggest corruption scandals, what name springs to mind as the voice of the loyal opposition?

Who within the GOP is always there with an alternative vision, a better way of doing business?

Who is constantly on watch, pointing out unethical behavior that damages the public good?

When indictments are handed down or when the mayor's brother gets another city contract, what Republican does Channel 6 push a microphone in front of for a retort?

The answer to all of the above is - drum roll, please - I have no idea either! For as long as I can remember, our party has utterly failed to engage Democrats over ideas that would make Philadelphia a first-class city again.

This failure to create an alternative vision - on taxes, budgeting, schools, crime, quality of life, arts funding, social programs, and even something as simple as timing the lights to alleviate traffic jams, for goodness sake - is why every four years we look like Gerry Cooney squaring off against the young Mike Tyson. At the very least, we should learn from our losses and define how we are different from the Democrats, constantly reminding Philadelphians that there is a real and tangible substitute for the political machine that stands for high taxes, low standards, and dubious ethics.

Or, failing that because it’s too much hard work, you can just head out of Philadelphia into a place like Bucks County where you’re a relative unknown and smear a fellow veteran because it’s easier and cheaper and garners more immediate results, right?

And the phrase “dubious ethics” coming from a cretin like Kelly – it is to laugh.

Instead, we continue business as usual. We run a candidate, he gets shellacked and vanishes. Three and a half years later we scramble for a candidate as if we didn't realize there'd be another election.

How about a vision?

A farm team that cultivates prospective leaders?

A deep bench that we can go to when, say, a City Council seat is vacated due to a corruption conviction or when someone leaves for a stab at higher office?

I realize Kelly wrote this with the conviction of Philadelphia City Councilman Rick Mariano fresh in everyone’s minds, and I can’t find an example of a conviction of a Philadelphia Republican politician at the moment…but I’ll keep looking.

Just as chance favors the prepared mind, it also favors the prepared political party. Quite simply, we have been consistently and woefully unprepared.

I realize there are many good people on both sides of an issue. There are not, however, necessarily good ideas on both sides of an issue. If the city's Republican Party hopes to rise from the ashes of mediocrity, it better get into the business of providing the best ideas on each and every topic, and then finding a vehicle for delivering those ideas. Only a real and substantial shift in our strategy and message will produce meaningful results. It will not be an easy change to make, but hard work spotlights the character of people: Some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all.

In order to be walked on, you have to be lying down. Our party has been lying down for far too long, and many Republicans are tired of it. They want to see a game plan with clear, measurable and achievable objectives. They want to be valued and contributing members of that plan. They want a party that is a force for change in the city we all love, a city that is hungry for and deserving of truly outstanding leadership. Please don't tell me that game plan is the status quo.

Isn't it funny in a sick, twisted way to read this self-serving garbage and then see Kelly hit below the belt the first chance he gets?

Again, I have to wonder about this; if Kelly wanted so much to present some kind of Republican alternative for Philadelphia, then why the hell is he in Bucks County campaigning for Mike Fitzpatrick by sliming his opposition (did he "cut and run" from the City of Brotherly Love)?

Oh, I forgot to add this earlier; Kelly's Inquirer column was noticed by Philadelphia Reug party boss Billy Meehan, and this City Paper column that describes how Philadelphia Repugs reacted includes what I thought was a pithy quote:

While Republicans in the city have not held power for 50 years, there are some out there. GOP City Committee General Counsel Michael Meehan, whose grandfather Austin, and father, Billy, held the reins of power when the Republicans had control, disagrees with Kelly's assessment that Republicans are shadow Democrats.

"Kevin should be recruiting committee people and candidates rather than hosting wine-and-cheese parties," said Michael Meehan during an interview from his office at Wolf Block. "The Republican Party is not going to gain power overnight. It takes time — and that time will come."

Billy Meehan has been saying that for awhile now, by the way, and one day, he may actually be right.