Why Mike Nutter Won the Democratic Primary

Conventional wisdom about Philadelphia politics died on May 16th, 2007. It was on this day that myths about Michael Nutter came crashing down along with the canards about whose get-out-the-vote machine was most effective and the importance of union support. The election debunked all of the “Myths about Michael”. Apparently the guy who didn’t have a base and couldn’t raise money, did have a base (Brady, Evans, and Fattah only received a few thousand more votes - combined – than Michael) and could raise money (Michael raised more money from more people than anybody else).

But I think there are two basic reasons why Nutter won (1) He was more committed, focused and disciplined than the other candidates. He quit his job ten months out and focused on nothing else; (2) The second reason has two components: (a) Nutter was simply the most qualified candidate in terms of charisma, character, intelligence, progressivism and vision; and (b) the high visibility of candidates during this election cycle (i.e., myriad public forums, audio and video podcasts, etc.) made Nutter’s superior qualifications self-evident to a broad cross-section of Philadelphians.