Mike vs. Mike

Nutter? At this point, who knows?

“The most prevalent cocktail-party conversation I hear is, ‘Who is Michael Nutter? What is his identity?’” says Zack Stalberg, president of the Committee of Seventy watchdog group. “Because people are a little mystified by what they’ve seen so far, and the stakes are high.”

That people are confused now is probably a testament to Nutter’s 2007 mayoral campaign. As one Philadelphia power broker puts it: “We elected Neil Oxman.”

In this formulation, Nutter’s adman, Neil Oxman, was so good that we essentially elected a series of commercials. This may sound harsh, but it isn’t far from the truth. At the end of the day, there’s an inherent tension between the crusading reformer persona Nutter crafted for himself, and the ordinary politician at his core.

THERE IS A truism in politics, most eloquently phrased by former New York governor Mario Cuomo: “You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.”

Of course, he was right: The campaign trail is all about intention and ideals, about language marshaled to inspire; governing is all about politics and reality, about language marshaled to obfuscate the hash of political compromise. Because Nutter campaigned poetically, as a reformer, what we expected from him was clear: We, the people of Philadelphia, expected Michael Nutter to keep his campaign promises, to marginalize the self-serving old faces of Philadelphia’s entrenched Democratic Party, and to generally walk the talk that got him elected; we expected Nutter to give us good reasons if he ever found it necessary to backtrack on a stated principle. It would not be inappropriate to add that we expected him to remain a poet.

We’ve been disappointed. And the first sign of trouble came before he even took office. In early December 2007, after winning the general election, Nutter penned an Inquirer op-ed anointing Congressman Bob Brady a big part of his “New day, new way” agenda. This mash note suggested Nutter had slept through his own campaign commercials: He had beaten the Democratic party boss in the mayoral primary largely because the words “Bob Brady, Mayor” prompted visions of hulking union guys draped all over City Hall, pounding grapes, grog and cheesesteaks in a fart-tastic bacchanal of municipal excess. Now they were partners? Nutter further revealed preservationist political instincts when he failed to speak out against the (ultimately failed) State Senate candidacy of electricians union boss John Dougherty, another representative of this city’s entrenched machine culture. In retrospect, both episodes seem hugely symbolic of the disconnect between the poetic candidate and the prosaic politician now serving as mayor.

Nutter boasts an achiever’s life story, marked not by setbacks and comebacks so much as a consistent forward push. He grew up at 55th and Larchwood, in West Philadelphia, where he lived with his parents and grandmother. Education was held in high regard. And Nutter was an excellent, committed student. He graduated from St. Joe’s Prep, which is known for turning out the princes who inherit Philadelphia. He attended the University of Pennsylvania and graduated from the Wharton business school. For a time, he aspired to become a doctor.