Mike vs. Mike

Then politics intervened. State Rep Jim Wansacz, a Democrat from Lackawanna County, started circulating legislation to deprive the city of statewide gambling revenue. Governor Rendell said he’d consider Wansacz’s bill. In response to the changing politics, Nutter held a press conference. A reformer might have stepped up to the mike and announced he’d done all he could on casinos, to no avail. Instead, Nutter wound his way through a speech that defied all known reality, standing in front of a giant permit with SugarHouse’s name on it and claiming he never stood in the way. Days later, he even denied ever having supported the Casino-Free cause. “You can’t find a statement anywhere from me saying I was going to fight to prevent [the casinos] from being here,” he said.

The flippity-flopping got so embarrassing, Nutter’s spokesman employed radical honesty to bury the issue. To wit: The Mayor’s anti-casino statement — that was his position as a candidate. This latest no-standing-in-the-way thing — that’s his position as mayor. But the most telling episode of the whole debacle, revealing what we can expect from six more years of Michael Nutter, is how he played State Rep Wansacz.

At his press conference, Nutter said he had reached out to Wansacz, whom he declared “delightfully better informed.” The “delightfully” bit came off tough: Yeah, this Wansacz dude didn’t know what he was talking about. But Wansacz was always perfectly well-informed, and when Nutter called him, Wansacz was the one giving orders. “I told him, ‘Michael, I’d like to never introduce this legislation,’” says Wansacz, “‘but Philadelphia has to stop playing it both ways.’”

To the Mayor’s credit, concludes Wansacz, he knew it was time to fold his cards. Wansacz even chuckles over Nutter’s “delightfully” wisecrack.

Hey, it’s just politics. Nutter acted tough in public while being subservient in private. Big deal. But when Philadelphia elected Michael Nutter, we expected something more. We expected a transformation in the way Philadelphia politics is carried out. And in an unexpected way, that’s what we got: a mayor who transforms himself into whatever he feels the political moment requires him to be, no matter how many Michael Nutters he has to create to get the job done.

AS NUTTER STRIDES onto the floor of City Council chambers to give his second budget address, he is greeted with a mixture of respectful applause and deeply passionate boos. Unfazed, he eyes the first page of his speech and smiles from behind the bottle of water he sips from.

Prior to this event, many political observers feared what they might hear today. Center City District president Paul Levy was so concerned that he filled the district’s spring digest with a long, detailed essay about the importance of winning pension and health-care concessions from the unions. Levy says he sent a copy to the Mayor, and followed up to make sure he read it.

Such signs of faithlessness, of doubt, speak to just how poorly the Nutter administration has represented itself. But given this second chance to handle a budget crisis, and this second opportunity to deal with the city’s unions, Nutter proves equal to the day. Midway through his speech, the occasional heckler still offers some random catcall. But Nutter is back in campaign mode, reformer Mike, ready for action.