Transcripts For WPVI Inside Story 20150315

A spokesperson for the mayor also a pgw executive. Lynne abraham, whos a former Philadelphia District attorney. Milton street, who once was a state senator, and Melissa Murray bailey, political unknown, will be running for the g. O. P. Well be talking about all these people in a moment. First of all, we want to do something fun here. And theres Melissa Murray bailey. We wanted to show how many signatures all the candidates were able to collect, which was required last week so that they could run. You need to get at least 1,000. And look who came out on top Anthony Williams with 15,000. Another thing that i thought was interesting how close milton street and Lynne Abraham came near the end of all the democrats in terms of submissions. Mmhmm. Anything stick out for you guys . I mean, does this mean that Anthony Williams is the frontrunner just for the simple fact that hes got the most signatures . I would say having been a candidate myself the signatures really come down to organization. Thats really what it shows. Doesnt the collection of signatures tell you something about organization . It does. It shows that if you get a lot of signatures, it, at the very least, means that you have a pretty decent organization. If youre really faltering there, it makes you wonder about the organization of that candidate. So would you raise questions about Lynne Abraham then . I was gonna say, yeah. I was gonna say that, but if you look at the last time around none of these candidates pretty much reached where the democratic nominees were. Dwight evans had more than 17,000. Good point. The lowest was tom knox with 10,000. Exactly. Yeah. So, again, i think, you know, yes, it does show some level of organization. It lets people know that you know, again, people will start to analyze, you know where are the signatures from . Were they all from one neighborhood . Were they across the city . Are they all legitimate . How many people circulated them . You know, all of those kinds of things, i think, will give us a better understanding of how deep the organization is and how farflung it is. Lets talk about the republicans for a second. Were really excited. We have a lot of people. Melissa murray bailey. Shes 36 years old, making her the youngest candidate in the entire field. Shes a former democrat, which is the same case for karen brown, who ran against nutter as a republican last time around. So what do you think about your candidate . Well, we like people that switch, you know. [ laughs ]. From democrat to republican. I think thats a good start. Rizzo did it. You know, so, see . Thats what im saying. So there is a chance. Theres hope. Its like the movie dumb dumber. Youre telling me we have a chance. Theres a little bit of a chance that line. You know, its unfortunate though, that we cant find a, frankly, real republican in the city to run as mayor to be nothing more than just a slaughtering horse. Yeah, but i think whats more interesting certainly is the fact that there are a lot of people talking about running as independent this time around. I mean, there is the possibility that there could be, you know, a november surprise. Well, lets talk about that. We have bill green, who switched his party to no affiliation, and this is the same person who was battling with Governor Wolf about losing his chairmanship with the src, which he says hes not gonna bring to court, and, also, we have sam katz, who unveiled a website a couple of days ago called citizensam. Net and lists a lengthy plan to fix philadelphia schools, which includes changing some taxes selling assets like the airport and pgw, and creating an endowment for that. So lets talk about the independents. I think bill green is interesting historically, given that his father, democratic mayor, his grandfather was the democratic chair. Many people credited him with the election of john f. Kennedy and the organization that he had in philadelphia in that election. So for bill green to go from democrat to independent is a big step for him, and i think it signals that he wants to keep his options open either for mayor or perhaps city council. I think its a good point. I think that sam katz is definitely in. I wish hed run as a republican. He was an excellent candidate in the past, knows how to raise money, knows whats going on in the city. So i think hes definitely gonna be in. I think it all depends on who wins the democratic primary, and, frankly, it may come down to something well, not something. Itd be down to race. If Anthony Williams wins i expect, you know, could you see a bill green or a sam katz in . And if kenney wins, you probably dont see necessarily a katz race. I dont know. There could be another independent that comes in. If kenney wins, there could be people who say, wow, we need someone whos not kenney to come in. Maybe hes too close to one group or another. Well, with sam katz, you have to wonder. Sam has never been devoid of ideas. Hes an intelligent man. Hes had a lot of good ideas over the years, but you have to think if he couldnt beat john street in the middle of a wiretap scandal actually, he came closer four years the first time, right. You got to wonder how strong a candidate he would be. How about with bill green and his fight with Governor Wolf and sort of coming out on the wrong side of that . How does that work with his legitimacy as a candidate . Well, i think he ended up being the good guy in the sense of dropping the suit, standing with new chairwoman marjorie neff, and saying its all about the kids. I think he took one for the team at the end of the day. The question is, who is his constituency if he were to be running as an independent . He doesnt have the supportness of the Democratic Party obviously against a democratic candidate, but, you know depending on who that democrat is, he could pull off a lot of support. But lets talk about some money here. Thats the bottom line. You have to raise money. Who could raise the money . And they cant raise it now because theyre not declared candidates. Exactly. Right. And we have Campaign Finance limits, which i know renees gonna talk about, and the fact that we you know, unless you have outside groups, which im sure were gonna really be monitoring, whether or not you can get on tv. I talked to a couple folks this week and said, okay, why arent we seeing any polls as it relates to the mayors race . You know, i think everyone presumes that tonys on top, and certainly he is working really really hard for this job, but folks are saying youre just not gonna know where anybody is in the race until they go on tv. And maybe thats why we saw jim kenney come out this week on tv. We did the first person to be on tv. It wasnt jim, though. Remember it was that as Lynne Abraham would say dark money, folks supported by the labor unions john dougherty. It was a strong, positive ad and we saw what tom wolf did. Granted, he had something called green in his pocket, which. Thats been the model. Well, sharmain makes a good point, as does renee. You know, the rubber meets the road as you get closer to the election, and the candidates who have money can get on the air. If you ran a poll right now, it would just be a namerecognition poll, and i would bet Lynne Abraham would win that right now. Which she has in the past. People know her. Right. They like her. Some dont. Well, thats with all the candidates. Well, they know her. They do know her name. Lets talk about one idea one of the candidates threw out. Nelson diaz wants to eliminate the src if he becomes mayor and institute a school board with parents, which is the way most School Districts are run in pennsylvania. What do you think of that . Well, i mean, im not quite sure that i actually understand the idea of just putting parents on. I think, you know, taxpayers and everybody wants to be involved in making sure the schools really work well but there clearly has been a lot of conversation over time is, is the src really working, and do we need to get back to local control . The real question, though, always comes back to whos going to pay . Remember why we have the src. It was to try to create a partnership between the city and state so that the state couldnt say, im not giving any more money to that organization because i dont have any say as to whats going on in that organization. So, again, i mean, i understand certainly the sense of it, but i still believe that we need the city and the state to Work Together so that we can have the amount of money and the funds that we need in order to build a system. Guess who decides if the src disbands . The src itself. Not the mayor. Not the mayor. And not the governor. And ive sat on a school board, and, yes, there was parents on it or whatever, but still we came together. Im not sure if thats really gonna happen. Milton street theres a question as to whether or not hes even a democrat, and he may not still be on the ballot, but the fact of the matter is and i know some people see him as a sideshow, but when he ran against nutter the second time he had a significant portion of the votes. So, do you see him as a big disrupter here . I do, and i think youre going to see a suit very soon by who knows who, but i think he would really dig in, frankly, to Tony Williams numbers just given the makeup of our city and i think that street, though, he has really not been able to counter the facts of the matter. I think the nutter race may have been somewhat unique. First of all, you had the street name, and people know that name. You also had michael in that Campaign Running still running an antijohn street campaign. Without john street on the ballot. Without john street on the ballot. Thats true. And mayor nutter also had some problems in the black community, which milton street could exploit. Im not sure youre gonna have that, assuming he stays in the race, with the Tony Williams candidacy. Okay. Lets talk about joe sestak. He announced his campaign for senate. Hes gonna run against senator toomey again. Hes a former threestar admiral with the navy, former u. S. Congressperson narrowly lost to pat toomey in 2010, 51 to 49 , 80,000 votes out of 4 million overall. So why do we hear whispers sources, what have you, say were not very comfortable with him being the democratic nominee . Why . Ask the democrats. [ laughs ] i think, number one the democrats want to win, and if someone but he almost beat toomey. [ laughter ] if someone is sort of coming in who sort of like didnt win last time, you can imagine why people are asking that question. He came close and im gonna say i worked with joe on the nsc staff at the Clinton White house. Hes a brilliant man, and no one will outwork this guy. But hes never been an organization guy. Hes never been a Democratic Party guy. So hes always been sort of outside of the political process, and, you know, even when he first ran, he came out of nowhere to win that seat. So i can understand why democratic regulars might still be not particularly comfortable with his candidacy. Does it tell you something, though, that you dont see a lot of other democrats saying, hey, well, ill run well, ill run, speaking to maybe pat toomeys ability to win elections, which has been quite impressive . I think its a combination. Pat toomey, i think, has for the most part, moved more to the center. Thats true. He used to lead the club for growth, which is a very economically, fiscally conservative organization. His numbers way back when you know, right after he got elected, were in the 90s 90 time voting on their issues. Now its more the low 80s. I think hes come around. I think hes done a good job of trying to represent the views of most of the state. Except that he signed on to that letter the iran letter. Youre talking about the letter to iran. Yeah, to the president of iran. I dont think people will vote about that. I think theyre gonna vote about what hes done for the state. I dont think pennsylvanians are gonna say, im not gonna vote for him because he signed that letter. Well, i think the way to play that as a democrat would be say its a question of judgment. You can say, where are you coming from signing on with these cranks and extreme rightwing. . But there are some other candidate names that are floating out there i mean, seth williams. Kathleen kane. Okay, thats a great one. I said seth williams. Josh shapiro. Yes. Absolutely. Josh shapiro let me tell you. Hes my commissioner. I got to be honest. Even though hes a democrat, the man is doing his job. Why wont they get in this . I think he stays in the state, though. I think he will be a strong candidate, but i dont think that he wants to leave for a seat that hes not sure that he really has a good chance of winning. I think hell wait to be governor. Heres whats big for democrats next year. Its a president ial year. Turnout is going to most likely be very high. Thats when the democrats come out in pennsylvania, especially in the southeast. If Hillary Clinton is the nominee, historically she may not be. Both bill clinton and Hillary Clinton have been very strong in pennsylvania. They have. Hillarys family is from scranton. No, thats true. They have. You have to expect that hillary would be a very, very strong candidate in pennsylvania, and that would help the ticket. If she gets past her email. Given the rough time that Governor Wolfs probably going to have with republicans theyre already calling his budget smoke, mirrors, and confusion. It is. Would you think that that election in two years may be leaning republican because of maybe some of the battles that are going on in the state in pennsylvania . Im gonna say absolutely. And im gonna say absolutely not. Dont talk to the other republican in the room. Thats where im at. So then a democrat would say, well, you know, im just gonna sit this one out. I dont think so. I mean, my perception, even taking off a partisan hat, is that wolf is still coming across as having good judgment, trying to be fair, trying to reach to the other side, and i think the republicans are coming across as obstructionist. Let me just say this. I dont think that hes been transparent and all this stuff. When you meet with republican leadership, dont tell them what your ideas on your plans, and then you go ahead and do it, thats not being straight up. They dont want to make a deal. Even rendell said he should make a deal. Come on. Hows he gonna make a deal if youre not being straight up . But keep in mind that he brought proposals to the table that republicans had already supported. I dont think he needed to sort of say that. I mean, they had already gone on record saying that they wanted to make some of those changes. Just remember that we are very early here. Right. Most budgets in pennsylvania are negotiated at the 11th hour in july. And most of them are late. Right. Ours arent late. Youre talking about the democrats are late. No sales tax expansion is going to happen. Lobbyists dream. Everyones fighting that the bar being strongest against it. I mean, the list is very lengthy. Income tax maybe. Maybe. Its too confusing. The electorate is never gonna understand all the different parts. The shale tax isnt gonna raise as much money now. But you cannot get to putting together a set of proposals unless you put everything on the table. People have always said, put everything on the table. He has put everything on the table. And more. And is allowing everybody to sort of look at the pros and cons of all of those but in the end, almost every School District in the state is saying, we need support. We need help. We have got to be able to deliver here, and so weve got to figure out how to do that. And i think that part might happen, but the bottom line is the republicans are still in control. Sorry, matt. I know. [ laughter ] i just wanted to let you finish. Right. And we go to our break. Well be back. Announcer inside story is presented by temple university. Temple fuels students with academics and opportunities to take charge. Plugged into the city, powered by the world. Temple. Edu takecharge. More to discuss right here on inside story with our panelists here. Senator Robert Menendez could he be in trouble . News leaked last week that the Justice Department is preparing to file corruption charges against him related to menendezs conduct with a florida eye doctor who is also a longtime friend and political donor. Now, meanwhile, the new jersey democrat has acted as if nothing is wrong, dismissing everything as just speculation and going about his day. So, what does our panel think about this . And be as pensive as you can. [ laughter ] its like attorney general kane. Let me just say that. Youre acting like nothing is wrong, but then you tend to get arrogant. To me, hes been very arrogant with this whole process, and thats not gonna help. Interesting timing. You know, who knows, you know . Hes been strong. He helped escort Benjamin Netanyahu down the aisle when he spoke, not to the pleasing of the democrats, many democrats, and the president. On the cuba issue, hes been very against what obama did. Just saying. The timing of this leak just seems to sort of take on the opponent, take on menendez. As a former Justice Department lawyer, i have to object. I do not think that theres any proof that the department would politicize a case like this, and i say that seriously. I think you have to be very careful here. Hes not been charged with anything. Hes a respected member of the senate. He was the chair of the Foreign Relations committee, right . So lets see how things unfold but he is presumed innocent under our constitution. You go, mr. Lawyer. Am i right . This is president obamas Justice Department at the same time, so giving credence to what you say. But the Justice Department, i think, as jim said, has a role to play that is not a political role, and that is to review the facts as they present themselves and to, you know, build their case and then, ultimately, a trial will determine if it gets to that point whether or not this is true. Poor new jersey. It just seems i mean you know, certainly having this kind of cloud is not anything that anybody is happy about. How do you think hes handling it, though, democrats . I dont have an opinion on how hes handling it. I think in the end, hes got to do his job. Hes got to continue to operate each and every day as the senator from new jersey. Thats what people are expecting. I mean, you do happen to have a governor who doesnt spend a lot of time there. Youve got to have at least a senator whos doing some work. That was good. That was really good. Well, new jerseys taken another black eye. You know, torricelli, corzine, christie, some of my friends would say enough. You know, new jersey just is this bad reputation, you know . Tough for our neighbor state. Lets talk president ial politics. Hillary clinton is having a rough time these days for a variety of reasons. Martin omalley coming out of nowhere, appearing on tv. You see on the internet these pictures of him without any sleeves on, and hes got these big guns. You know, everyones thinking, oh, maybe hes gonna be the one to challenge Hillary Clinton. I didnt see that. But some are stopping to say, what about Joe Joe Biden . Now, the atlantic points out that the only prominent democratic contender to travel to all three democratic primary or caucus states is Vice President joe biden. Now, maybe its partly due to the fact that he has duties as a Vice President , but are Party Leaders underestimating the Vice President . Well, first of all, Hillary Clinton emails tempest to the teapot, no big story there at all. I knew you wanted to get something in. You knew i was going there. Okay. Youll get to respond to that. [ laughter ] Vice President biden has a lot of energy, and he travels quite a bit, and hes a serious politician, obviously, but i still believe that hillary will be the nominee, and as for martin omalley, a good guy, but he couldnt get his Lieutenant Governor elected governor of maryland maryland a democratic state, a republican wins the governorship. Thank you so much for caring and sharing. I think that, again, i mean the good side of it is that hillary can certainly say she has completely controlled the president ial news cycle for the last two weeks. I think it took her a little bit of time to figure out how she wanted to respond to this, but i thought when she did, she did a really good job of responding to it, and so, no, i dont think that its something thats gonna be longlingering. I do believe that there is a force, which ive said before, of women both on independent women, republican women, and Democratic Women who are saying this is time for a woman, and hillary is that woman. I agree. She had a good two weeks, and so did the Dallas Cowboys this week. Wow. Shes handled it horrifically, in my opinion. The a. P. , Associated Press has sued for all the emails that she conveniently forgot to save or put on. She can only handle so many devices. People, understand. There is i understand theres a movement. We want a female, we want a strong hillary is a strong pennsylvania possibility to win this primary, but i think its got long legs. I think this is far from over, and i think theres gonna be more clinton fatigue as a result of this. Im with you, jeff. I know. I feel strongly on this one. Thats all you want to say . No, because i talked about it earlier her emails and stuff. I think this is gonna be ongoing. How can you delete, all of a sudden, some and not the others . Please, come on. Cut me a break, you guys. Please. But the only relevance that it has to anything is benghazi which has been investigated and reviewed and reviewed and reviewed. Im not sure if i agree on the substance, its more the action and the fact that she said in another interview that i have an ipad, i have a mini ipad, i have a blackberry, and i have an iphone, and then she conveniently says, i cant carry two devices for my work email. Oh, please. You know whats interesting about this discussion . Trust i wanted to talk about joe biden, and you guys completely ignored him. I forgot jim, do you all agree that he doesnt have a chance . That in itself says something, doesnt it . Well, i guess hes not running. How about Deval Patrick . Ive seen i saw an article where they threw his name in there say, hey, you know what . Maybe. I mean, it makes sense for the democrats to have other candidate possibilities. I mean, hillary keep in mind that she has not said that shes running, so the idea that there are other names, there are other people, i think thats always gonna be a competition. And as for Deval Patrick, massachusetts governors havent done well. Well, youre right. Well be right back with our inside stories. Tradingin or selling your car truck or suv . Webuyanycar. Com takes the hassle out of selling in just 3 easy steps. One, get your free online valuation. Two, book an appointment. And three, pick up a check at your nearest buying center. Find out how much your car is worth at webuyanycar. Com 14 irresistible flavors. One for the mood. One for the moment. Each one can make every day more delicious than the last. The taste could only be baileys. The experience could only be yours. Baileys coffee creamers. This is the one. Announcer inside story is presented by temple university. Temple fuels students with academics and opportunities to take charge. Plugged into the city, powered by the world. Temple. Edu takecharge. Sharmain has our first inside story of the week. Thank you, matt. Its a pleasure to be here today because on friday, i was honored by a wonderful Organization Called the valley youth house, and they really work with young people who are coming out of foster care who need housing and need support, and this year theyve actually opened housing for young people who are lgbt, and so its really a wonderful organization, and i encourage everyone to support them. Congrats, sharmain. Thank you. Renee. Mines about womens history month, but really talking about the u. N. And how they really talked about women last week for Womens National day, and it was very not good. Because women are not looking good politically or in public office, and so we really have to fix that gap. How are we gonna do it . Lets start sponsoring some women, and men can do that also, and also be their mentors. Thanks, renee. Jim. Matt, this week well be celebrating st. Patricks day, and being married to an irish woman, every days st. Patricks day, but as were drinking beer and reveling lets remember that irelands a lot more than that great country, great culture and also a symbol of hope, ending sectarian violence after centuries through reconciliation and american leadership. Thanks, jim. Jeff. On the show, a lot of partnerships are going on. I want to salute nick miccarelli, state rep republican from Delaware County, and kevin boyle, democrat from philadelphia, running up a new caucus, the pennsylvania future caucus, to tackle issues that republicans, democrats can get together, let the young people teach the old people how to get along and make things happen. All right. Spring begins on friday, folks. You ready . Yes. Yes. Thats inside story for sunday. Well see you next week. Ill see you monday morning on action news, 4 30 a. M. , baby. Right. Action news starts in minutes s hold on to your hats were dealing with windy conditions, we could see 60s tomorrow. Thats next only action news. Better brownie. Papa johns. Good afternoon, it is sunday march 15. Heres some of the stories were following on action news. A man is fighting for his life after gunfire rings out in camden. A pick up truck slams into a Delaware County home while a couple is asleep inside. Were minutes away from the