According to Young Philly Politics, Seth Williams (above, in full neck fat glory) holds a 22 percentage point lead over the other candidates in the race for District Attorney. As it stands, he polled at 37% of the vote with the next two challengers, Dan McElhatton and Dan McCaffery, at 15% and 13% respectively. In case you missed it, this has been one of the most exciting races in Illadel recently, complete with Seth getting kicked off the ballot in March by Dan McCaffery in a mind-blowingly slimy distillation of old school Philadelphia politics. It was an incredible ruling by a judge who supposedly has ties to McCaffrey (whose "issues" page is a full 7 sentences long) which was overturned not too much later. I love that McCaffery really may have given Seth a boost because it put his name out there more, and most stories and editorials were sympathetic to him. It reminds me of the FBI and Street back in 2003 with the bugging of his office, except that Seth is a good guy, and the charges were bogus.
I worked on Seth's campaign this winter and met him last spring when we were both volunteering on the Obama campaign, and he struck me as a genuine person, which is rare among politicians. He is a really easy-going guy in person and is one of the few politicians I have faith in. It may have to do with the fact that he has never had to get elected for his office before, I don't know, hopefully he doesn't morph into sleazy politician.
The D.A. is probably the second most important job in city government, and with crime and the murder rate as they stand, serious changes need to be made. I know that Seth's plan for community-based prosecutions will make the system more efficient, but we need changes in our society and systems to actually fix the problems, not just prosecute people. I don't want to get carried away on this point, maybe I'll do a more in depth post on it in the future, but 25% of people in Philadelphia are living below the poverty line and it is no coincidence that the poorest places are the ones with the most violence.
The primary is on May 19th DON'T FORGET TO VOTE, this city is seriously fucked up and needs some changes.
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