DA primary starts to heats up

Taking her re-election campaign on the road Wednesday night, Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham encouraged a group of young lawyers to consider joining the Public Defender's office. "Give me a call after May 15," the 10-year incumbent said, referring to primary election day. "I'll be a little busy until then." Abraham, who has never been seriously opposed in her three prior elections, is now facing mounting opposition from fellow Democrat and former City Commissioner Alexander Talmadge Jr. With only four weeks until the primary election, at stake is the office that dispenses criminal justice throughout the city with 628 lawyers at an annual cost of $29 million. More than 72,000 criminal cases are handled per year. But Abraham -- who spearheaded the passage of a statewide victims' rights bill and increased the prosecution of "quality-of-life crimes" -- is again considered the front-runner. "She's absolutely going to win re-election," Abraham campaign consultant Chris Dezzi said. "Lynne's running on her 10-year record of accomplishment and service to every citizen of Philadelphia." Despite Abraham's resume, Fels Center of Government Director Lawrence Sherman, a Penn criminology professor, said it is difficult to measure the effectiveness of the District Attorney's office. "We don't have anything analogous to [school] test scores to compare [the DA's office] to," Sherman said, citing a nationwide lack of objective analysis. Talmadge, who oversaw the city's election system as a commissioner, has never worked as a prosecutor, and, although he has worked part-time as a criminal defense lawyer, has never handled a homicide case. He maintains, however, that he is qualified to be the city's top prosecutor. "Some people look at experience for this job simply as how many hours you spend in a courtroom -- other people look at experience as a total life experience," Talmadge spokesman Ken Smukler said. "While Lynne Abraham has more experience in the courtroom, Alex Talmadge has greater experience in the community." "John Street was never an executive and now he's mayor of Philadelphia," Smukler added. Abraham's long list of backers include the AFL-CIO, Mayor John Street, former mayor and potential gubernatorial candidate Ed Rendell and possibly many of the city's 14,000 police officers, since Abraham is known for being tough on crime. The Fraternal Order of Police will not, however, endorse a candidate, at least for the primary, according to FOP spokesman Ken Snyder. Talmadge's supporters include state senators Shirley Kitchen and Vincent Hughes, as well as such groups as the Coalition of African-American Women. "The burden of proof is on Alex Talmadge to show why she should not be re-elected, and so far he has not done a very good job of that," veteran Democratic political consultant Neil Oxman said. "With the [primary] election only four weeks away, unless he steps up his campaign... he's going to lose by a good margin." Talmadge, an African American, has been attempting to raise the race issue against Abraham. Since March, Talmadge's campaign has been running radio ads on African-American radio stations comparing Abraham to Eugene "Bull" Connor, the infamous racist sheriff of Birmingham, Ala., and Mark Fuhrman, the detective in the O.J. Simpson trial who was accused of planting evidence. "I think that there has been a pattern of racial insensitivity and indeed discrimination from the DA's office," Smukler said. The issues of race arose from the DA office's handling of a recent fight at George Washington High School and Abraham's 1997 decision to block the nomination of what would have been the city's first African-American woman to sit on the federal bench. "There's no doubt that Lynne Abraham is not as popular in the black community as she was five years ago, but she's not Bull Connor," Oxman said. As for Talmadge's ads, he said, "[Talmadge] has run stupid ads that say stupid things that have backlashed." As the ads continue to run, many have criticized their appropriateness and effectiveness. "Playing the race card may get him the nomination, but it might be a nomination that's not worth much in the general election," Penn Political Science Department Chairman Jack Nagel said. "Successful black candidates in Philadelphia politics, such as [former Mayor Wilson] Goode and Street, have to have strong support from both black and white voters." Support for the death penalty also divides the candidates -- Abraham is a staunch supporter of it, while Talmadge's campaign team says that banning it will be among his first priorities. Whoever wins the primary from the Democratic side will likely face off with Republican lawyer Joseph Bongiovanni III. "It's about time for a change," Philadelphia Republican Committee chairman Vito Canuso said. "We're very confident."