Street, Katz campaigns get heated

Politics has never been a clean sport. Since the dawn of the political party system, candidates and parties have tried every possible tactic to win an election, be it legal or illegal, ethical or unethical.

"If you can think of it, they have done it," Political Science Professor Henry Teune said.

Philadelphia, along with many major cities, is famous for all sorts of skullduggery in politics, including, but certainly not limited to, the casting of votes under the name of deceased persons, the stuffing of ballot boxes with fake absentee ballots and offers of liquor or cigarettes in exchange for a vote.

"It has almost become an art form," said former Congresswoman Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky, a lecturer at the Fels Institute of Government. "It's just that there is unfortunately [a feeling] in many campaigns that says 'if we can get away with it, we can use tactics that are unacceptable.'"

While the current mayoral campaign may not have reached unprecedented levels and neither campaign will point its fingers at the other for illegal activities, it has not been without its barbs and negative campaigning.

Earlier this year, the two primary candidates, current Democratic Mayor John Street and Republican challenger Sam Katz -- who also faced off against each other in 1999, when Street won by less than 2,000 votes -- bantered back and forth about the personal merits of the other's candidacy.

"Where has he been? What have you been doing? You've been in business? What businesses have you been running?" Street questioned of Katz's past at one point. "Have they been big businesses? Have they been little-bitty, teeny-weeny little businesses?"

In a later interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer, Katz replied, "The mayor knows where I've been for the last three-and-a-half years, because he called me on a regular basis for my help."

In addition, during a kick-off campaign speech, Katz attacked the "cronyism, the cynicism and the secrecy" of City Hall, vowing to change that if he were to be elected.

And as the Nov. 4 election approaches, there continues to be verbal hostility between the campaigns.

"We know that Sam Katz is not above manipulating the law for his own personal purposes," Street spokesman Mark Nevins said. "He is under federal investigation for embezzlement. That being said, I think that we expect Sam to adhere to the laws of fair and clean campaigning."

"In this campaign, when so much is at stake, when we're looking to restore momentum to the city, it is crucial that we focus on the issues," Katz spokesman Nathan Raab said.

However, neither campaign has accused the other of anything illicit in his campaign activities.

Being caught doing so can be devastating. Philadelphia politicians have been thrown in jail, and entire elections declared invalid due to their actions.

Yet, the payoff for successful tactics can be great. For instance, if a political ward leader can point to positive results in his or her ward, the result is often a rise in local party status.

"There's a pecking order within the party as to who can deliver the most votes," Teune said. "Votes are kind of the currency of party politics."

However, Teune said, in close elections, a campaign cannot as easily engage in illicit last-minute tactics -- as the candidate's opponents are likely to be monitoring the goings-on of the campaign. In these cases, Margolies-Mezvinsky said, other tactics are used, including push polling -- a phenomenon in which an individual, posing as a legitimate pollster, calls a potential voter and presents the voter with false information, according to the Web site of the Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices.

These polls, the site explains, often target a specific demographic and premise questions upon untrue statements portrayed as facts "primarily for the purpose of suppressing or changing the voting position of the call recipient."

The fake pollster "will call up and say, 'If you knew [a false statement about a candidate to be true] how would you feel about it?'" Margolies-Mezvinsky said. "They are not polling at all, but saying they're polling to thousands and thousands of people."

These polls can often sway public opinion about a candidate and can spread rumors that are devastating to a campaign.

However, Teune said, people often respond well to a positive campaign, and he believes that elections will only get cleaner in the future.

"Most students at Penn, and all voters in that generation, don't like this stuff at all," Teune said. "I think there will be big changes in a short time."

Despite this, Margolies-Mezvinsky said that negative advertisements resonate more strongly with voters, although most claim they are turned off by them.

"The negative campaigns always work," she said. Voters "believe you can't put things on the air that aren't true."

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