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Bob Brady, Philadelphia mayoral candidate holds a press conference in the convention center. Order of events: 1) Louise Bishop (red) praises the lord 2) Jonathan Saidel (thin) introduces Bob Brady 3) Bob Brady (plump) speaks Credit: Mike Ellis

When you've got a problem in Philadelphia, who you gonna call?

Why, Bob Brady, of course.

This mayoral candidate has made a career out of bringing people together and ending disputes between competing groups, first as the local Democratic Party chairman and then as the congressman representing Pennsylvania's first congressional district.

Brady plays politics the old way and sees them as an essentially personal endeavor based on loyalty and paying one's dues to the party.

"Loyalty matters, people matter, relationships between people matter," explained Stephen Gale, a Penn Political Science professor who has co-taught a graduate-level organizational dynamics course with Brady for more than 12 years.

It's this focus on personal loyalty rather than party ideology that allows Brady to hew out tough compromises from groups that seem to have irreconcilable differences.

And Brady has a proven track record of doing just that.

"When Philadelphia faced transit strikes and a teacher walkout, Congressman Bob Brady was called to settle the disputes," a typical Brady ad says, echoing a statement Brady made at his campaign announcement when he called himself "a leader with the strength and experience to bring people together."

But questions have been raised over the possibility of Brady making the jump from long-time party boss and congressman to chief executive of one of America's largest cities.

Though Brady himself has never been personally implicated in any of the various city-corruption scandals, close friends and associates have.

Gale described this as the downside of his tendency to place so much trust in people who have been loyal to him because it leads him to turn "a blind eye" to corruption he doesn't think he can do anything about.

Fellow mayoral candidates Tom Knox and Dwight Evans have also charged Brady with incompetence, trying to knock him off the ballot last month for alleged omissions in the financial-disclosure forms he turned in when officially declaring his candidacy.

Knox implied in a press conference after the hearing that Brady wasn't qualified to run because he didn't know how to fill out his financial-disclosure forms and seemed not to understand his personal finances.

There's also the problem of his education - Brady doesn't have a college degree and was a carpenter before entering politics.

This makes it difficult for him to appeal to more educated voters, like those that can be found at Penn.

Still, Brady does command great respect among lower middle class Philadelphians who live in rowhomes similar to the one Brady grew up in.

Brady started off slow in the election, but it's this appeal that has given him a steady rise in the polls, from 8 percent after he announced his candidacy to 16 percent and third place in the latest Daily News-Keystone poll.

He likely hopes that the "Ghostbuster" mentality will be just enough to ride that momentum to a win come May 15.

Brady declined to interview for this article.

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