Karen Heller: The primary that pulsates

Just when we thought the primary of 2010 was going to be the Big Snooze, requiring copious amounts of Red Bull to stay awake, the circus pulls into town.

State rep accuses bisexual challenger of being straight! Also, rich! Specter/Sestak senatorial slugfest heats up! Internecine warfare between state and city political committees - Republicans, mind you - involves the dead and homeless! Homeless Republicans!

Honestly, it doesn't get much better than this.

It's a beautiful day in the gayborhood when I talk to Gregg Kravitz, the latest candidate in a long line to challenge veteran State Rep. Babette Josephs but the only one accused of passing for bisexual.

Indeed, the claim may be a first in national politics where many legislators have seen their careers deep-sixed for being gay, appearing gay, having a scintilla of a notion of seeming to appear gay, or simply adopting a wide stance in a men's bathroom at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport.

"I outed him as a straight person," Josephs said at a recent fund-raiser, "and now he goes around telling people, quote, 'I swing both ways.' " She added, "He already has tried to lie to people about a whole bunch of stuff, including his sexuality."

So, I asked Kravitz, sheepishly - I mean, how do you ask questions like this? - "Are you now, or have you ever been, a straight person?"

No, the 29-year-old assured me, "that is categorically untrue. I am a bisexual man. I am attracted to men and women."

Kravitz and campaign manager Jared Klein said Josephs also raised the issue at a March meeting with the gay and lesbian Liberty City Democratic Club when the candidate appeared with his girlfriend.

"Maybe," said Kravitz, shaking his head, "she doesn't understand the meaning of bisexual."

"I considered her a friend," Kravitz said. "I'm not sure that's how friends talk about each other."

The nerve of Babette, first elected to the state House in 1984 and consistently its most liberal member, to incriminate somebody as being straight.

Josephs accused Kravitz of being "a trust-fund baby, he has as much money as he needs," and said "he's never had a job."

Which is so unfair.

To rich people.

Rich people are Americans, too. Many of them live right in Center City's 182d District. What is Rittenhouse Square if not a quadrilateral of wealth? Not only do rich people vote, but they also give money to candidates like . . . Babette Josephs. Babette, these are your people!

Many politicians have also, it turns out, been rich people: Roosevelts, Kennedys, Rockefellers, Michael Bloomberg, most of the U.S. Congress.

Why, you might argue, if more rich people were in Harrisburg, pols wouldn't vote themselves juicy raises in the middle of the night as Josephs and others did on July 7, 2005.

Trust fund? "I wish it were true," said Kravitz, who denies being rich. He's held jobs as a trader, political consultant, and real estate agent. Most state House challengers have a hard time getting noticed by voters in their district. Thanks to Josephs, Kravitz has received national attention after being smeared as a closet hetero.

Democrats aren't the only people battling on the lesser issues that face voters today. In a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans 6-1, and two-thirds of all GOP committee seats are currently vacant, the city and state Republican organizations are hell-bent on total annihilation. And they're rocking it Philly old-style, using the dead and - perhaps a first in recent memory for the Republicans - the homeless.

City GOPers challenged state-backed committee candidates using the names of one dead woman and a guy who doesn't live in the district (picky, picky). Two homeless men were put up as candidates, though so far no one can find them, which works against success in politics. Just ask Gov. Mark Sanford. The challenges, more than 30 and signed by GOP city committee boss for life Michael Meehan, crumbled in court.

None of which is surprising, except for the Republican part. No, the real shocker is that Meehan criticized ward leaders. "It's just unbelievable that they did this. I am disappointed, because I put my faith in some people and I was let down," which you would never hear from a real boss of a vital organization, like Democrat big Bob Brady.

Meehan got his job the old-fashioned way; that is, he inherited it from his father who inherited it from his father, and may be Exhibit A in the argument against inherited wealth, political or otherwise. The Republican City Committee is a trust fund packed with Parking Authority patronage jobs and political juice, which translates into legal contracts and other benes but not much actual campaigning. Challenging the city challenges, state GOP operative Al Schmidt traveled to a cemetery, a homeless shelter, and a burned-out building, "glamorous life's work."

In the U.S. Senate race, political mood ring Arlen Specter launched an attack ad against rival Joe Sestak, claimed he was "relieved of duty in the Navy for creating a poor command climate." The ad, as The Inquirer's Dick Polman notes, "slimes Sestak's 30-year military career in a mere six seconds." Sestak turned around and accused Specter of "Swift Boat" tactics.

I'm shocked, shocked to find negative campaigning going on here.

Less than four weeks to go, folks, and this party's only getting started.