Clout: Pol's plan leaves bad taste in its Wake

FOR A NARROW alley in Northern Liberties, Bodine Street is packed with political intrigue.

Finnigan's Wake, the politically connected bar and catering hall run by Democratic committeeman Mike Driscoll, sits at the intersection of Bodine and the 200 block of Spring Garden Street.

Driscoll has big plans for both streets, and City Council was happy to help make them happen.

Mayor Nutter? Not so much.

Nutter on Tuesday vetoed legislation to let Driscoll build decks over the Spring Garden Street sidewalk and put tables and landscaping on Bodine Street

City Council on Thursday unanimously overrode Nutter's veto.

Councilman Mark Squilla, who sponsored the legislation, said that the veto override was more about Nutter meddling in his district than it was Driscoll's project. He promised to work with neighbors who oppose the project.

Matt Ruben, president of the Northern Liberties Neighbors Association, said that Squilla should focus on those concerns, not Nutter's violation of the so-called councilmanic prerogative.

Driscoll is excited that a new neighbor, the Democratic City Committee's new headquarters, will soon open just across Bodine Street. For now, he is working to finance for the project.

Neighbors were outraged in July when they learned that the Penn Treaty Special Services District, funded by the nearby SugarHouse Casino, was giving Driscoll a $74,000 grant to help pay for his Bodine Street plans. Driscoll withdrew that request for funding.

"It did hurt," Driscoll said of losing the grant. "Absolutely."

U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr. is hitting his Republican opponent, former coal-company owner Tom Smith, with a new campaign commercial designed to shake up older voters. The ad shows video of Smith bragging about starting a tea-party group in Armstrong County, where he lives.

"But is Tom Smith your cup of tea?" a narrator asks. "He wants to privatize Social Security and end Medicare as we know it, making seniors pay $6,000 more, all while giving even more tax breaks to the wealthy."

Jim Conroy, Smith's campaign manager, called those claims "right out of the Democratic playbook, and inaccurate."

Smith, in a plan that he released last week, favors letting younger workers invest some of their Social Security contributions in personal investment accounts.

His plan on Medicare is similar to the budget proposal pushed by U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, of Wisconsin, now the Republican nominee for vice president. Smith wants future Medicare users to get a government subsidy to shop for their own health care, paying their own money if it doesn't cover costs.

Casey seems concerned that Smith, who spent $5 million of his own money to win the primary election and gave his campaign an additional $1.5 million since then, shows no signs of closing his wallet. He is using the new ad to seek campaign contributions.

Federal Communications Commission records show that Casey is spending $241,779 to run the ads until Tuesday on five television stations in Pittsburgh, four in Harrisburg and one in Lancaster.

Armstrong County is in the Pittsburgh television market.

Smith last month ran broadcast ads in Philadelphia, hitting Casey for his "failed record" on unemployment and the economy.

Jim Cramer, the CNBC "Mad Money" host and Wyndmoor native, has a hot tip: Don't bother learning about the state's new law requiring voters to show identification at polling places.

Just tweet a complaint instead.

Cramer tweeted Tuesday morning that his dad, "a vet, won't be allowed to vote in Pa. because he does not drive, he is elderly and can't prove his citizenship."

Someone at PennDOT read the tweet and solved the problem in just a couple of hours.

Cramer later explained via Twitter that he tweeted his original complaint because he "had no idea" how to help his dad.

PennDOT spokesman Steve Chizmar said that the agency uses social media, "so when anomalies such as this come to our attention we can quickly respond."

The state Supreme Court heard a challenge to the law Thursday. It is still unclear how many eligible voters in the state don't have the identification needed to vote. If it is just 1 percent of eligible voters, that would be 89,000 people.

They should direct their tweets to @PennDOTNews.

- Staff writer Jan Ransom contributed to this report.