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Obama's buy-in to Philly machine

Remember during the Democratic presidential primary when the Obama campaign strived to keep its distance from Philadelphia's political machinery? In practical terms, that meant this: There was no "street money" to be had - and plenty of buzz about it.

Remember during the Democratic presidential primary when the Obama campaign strived to keep its distance from Philadelphia's political machinery?

In practical terms, that meant this: There was no "street money" to be had - and plenty of buzz about it.

Well, here's one sign that change is in the air.

Though tickets were free for Saturday's performance by Bruce Springsteen, Democratic ward leaders and elected city officials got an even better deal.

They didn't have to bother with the cumbersome task of clicking online and printing tickets. And they didn't need to volunteer four hours for the Obama campaign to get standing-room-only access near Springsteen during the concert.

Instead, the city's political establishment received six tickets each from the Democratic City Committee.

For the math-conscious among us, that's about 414 tickets for the 69 ward leaders and about 360 tickets for the 60 or so elected officials from Philadelphia.

Those special red tickets were also supposed to guarantee the political class something else: a seat.

With Election Day still four weeks away, perhaps other goodies will emerge.

- Marcia Gelbart

Springsteen: Take 2

Fear and loathing were overtaking the city Board of Elections on Friday in advance of Saturday's Bruce Springsteen-Barack Obama benefit because it could have meant thousands of out-of-towners registering as voters at the last minute.

That translates to applications the board has to separate and send to New Jersey, Delaware County, or wherever the person registering lives, gumming up the registering of Philadelphians.

The board processed nearly 86,000 voter registrations in September, said Tim Dowling, elections document specialist.

Today is the last day to submit registrations. Dowling expects a flood.

- Jeff Shields

Retirement switch

Nine months ago, when the Dow wasn't in the gutter and this notion of a second Great Depression was still just a gleam in Ben Bernanke's eye, the city of Philadelphia made a routine decision to switch its retirement account management firms. Until then, Great West Retirement Services was tasked with administering city workers' 457 plans, which are optional accounts akin to 401(k)s that some workers use to supplement the city pension plan.

City workers stand to get a better deal from the new firm, ICMA-RC, which won't charge two fees that the old administrators levied.

The only problem was ICMA-RC was slated to take over management of the accounts last month. As in, Black September. As in Fannie. And Freddie. And AIG and so on.

During the transition city employees were briefly locked out of their portfolios. Anyone who tried to bail on the plunging market was unable to do so.

"This was just a giant, unfortunate coincidence that we changed administrators when the market tanked," said a city spokeswoman.

No kidding.

The city says full account access has been restored.

- Patrick Kerkstra