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Peacemaking in the age of Twitter and Facebook

A CLOUT PAL was bored last week and asked, via Facebook, if anyone wanted to engage in a Twitter war. Also bored, we obliged and then took turns trading public potshots via Twitter until that bored us into a truce. And that’s about as nice as we thought it gets out there in the social network, until we heard about City Councilman Jim Kenney’s meeting with “the Moleman.”

A CLOUT PAL was bored last week and asked, via Facebook, if anyone wanted to engage in a Twitter war. Also bored, we obliged and then took turns trading public potshots via Twitter until that bored us into a truce.

And that's about as nice as we thought it gets out there in the social network, until we heard about City Councilman Jim Kenney's meeting with "the Moleman."

The Daily News told you last week about Kenney (@JimFKenney) engaging in a profane back-and-forth with a city employee who calls himself the Moleman (@conzmoleman). Moleman thought he was slighting Chatterblast, a firm Kenney pays $28,000 per year to help him tweet.

Instead, the 20-something had angered Kenney, 53, who offered to settle the matter in the old-fashioned face-to-face method.

We are happy to report that Kenney and Moleman shared a few beers at Center City's Misconduct Tavern on Sunday while watching the Flyers beat the New Jersey Devils in Game 1 of the NHL's Eastern Conference semifinals. The location had sentimental value because that's where Kenney was watching the Flyers beat the Pittsburgh Penguins when he first made Moleman's Twitter acquaintance.

"He's a nice kid," Kenney said of the Moleman, who had feared the dustup might imperil his employment. "He tried to buy a round. I said: 'Put your money in your pocket. You work for the city. You haven't had a new contract in four years.' "

Jane Roh, spokeswoman for Council President Darrell Clarke, was on hand to observe and document via Twitter the peacemaking at Misconduct.

A prolific twitterer, Roh (@Jane_Roh) this week used the 6-year-old social-networking service to ponder "if Philly press corps prefers we tweet only press releases & motivational clichés."

That came in response to Mayor Nutter's apology on Tuesday for his spokesman, Mark McDonald, who had appeared to question in a tweet (@phillypresssec) the ethics of Daily News columnist Ronnie Polaneczky in her writing about the Philadelphia Parking Authority.

Let Kenney and the Moleman be the lesson learned here: Don't tweet anything about someone if you wouldn't say it to his or her face.

Oh's second tow

City Councilman David Oh must have felt a sense of déjà vu Monday when he heard that the Philadelphia Parking Authority had towed his city-owned car from his City Hall parking spot. Again.

"I thought: Oh, they do a fair job of towing cars," Oh recalled.

The councilman's Chevy Impala was towed in January from his reserved spot by the Municipal Services Building, even though his parking placard could be seen through the window.

This time, Oh admits he is not "blameless" because he forgot to display his placard. He said the Parking Authority told him the employee who usually works that area was off. A replacement spotted his car and called it in.

Oh said his car was immediately returned. "No hard feelings," he said. "It's just someone trying to do a good job."

Pa. a "swing state?"

A Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday shows President Obama opening up a lead in Pennsylvania on former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, the expected GOP nominee for president. Obama leads Romney 47-39 percent, up from 45-42 percent in a March 28 poll.

The poll measured Obama and Romney in three "swing states," Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio. Romney is doing much better vs. Obama in Florida and Ohio.

In Pennsylvania, women favor Obama 52-35 percent while men favor Romney 44-41 percent. Half of the 1,169 Pennsylvania voters polled from April 25 to May 1 said Obama is doing a good job and deserves a second term.

This brings up a question we asked last year: If Pa. hasn't gone for a GOP presidential candidate in nearly a quarter-century (George H.W. Bush won in 1988) and the state's Democrats have a 1.1 million voter-registration edge, are we still a swing state?

We'll know after Nov. 6. n

Staff writer Jan Ransom contributed to this report.

Contact Chris Brennan at 215-854-5973 or email him at brennac@phillynews.com. Follow him on Twitter @ChrisBrennanDN and read his blog, PhillyClout.com.