Half Empty: Perception of Nutter trumps performance

As long as Mayor Nutter plays nice trying to do something, even if it amounts to nothing, there's not a thing politically for him to worry about. No one can topple the art of affable nothing that is our mayor's strongest something.

So deal with it - he is going to win reelection in a walk. He is going be our mayor for 51/2 more years. Despite the incredible anomaly that Nutter, as an African American, has a stronger base with the white community than the black one. Despite the fact that his performance ratings are lackluster.

That is the distinct message of a poll I have been privy to, one that is extremely significant because the sample includes only likely Democratic voters in the 2011 mayoral primary. In other words, a political poll. It was done about six weeks ago by a reputable firm. The number of those polled was roughly 400, and the margin of error about 5 percent.

It is legitimate. And bizarre. And depressing. And simply amazing in that Nutter has far better favorability in the white community (74 percent) than he does in the black community (51 percent). That certainly was not the case with the city's two previous black mayors - W. Wilson Goode and John F. Street. In what some analysts like to describe as the post-racial era of American politics, Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty, who is biracial, and black Mayor Cory Booker of Newark, N.J., also have a substantial base of support.

But how entrenched are the feelings of the black community in Philadelphia?

If Nutter were challenged today by U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, 44 percent of the black vote would go to Brady and only 39 percent to Nutter, the poll showed.

Overall, the Democratic electorate is hardly in love with Nutter. Only 38 percent of those polled say they will definitely vote to reelect him. It isn't a terrible number, particularly at a time when incumbents are generally loathed. But it isn't a great one. What is more revealing is what it says about Nutter's base - more white than black, with the most fervent backing coming from college graduates. In other words, the live-liberal-or-die crowd you find shopping at the local food co-op in their Birkenstocks or going to the Phillies game and asking the vendor if the pretzels are organic.

Those polled gave him a 66 percent approval rating for snow removal (the poll does not say how many were on mind-altering substances when sampled) and a 63 percent approval rating in his handling of crime.

In areas where issue-oriented questions were asked - economic development, city spending, taxes, the city budget, labor issues, and jobs - his approval rating fell below 50 percent. It was particularly abysmal in the area of taxes (35 percent), the city budget (36 percent), and jobs (39 percent).

Nor did Nutter do particularly well in the area of race relations: 50 percent said they would be less likely to vote for him because of School Superintendent Arlene Ackerman's handling of the violence against Asian Americans at South Philadelphia High.

With the highest approval ratings in terms of performance coming for snow removal (nothing like getting out the old shovel for the TV cameras, Mr. Mayor), the poll numbers do not fit the profile of a reformist mayor or a mayor of particular accomplishment. But this is what makes him impregnable: 81 percent think he stands up for what he believes; 76 percent think he is honest and trustworthy; and 69 percent think he is delivering for the city. Overall, 63 percent view him favorably.

The numbers reveal an iron-curtain contradiction between performance and perception. The poll also powerfully confirms that we as a city are still very much in the ABS aftershock - Anyone But Street. So we don't want dynamic and reformist government even if we say we do. We just want someone nice, and no one is more outwardly nice than the mayor. He is a George Winston album, a wave machine in a city where everyone else is frothing at the mouth over something or vomiting on someone or setting fire to the face of someone over some mindless dispute.

The mayor politically should just keep humming along. In case of emergency, he should keep a bucket by his side at all times, because who knows, maybe it will rain hard this summer and local TV news can show him furiously pumping out water.

Incumbents are impossible to beat in Philadelphia. But none of the possible challengers is as nice as Nutter anyway. Except maybe Brady, who won't run for mayor, particularly as he has been taking intensive courses on the written difference between "It's a done deal I'll take care of it too" and "Its a done deal I'll take care of its to."

Since the mayor doesn't have to worry about reelection, spending inordinate time campaigning and raising money would be an immoral waste. Instead, he should focus on what the poll shows are the two biggest priorities among the electorate - the economy and job creation.

As for his standing in the black community, he must and should be troubled, if not embarrassed. It is the racial segment of the city that has to have hope in something and someone if the cycle of poverty and lack of education and lack of job skills in too many African American neighborhoods is ever to reverse.

It is an enormous challenge, maybe an impossible one given the shame of our history. But when a black mayor is more popular among whites than he is among people of his own color, even the do-good college-educated liberals should be concerned as they go to the latest BYOB and talk about wind turbines in between discreet sips of suitably priced chardonnay.