Mayor Nutter looks back at his first four years

Four years ago, Michael Nutter was a former maverick City Councilman who had bested the political establishment to become the surprise winner of the mayoral race.

He promised to make Philadelphia safer, smarter, more prosperous, and less corrupt - goals he says he has achieved, to one degree or another.

"We did those four things and a bunch more," Nutter said recently. "We never lost focus from the things we talked about in the campaign."

No doubt crime is down and school test scores have risen. The city has weathered a disastrous economy better than most, and his administration has avoided any hint of impropriety.

But there remains an apathy toward Nutter among some voters – nearly a quarter of the Democratic primary ballots were cast for an opponent who recently had been released from federal prison - and former Council colleagues who have thwarted some of his biggest policy initiatives.

Despite that, Nutter did not attract a serious challenger this year from either party. Barring the apocalypse, he is expected to win reelection Tuesday without having to defend or tout his record through the rigors of a traditional political campaign.

He faces Republican challenger Karen Brown and independent candidate Wali "Diop" Rahman.

In a recent interview, Nutter nonetheless talked about a first term consumed by the economic collapse he inherited, admitting some blunders and calling some criticisms the results of false impressions.

On his sometimes rocky rapport with Council members he worked with for 16 years: "When you have no money, you have to make tough decisions, and you have to say no to your friends. No one likes their friends saying no."

On Milton Street, the primary opponent and federal tax convict who claimed to represent the "have-nots," a message that resonated loudly in black neighborhoods devastated by unemployment:

"There's a lot of angst and anxiety out there. If you can tap into that . . . and rabble-rouse around that, some people will pay attention."

The mayor was most animated when discussing guns and crime - and the allegation that the "stop-and-frisk" police tactic to target illegal firearms had degenerated into racial profiling.

He opened a binder and began rattling off homicide rates for African American men in major U.S. cities, concluding: "It seems to me the only profiling going on is the excessive numbers of black men who are killed each year . . . by other black men."