Tom Knox

A tall man with makeup on his face picked his way across the shop floor at the American Cable Co., stopping to shake hands, asking the assembly workers what they were doing with lengths of copper wire and plastic casings colored red, yellow and green. Behind him trailed a makeup artist with potions and a box of Kleenex; three aides; a producer; a direct-mail consultant; a pair of still photographers - and Glen Pearcy with a video camera. One of the retinue said something, and Democratic mayoral candidate Tom Knox shed his jacket and rolled up his sleeves.

In his barrage of TV ads, Tom Knox is the rebel, the outsider promising to upend City Hall's cozy world of no-bid contracts and favors for political friends. "Instead of hiring cronies, I'll hire more cops," Knox says in one commercial. "Instead of no-bid contracts, I'll put the money into making our schools safer. " That barrage is a central reason that polls indicate Knox is leading the May 15 Democratic primary race for mayor of Philadelphia. To an extent, Knox is indeed the outsider in the five-way race, a businessman pitted against four Democrats with decades of tilling in the party's vineyards and a combined 74 years in public office.

The two men who showed up at the Tom Knox campaign office in the Northeast yesterday didn't seem out of place, what with their "Tom Knox for Philadelphia" T-shirts and all. But it was larceny, not elections, that they had on their minds. The pair followed a campaign worker carrying a cash bag to a back room at the office on Frankford Avenue near Cottman Avenue and stole the bag at gunpoint before running off, police said. The bag contained $350, said Josh Morrow, Knox's campaign manager.

Tom Knox, the millionaire businessman who finished second to Michael Nutter in the Democratic mayoral primary in 2007, will chair a task force to look at current and alternative uses for about 2,000 city-owned buildings. Nutter signed an executive order Wednesday creating the panel. Its 13 members will be appointed by the mayor, with members to be drawn from universities, the Bar Association, the Building Owners and Managers Association, the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, City Council, and commercial real estate brokers.

A "527" committee has surfaced in the Philadelphia mayor's race, and its goal is to torpedo front-runner Tom Knox. A former city commissioner, Democrat Alex Z. Talmadge Jr., is the public face of a stealth political committee called Economic Justice Coalition for Truth. Talmadge, who ran for district attorney in 2001, is listed as the so-called 527 committee's executive director in papers filed April 4 with the IRS. The documents say the group's purpose is "exploring the issues of economic justice as they relate to the business practices of Tom Knox, a man who now seeks the office of mayor.

Tom Knox's opponents took their bashing campaign into the streets yesterday. U.S. Rep. Bob Brady ripped Democratic mayoral rival Knox for having owned a health insurance firm that once told its subscribers to seek permission before visiting an emergency room. Brady was just 44 seconds into a news conference about Philadelphia's emergency medical services when he changed the subject. "I was outraged by Tom Knox putting the bottom line ahead of helping people," Brady said as he stood in front of the Engine 43 firehouse on Market Street.

The air-war portion of the 2007 Philadelphia mayoral campaign is set to begin this week, as businessman Tom Knox spends nearly $700,000 introducing himself to city voters. Knox's campaign is rolling out a Christmas-season television advertising blitz that touts the candidate's rise from public housing to business-world triumph. "Tom Knox knows hard work," the voice-over says as pictures scroll of a young Knox, who grew up in the Abbotsford public housing complex. The ad notes that he dropped out of school to join the Navy at age 16, sending "his pay home to help his mother feed his brothers.

PHILLYCLOUT confession time: We were a bit doubtful that Sam Katz would really run a fourth campaign for mayor, this time as a Democrat, when we first wrote about it in May. We figured Katz enjoyed that people were asking him to consider it. And it couldn't hurt that the buzz was coming just as Katz was looking for funding to complete a documentary series on the history of Philadelphia. But now we think there could be much more to this, in part because Katz may be reaching out to the very people who helped former Mayor John Street defeat him in their 2003 rematch.

THAT'S ALL, FOLKS. With the news yesterday that millionaire Tom Knox would not run for the city's top office, the 2011 mayor's race officially ground to a halt. Mayor Nutter now has no major challengers and appears all but guaranteed to coast to victory in November. After months of toying with a second run for mayor, Knox - who placed second to Nutter in 2007 - yesterday threw his support to Nutter instead. He made the announcement at a morning news conference, alongside former Gov. Ed Rendell, who also endorsed the mayor.

With just over two weeks remaining until the Philadelphia mayoral primary, the city's Board of Ethics is taking notice of the Swift boats circling the campaign. J. Shane Creamer Jr., the interim chief of the ethics board, said yesterday that he planned to conduct an "initial inquiry" into the activity of several so-called 527 political organizations to make sure they are truly independent of the candidates. "I want to know more about these 527s," Creamer said. The 527s, which take their name from the section of the IRS code that governs them, were made famous by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which in 2004 challenged Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's Vietnam War record.

BY 8:01 p.m., a minute after the polls close on Tuesday, Nov. 8, Mayor Nutter will be projected as the winner of the general mayoral election, entitling him to another four-year term in City Hall. For the people of Philadelphia, that should be very disappointing. Not the result, the process. Like the former heavyweight champion Joe Louis, who repeatedly won by fighting a "bum of the month," Nutter coasted to re-election by defeating a convicted felon, Milton Street, in last May's primary and now, in the general election, is doing the same with an unknown, last minute Democrat-turned Republican, the inexperienced Karen Brown.

AT "OCCUPY" encampments here and around the globe, many in the bottom "99 percent" are portraying the top "1 percent" as the scum of the earth. Some call it class warfare; others call it crass envy. How do the members of the "1 percent" feel? I asked three - Renee Amoore, Tom Knox and George Bochetto - each a local, unapologetic, self-made millionaire. They believe they already pay their "fair share" in federal taxes. "I don't only pay the 35 percent," says Center City lawyer Bochetto, who was raised in an orphanage.

Any Philadelphia landlord with 2,000 properties in his inventory these days has to have at least a few clunkers that should be put on the market - whether because they're partially vacant, in poor repair, or no longer meet tenants' needs. But which properties should go, and which ones are keepers? That pretty much describes the dilemma faced by Mayor Nutter, who is official caretaker of hundreds of city-owned and -leased facilities. Not only does the city have more than its share of buildings in need of an extreme makeover (including some Police Department outposts)

Tom Knox, the millionaire businessman who finished second to Michael Nutter in the Democratic mayoral primary in 2007, will chair a task force to look at current and alternative uses for about 2,000 city-owned buildings. Nutter signed an executive order Wednesday creating the panel. Its 13 members will be appointed by the mayor, with members to be drawn from universities, the Bar Association, the Building Owners and Managers Association, the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, City Council, and commercial real estate brokers.

1933 'double eagle' case The federal government rightfully seized a set of never-circulated 1933 gold coins from a Philadelphia woman who said she found them in her late father's bank-deposit box, a jury found yesterday. The verdict capped the civil case that turned on whether the $20 "double eagles" ever legally left the U.S. Mint. Prosecutors argued that the coins never circulated when the country went off the gold standard - and were therefore stolen, with help from the woman's father, jeweler Israel Switt.

Tom Knox changed his voter registration Monday back to Democrat from independent, again saying he won't challenge Mayor Nutter in November's general election. The wealthy businessman, who came in second to Nutter in the 2007 Democratic mayoral primary, had switched to independent before last month's primary election. The reason, he said then, was to position himself to challenge T. Milton Street Sr., Nutter's only rival, in case Street won. That did not happen, so Knox announced Monday that he was keeping his word, and he reiterated his support - pledged in February - for Nutter.

FOR MAYOR NUTTER, the road to re-election this year may be a two-way Street. Former Mayor John F. Street visited the Philadelphia City Commission yesterday to switch his voter registration from Democrat to independent. His brother, T. Milton Street Sr., is challenging Nutter in the May 17 Democratic primary. To run for mayor as an independent in the Nov. 8 general election, a Democrat must "disaffiliate" from his political party by the deadline to register to vote in the primary election.

SHOCKING NEWS from the city's political scene - the mayoral campaign of T. Milton Street seems to be in a bit of disarray. It's been eight days since Street stood in the bed of a rented pickup truck in West Philly to declare his run in the May 17 Democratic primary election, using cell-phone texting and social media like Facebook and Twitter for his campaign rather than big political contributions. How's that working out? The only Facebook page we found describes Street as a "hot dog vendor and entrepreneur and a former politician" and brother of former Mayor John Street . We were pretty sure the page is not authentic.

THAT'S ALL, FOLKS. With the news yesterday that millionaire Tom Knox would not run for the city's top office, the 2011 mayor's race officially ground to a halt. Mayor Nutter now has no major challengers and appears all but guaranteed to coast to victory in November. After months of toying with a second run for mayor, Knox - who placed second to Nutter in 2007 - yesterday threw his support to Nutter instead. He made the announcement at a morning news conference, alongside former Gov. Ed Rendell, who also endorsed the mayor.