Not Biden His Time

by Mary F. Patel

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Published: Nov 21, 2006

U .S. Sen. Joe Biden seemed to be in full campaign mode at a fundraising stop in town last week. Not content with being a part of the new majority, once again, he's setting his sights higher. He wants to compete against Hillary Clinton for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.

On the Sunday after the election, on ABC's This Week, Biden said he was making his exploratory committee official. Last Tuesday, Biden stood in the well-appointed drawing room of the Rittenhouse Square townhouse of host and financier Richard Vague and gave a strong speech about the nation's problems and the challenges facing the next president.

About a hundred or so supporters — including some locally prominent Republicans who wished to remain anonymous — showed up at the $1,000-a-person event, billed as a fundraiser for Biden's re-election bid to the Senate. Biden will most likely become chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when Democrats take control in January.

A recent poll conducted by Strategic Vision on Pennsylvania voters' preferences for a Democratic nominee showed Biden at only 1 percent along with U.S. Sens. Christopher Dodd (Conn.) and Evan Bayh (Ind.) and Govs. Ed Rendell, Bill Richardson (N.M.) and Tom Vilsack (Iowa).

Sen. Clinton ( N.Y.) led with 30 percent followed by Al Gore at 18 percent, Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) with 17 percent, John Edwards with 8 percent and John Kerry with 4 percent.

Supreme Beings

Word is that Rendell will appoint Common Pleas Trial Division Administrative Judge James Fitzgerald to fill the vacancy on the state Supreme Court next year created by the early retirement of state Supreme Court Justice Sandra Schultz Newman.

Judge Fitzgerald is well-known in social circles. His wife, Carol, is the executive director of the Pennsylvania Society and their daughter, Melissa, portrayed the character Carol on NBC's The West Wing. Melissa spent all day pitching the Democrats on a bus tour with Rendell, Bob Casey, Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama the weekend before the general election.

There will be two openings on the Supreme Court ballot next year: Newman's and Russell Nigro's, who lost last year's retention vote. Superior Court Judge Seamus McCaffery is interested in becoming a Supreme Court justice and Bob Brady said he would support him.

Payton Play

Tony Payton will be sworn to the 179th District House seat representing Olney, Feltonville, Frankford and Hunting Park on Jan. 2 and he has already outlined an agenda for his first term. Payton, a Democrat, will succeed ghost voter state Rep. Bill Reiger, who did not run for re-election.

Payton, a housing counselor at United Communities, is passionate about education. Once in office, Payton wants to establish a statewide youth coalition to help legislators find ways to improve the quality of education in failing public schools.

"I want to model this initiative like what was done in the South Bronx," said Payton. "The successful Bronx borough concept, similar to Chicago, Milwaukee and San Diego, is the small-school concept with smaller classes in a specialized environment focusing on vocations where students had an interest." He also wants to create a coalition made up of one student from each state House district.

But, the most interesting thing about him is how he came into office. He decided to run for Reiger's seat after he called ward leader-endorsed primary candidate Emilio Vazquez with an offer of help and thought Vazquez was an empty suit. "He had no real agenda," said Payton, "no solutions to the problems in the district."

With no support from any of the wards in the district except two, Payton went door-to-door to reach voters. While Vazquez was challenging his petitions, Payton hired lawyer George Bochetto to challenge Vazquez. The court ruled that Vazquez be removed from the ballot because Vazquez failed to report his income at the Philadelphia Parking Authority. (Vazquez's lawyers did manage to knock off two other primary challengers, Rodnell Griffin and Walter Gnoza.)

Although Vazquez was officially off the ballot, his supporters launched an impressive write-in campaign. Fifty-two voters in the 23rd Ward wrote his name in the committee person slot instead of the one for state representative (some of those also voted for Payton for state rep).

Common Pleas Court Judge C. Darnell Jones gave those votes to Vazquez since he thought they meant to vote for Vazquez as state representative.

Payton appealed and the Commonwealth Court overruled Jones and tossed out the 52 votes, handing the primary to Payton. Then Vazquez appealed to the state Supreme Court and lost. Payton won the general election against GOP opponent Troy Bouie.

(rcpatel@aol.com)

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