Wrong Candidate, Right Time?

Wali "Diop" Rahman has plenty to say-if only anyone were listening.

email
font size
comments
0
share
options
 

Wrong Candidate, Right Time?

POSTED: Thursday, October 6, 2011, 1:05 PM

A day after hundreds of Philadelphians packed Arch Street United Methodist Church to plan the Occupy Philly rally that began this morning, mere fives of supporters straggled into the chapel at First Unitarian to hear independent Mayoral candidate Wali Rahman (a.k.a. Diop Olugbala) "debate" Republican nominee Karen Brown. Considering the political moment and the fact that Rahman's platform—redistributing wealth and "restoring the massive amount of resources being taken out of our community"—sounds a lot like the Occupy Philly slogans, he might have been expected to draw a somewhat larger crowd.

At first, even Brown didn't show up to the forum, organized by the Uhuru Solidarity Movement. Rahman debated himself (and a couple screaming toddlers) for a half-hour, outlining a proposal to siphon funds away from prisons and into urban farming. Brown finally strolled in at 7 p.m., introduced herself, then announced she only had a few minutes to spare and had not been informed that this was to be a candidates' forum. 

Brown, the openly anti-Republican Republican candidate, did seem to relish the chance to be the most composed candidate at the event—though she did get in a dig or two at the absent Mayor's expense. "If you watch the debate," she said, "you'll see that Mayor Michael Nutter is a much more polished politician than I will ever be—or would ever want to be."

Posted by Samantha Melamed @ 1:05 PM  Permalink | Post a comment
Comments  (0)


About this blog
Here at The Naked City, you'll find breaking news, analysis, gossip and surprises about everything from crime and politics to the beating pulse of city life itself. We're good listeners, too:

Daniel Denvir: daniel.denvir@citypaper.net

Ryan Briggs: ryan.briggs@citypaper.net

Samantha Melamed: samantha@citypaper.net

The Naked City on Twitter: @CPNakedCity @danieldenvir @rw_briggs @samanthamelamed

Topics:
Blog archives:
Past Archives: