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Man versus Machine: David Oh beats back Dougherty and the political establishment.
David Oh's race was man versus machine.
Man versus Machine: David Oh beats back Dougherty and the political establishment.
After maintaining his lead over candidate Al Taubenberger during the counting of absentee and other non-machine votes, Republican David Oh saw victory today in his bid for one the the two At-Large City Council seats reserved for minority parties.
Oh's win also marked a loss by union boss and political rainmaker John "Johnny Doc" Dougherty, who spent an unknown — but clearly very large — sum of money to defeat Oh, who ran without the backing of the city's political machine. (In 2007, Oh ran against party pick Jack Kelly, narrowly losing to him).
Dougherty paid for radio and tv ads, robocalls, and what must have been hundreds if not thousands of anti-Oh fliers, mostly playing up Oh's supposed mis-characterization of his military career.
Oh took heat from the Daily News and a small group of veterans (organized by a veteran with a personal grudge against Oh) over having referred to himself as "Green Beret," and a "Special Forces Officer." It turns out that he was assigned a green beret and designated a Special Forces officer. Oh, in fact, enjoyed the continued support of several well-established Philadelphia veterans groups.
But for all the negative campaigning, he positive campaign for candidate Joe McColgan — Dougherty's pick for the seat — failed to win enough votes even to put McColgan in third place, leaving Oh neck to neck with Taubenberger, and ultimately winning.
Just observing the small group of Oh supporters that turned out at the vote today was telling: Oh's campaign faithful are a diverse hodgepodge of people — whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, immigrants, veterans, young people — that bears little resemblance to the groups of political elite you often see hanging around candidates for these positions. Like him or not, Oh's campaign was indisputably that of an outsider to the political establishment — no wonder that establishment tried to take him down.
Not to say it's been such a bad week for Dougherty and the machine, such as it is: On Monday, the Inquirer reported that Councilman Darrell Clarke seems to have corralled enough of his colleagues votes to become City Council president — largely thanks to votes from candidates supported by Dougherty and with the blessing of former mayor (and Nutter foe) John Street.
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