Former Mayor John Street Considering Independent Candidacy in Philadelphia

The polls had barely closed last night when former Philadelphia mayor John F. Street told the local Fox affiliate that he’s seriously considering challenging Mayor Michael Nutter as an independent candidate in the autumn mayoral election.

Nutter easily defeated T. Milton Street, John Street’s older and arguably more colorful brother, in yesterday’s Democratic primary, garnering nearly 76 percent of the vote and carrying every ward in the city.

“I am not prepared to make an announcement at this particular time, but nothing that happened in the election today at all is discouraging when it comes to the possibility of an independent running for mayor,” Street defiantly told Fox29.

Long regarded as Nutter’s biggest nemesis, the former two-term mayor said that Philadelphians need another choice this fall.

“I think it would be useful to have a third voice,” he said.

Street, 67, questioned Nutter’s ability to run the country’s fifth-largest city during the current economic crisis.

“He’s a nice guy, people like him,” said Street. “But the question is, is he tough enough in these difficult times?”

Until recently Street, who served as mayor from 1999-2007 after spending nineteen years on the Philadelphia city council, chaired the five-member board of the troubled Philadelphia Housing Authority, an agency recently taken over by HUD after federal auditors questioned the city agency’s use of $127 million in federal stimulus funds and cited the agency for overpaying for shoddy work.

If the former mayor decides to enter the race as an independent, he would undoubtedly be the strongest independent or third-party candidate to run for mayor in the City of Brotherly Love since 1975 when attorney Charles W. Bowser — one of Philadelphia’s most respected civic leaders and the city’s first African-American Deputy Mayor — garnered 134,334 votes on the Philadelphia Party ticket while trying to unseat the late Frank L. Rizzo.

Bowser, who died last summer of complications from Alzheimer’s, finished second in that race, ahead of the Republican nominee.

John Street doesn’t believe in finishing second to anybody, especially when it comes to his longtime foe, Mayor Nutter.