Philadelphia Declaration: Local Election Updates – March 18, 2015
In our election coverage this week we’re bringing you some special heat in the form of the incendiary 7th District City Council race, where Maria Quiñones-Sanchez will be defending her seat in the same way she won it—without the support of the Democratic Party to which she belongs. Last month, Philly’s Democratic Ward leaders endorsed Manny Morales, a Frankford block captain and 62nd Ward committee member from Puerto Rico, to challenge the sitting Councilwoman, who was elected in 2007 and reelected in 2011 without her party’s endorsement. Though these electoral results speak to the fact that Quiñones-Sanchez is popular with her constituency, the city’s Ward leaders regard her as somewhat of a free-agent who cannot be relied upon to play ball along party lines.
State Rep. Leslie Acosta said of the Democrats’ throwing their weight behind Morales: “The current Council representation is not interested in working on solutions with the Democratic Party leadership in the district.”
When the endorsement was announced, Quiñones-Sanchez responded with little alarm, saying she will rely on grassroots efforts as she has in her previous campaigns. Now she and her supporters have put together a website featuring a trove of offensive, many outrageously so, posts by her opponent to his Facebook page. The picture painted by the archive is more that of an arch-Tea-Partier than a Northeastern Progressive, which is pointed out on the website itself.
Morales, who moved to the mainland from Puerto Rico in 2006, was expected to create a rift in the Latino voting community, concentrated in the 7th District and Quiñones-Sanchez’s strongest support bloc. But the list of the challenger’s political affinities as given by the website Whoismannymorales.com would seem to alienate just about every potential progressive voter. Here’s the posted litany, each attribute with a hypertext link which shows visitors multiple Facebook posts that demonstrate its claim in no uncertain terms: “Anti-Black, Pro-Gun, Anti-Obama, Pro-Voter ID, Anti-Choice, Pro-Stand Your Ground, Anti-Women, Pro-Drug Testing for Welfare Recipients, Anti-Poor, Pro-Corbett and Republicans, Anti-Gay,Pro-Ferguson Police and George Zimmerman, Anti-Immigrant, Pro-English Only, Anti-Israel, Pro-Ron Paul, Anti-Child Support, Pro-Close the Border.”
Although he would neither confirm nor deny his responsibility for the offensive content, the Democratic challenger posted this to his Facebook page yesterday:
“I have been told that people are spreading outrageous and desperate lies . . . Those that really know me knows that I have family members and friends that I love and care for that are of a different skin color than me. I have family members and friends that I care for that have love ones of the same sex. I was not born in a golden crib and I’m proud to be originally from Brooklyn New York Red Hook projects where my mother made me plenty of delicious grilled cheese from the block of welfare cheese she received to feed our family.”
State Rep. Angel Cruz, whose opponent was backed by Quiñones-Sanchez last election, a fact cited by party leaders as an example of the councilwoman’s unwillingness to work with her own party, told The Inquirer he did not believe the accusations.
“Nowadays everyone is hacked and people can do whatever,” Cruz said. Using openly available forensic software tools, and in consultation with a Drexel University computer science researcher, The Spirit can confirm with relative certainty the authenticity of the posts. As of Tuesday morning, Morales’s Facebook page had been taken down.
Whether the website or Facebook posts will have a direct bearing on the outcome of the race is impossible to determine, but it points to one fact clearly, and that is the dysfunction of the Philadelphia Democratic Party. In a city where the Democratic nomination is almost as good as being elected, the party is quite wary of protecting its brand and its position as institutional ‘king-maker,’ with often, as in this case, ironic results.
Though the Dems chose Morales to unseat Quiñones-Sanchez out of a preference for his loyalty to the party, the latter is the candidate with the clear Liberal record. The Councilwoman has supported non-party-endorsed candidates through her and her husband’s PAC, the Latino Empowerment Alliance of Delaware Valley, but has done so most often on behalf of the Latino community. Her work to improve the lives of her minority constituents through expanded social services and rehabilitation of vacant land in communities more frequently than not frames her as patently progressive. And thus, out of the same morality by which organized crime operates, the Democratic Party of Philadelphia has chosen as its 7th District Councilmember a man who cheered for Alabama’s rabidly anti-immigrant legislation and boosted Corbett for governor in 2010, over the minority female incumbent, who won her first election without their help with nearly 80% of the vote.
Stay tuned for more election coverage in The Spirit as the primary nears. The Declaration is an alternative news source for Philadelphia, seeking to highlight city politics, art, culture and activism.
