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Gore stumps for Street; GOP challenger rides Truman train

By MICHAEL RUBINKAM
The A*ociated Press
11/2/2003, 5:16 p.m. ET

PHILADELPHIA (AP) In a day fraught with symbolism, former Vice President Al Gore toured the city with Democratic incumbent John Street, and Republican challenger Sam Katz made like Harry Truman on a whistlestop tour on Truman's actual campaign train.


The Street campaign has been trying to insert national politics into the election, saying that a Katz victory would help President Bush's re-election chances, and used Sunday's visit by Gore to reinforce the point.

Katz, meanwhile, tried to use Truman's 1948 victory over Thomas Dewey as inspiration for his own candidacy, recalling the famously incorrect Chicago Tribune headline that proclaimed "Dewey Defeats Truman."

"You know what happened? The people spoke. And Dewey didn't win," Katz, speaking from the back of an antique train car, told a small but enthusiastic crowd Sunday afternoon. "We have a surprise for John Street. And the surprise is he's only got two more days."

Although Katz, a businessman making his third run for the job, has been flagging in pre-election polls, he predicted that his get-out-the-vote operation would make the difference on Election Day.

He also promised to unify a city fractured by race. Philadelphia is almost evenly divided between whites and blacks, and both groups tend to vote along racial lines. Katz is white; Street is black.

"I intend to be the mayor of everybody in Philadelphia, for everybody in Philadelphia," Katz said.

But Gore, appearing at an Italian-American social club in northwest Philadelphia, warned Democrats who may be on the fence to think hard about their vote.

"I want you to think about the larger context of this election ... it has national implications," Gore, who trounced Bush in the city three years ago, told a largely white audience. "Make certain that the White House does not succeed in taking over Philadelphia."

Gore said the FBI bug found in Street's office last month fits a pattern of Republicans meddling in elections, citing the 2000 presidential race, which was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, and the recall election in California, which was bankrolled by a wealthy Republican congressman.

Federal agents have said their investigation of the Street administration, which became public with the Oct. 7 discovery of the bug, has nothing to do with the election. But polls show that many voters, particularly blacks, believe otherwise, and Street's popularity has surged.

Street did his part Sunday to nationalize the election, criticizing the Bush administration's handling of the war in Iraq and accusing the president of cutting popular social programs.

The mayor said that Katz, who has sought to distance himself from the national Republican Party, would quickly change his tune if he won the election. Democrats outnumber Republicans more than 4-to-1 in Philadelphia, and Katz needs significant crossover support to have a shot at winning.

"His first mission would be to get George Bush elected," Street said.