Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

Elmer Smith: Political dynamo Carol Campbell dies

THERE WAS NO neutral zone around Carol Ann Campbell. She'd make you take a side. But her passing yesterday after an extended illness may have drawn the one reaction that her allies and adversaries could all agree on: "She'll be missed," they all said.

THERE WAS NO neutral zone around Carol Ann Campbell. She'd make you take a side.

But her passing yesterday after an extended illness may have drawn the one reaction that her allies and adversaries could all agree on: "She'll be missed," they all said.

Those who found themselves on the wrong side of her wrath will miss the constant tension of having to defend against her relentless attacks. But if Carol Campbell had your back, you never had to look over your shoulder. If she said she was with you, you could rest on her word.

They rested on her word in that part of West Philly where I grew up. She was the prototype of the old-time ward boss, a title passed down from her father, the late Edgar Campbell. Whether you were trying to get a seat on Common Pleas Court or a job on the back of a trash truck, their house on North 59th Street was a good place to start.

She could do more to help her friends or confound her enemies with a well-placed call than most people could do with a staff of loyal lackeys.

"That was the main problem for her in her sickness," U.S. Rep. Bob Brady told me last night. "She had a tracheotomy tube in her throat and she couldn't use that phone. She could get more done with a phone in her hand than anybody I ever saw. She never needed a phone book. She had everybody's number in her head."

Brady, as chairman of the city's Democratic Party, never ran a slate without consulting her. She was a ward leader, a leader of the Democratic City Committee and a member of the Democratic National Committee.

"We talked every day," he told me. "She would fight with me. But she wouldn't let you say anything about me. She fought to make sure our ticket had parity. She was one of the reasons we were able to put so many women and minorities on the bench."

I could attest to that. I spoke at a Bench-Bar conference in Atlantic City a few months ago before the most-diverse crowd of judges I've ever seen. The panel discussion touched on the subject of merit selection. But the diversity of our Common Pleas and Municipal courts was a testament to our political system, albeit an imperfect one.

Far from perfect, the system that she and politicians like her ran probably brought us as much mediocrity as merit. It's a system that rewards people whose only merit is loyalty and punishes some whose only flaw is failure to toe the party line. But she didn't invent the system, she just used it better than most politicians. I'll miss her calls and the fact that she always returned my calls whether we agreed or not. Our last conversation was in March, not long before her lung problems sidelined her.

Former President Bill Clinton had come to town to urge the Democratic City Committee to back his wife in the primary. As a superdelegate appointed by the national party, Campbell was expected to cast her convention vote for the party's endorsed candidate.

But she told me she was going to cast her vote for Barack Obama no matter what the party did.

"I'm a Democrat through and through," she told me later. "But I wasn't born a Democrat. I was born black.

"If I didn't help this young man, I think my father would spin in his grave."

We laughed about it. I told her she had better hope it didn't come to that. "Everybody knows I'm crazy as hell," she said. "I don't always do what I'm told."

She'll be missed.

Kendall Wilson will be missed, too. Kendall, who died this week, was a friend and colleague who covered some of the biggest stories in the city's history over a career that spanned more than 30 years. He was one of those reliable reporters whose relentless digging helped make the Philadelphia Tribune one of this city's great news organizations. His obituary is on Page 54. *

Send e-mail to smithel@phillynews. com or call 215-854-2512. For recent columns: http://go.philly.com/smith